DALLAS OBSERVER • KALEIDOSCOPE 19 Pull Back the Curtains Kitchen Dog’s new theater space in the Design District is more than a venue. It’s a school for teaching empathy. BY PATRICK WILLIAMS AND JULIANNA CHEN I n 2015, the people behind one of Dallas’ oldest live stage ensembles, Kitchen Dog Theater, decided to put down roots. The company had held residence at the art space The McKinney Avenue Contempo- rary for 20 years, but when The MAC relocated, Kitchen Dog was without a home of its own. So it bought one: a 10,000-square-foot warehouse in the northern Design District. By 2020, the nonprofit had paid off the loan for purchase and was making fundrais- ing and renovation plans to add a black box theater, a studio theater and rehearsal hall. Then came COVID, which closed down live perfor- mances for months. Inflation was next, raising both the cost of renovation and the price for leasing performance spaces. Finally, there was the shift in our habits during post-pandemic hangover, leaving people less inclined to venture out for live entertainment, prompting countless articles and reports about the troubles regional theater companies were having luring audiences back to shows and winning over new subscribers. That has led to layoffs and closing at nonprofit regional the- aters nationwide, according to a report in Medium. The end of COVID-era federal grants intended to support theater in 2024 left regional theaters cutting costs with shorter runs of shows, simpler sets and smaller casts to survive. In the face of all that, KDT carried on — any local arts group that can survive 34 seasons is going to be hard to stop — and is now getting ready to unveil its new theater in August. It couldn’t come at a better time. As you might have no- ticed, Americans seem to be at one another’s throats these days, with people on either side in politics and culture quick to fault the other and slow to try to understand their opponents. Live theater, suggests Tina Parker, co-artistic director and company manager, helps people build the ability to under- stand and share the feelings of others. “Theater creates empathy, man, and that’s, like, what we need in the world today,” Parker says. “…It’s good to sit in a room and have a communal experience with other people, whether it’s at the theater show at Kitchen Dog or rock show at the Longhorn [Ballroom] or whatever, but that sense of community … we need it.” To offer these lessons in empathy, live theater performers need donors, audiences in the seats, and a place to play. The- ater companies without their own spaces are dependent on leasing other venues, and that’s gotten prohibitively expen- sive. Scheduling is difficult too, as companies need space to rehearse and the ability to have plays run long enough to draw audiences and recoup the expense of staging them. As an- other performance space, KDT’s new theater could help other arts groups, dance troupes and musicians by providing an- other place to perform, Parker says. She knows how tough staging live performances can be without a permanent space. “It’s hard to build momentum when you’re always on the move,” she says. KDT spent the last two seasons on the road, playing at places as varied as the Roughriders baseball field, a CrossFit gym and a record store. Last season was successful, she says, but she’s looking forward to giving up the peripatetic life. Packing and moving shop continually to stage another show is tiring. “You know it’s bad when the dude at the U-Haul knows who you are,” Parker says. Having its own space will also allow KDT to continue to of- fer new works and staged readings that are edgier, entertain- ing, moving and challenging. Containing costs and allowing for longer runs of plays will also help the company maintain its program of reserving a few free or low-cost tickets to ensure that the live theater experience is accessible to everyone. “Kitchen Dog wants to … shine light on what’s going on in the world around us and raise questions,” as Parker says — and to do it in a way streaming videos alone at home cannot repli- cate. “Challenging” plays might seem a risky bet in a time when self-examination, critical thinking and empathy are so far out of fashion, but challenging convention is part of KDT’s mission statement to “provide a place where questions of justice, mo- rality and human freedom can be explored. We choose plays that challenge our moral and social consciences, invite our au- diences to be provoked, challenged and amazed.” Sharing the experience of watching live actors perform works exploring all the facets of being human is key to the ef- fect live theater can have on making the world a little more un- derstanding. “The only way to understand other people is to be in the room with other people … and to see plays from other per- spectives, and that’s what we present at Kitchen Dog,” Parker says. “It does kind of make us look at what is the norm [and] how can I widen my perspective? How can I ask questions of what’s going on around me? How can I be empathetic to my fellow man?” KDT is staging Wakey, Wakey at Expo Park, 840 Exposition Ave., through Feb. 23. Written by Will Eno and directed by Christopher Carlos and Elizabeth Sankarsingh in Wakey, Wakey. Jordan Fraker
