Draft:Paul Pierce (Theatre)

Paul Rodgers Pierce is an American theatrical director, producer, actor, playwright, historic preservationist and non-profit arts consultant. For thirty-five years he was the producing artistic director of the State Theatre of Georgia, the Springer Opera House, one of America's National Historic Landmark cultural treasures. Besides his artistic successes, he is known for his audience-building and fundraising acumen which fueled several capital campaigns and major construction projects. Pierce is also a playwright and a developer of new works for the stage. As a consultant, he advises and trains non-profit boards and staff in fundraising, capital campaigns, construction projects, crisis management, audience building, strategic planning, program development, visioning and dynamic operations.

Early Life

Paul Rodgers Pierce, Jr. is the eldest of six children in a family of working class entrepreneurs in Rome, Georgia. From an early age, he worked in the family's grocery store, gas station, short-order grill, laundromat, taxi service, janitorial service and drive-in movie theatre. He delivered groceries by bicycle in the little mill village called "Anchor Rome" and had a newspaper route, as well. In high school, he began doing factory work at Fox Manufacturing Co, maker of finished wood furniture. It was there that he became an accomplished wood-worker and developed the skills that provided him with future jobs building houses, working in lumber yards and, later, in theatrical scene shops. Always on the lookout for job opportunities, he even took work moving graves for a local funeral home.

Neither of Pierce's parents were college graduates but his mother, Joann Hannon Pierce, was a self-taught artist, pianist, writer and music lover. She was a verbose eccentric who encouraged her children to be outspoken and non-conformist, much to the chagrin of her husband, Paul Pierce, Sr, a charming raconteur who was nonetheless a high-functioning alcoholic, prone to late-night violence. Needless to say, the future dramatist had a colorful upbringing full of strange and fascinating characters whom he would eventually absorb into his theatre work as an actor, director and playwright.

Camp Mikell

Pierce attended St. Peters Episcopal Church in Rome, served as an acolyte and participated in the Episcopal Young Churchmen (EYC) as a teen. At St. Peters, he met a newly-ordained priest named James K. Yeary who introduced him to the church camp for the diocese, Camp Mikell, in Toccoa, GA. Yeary convinced Pierce to become a volunteer councilor at the camp when he was 15 and to get involved in the wider youth movements of the Episcopal Church. At Camp Mikell, Pierce encountered clergy, lay people and youth who illuminated his then-limited world view. This was the late 1960s and early 1970s when the church was challenged with a wide range of social, cultural, popular, racial, philosophical, political, intellectual and theological ideas.

The remote Appalachian hills of northeast Georgia was a sort of laboratory for these movements to be explored. It was here that Pierce met many of the people who became lifelong friends and artistic collaborators. He started playing guitar and singing here.

Camp Mikell had a structure in which each camp session was led by a different minister (called a dean) and the session's themes and learning activities were created by that leader and his or her team. Each new session was vastly different from the last and Pierce experienced a broad swath of intellectual, political and theological thought from the very conservative to the very liberal.

As a counselor, Pierce's job was to support and enhance the vision of each dean. He was soon hired to the professional staff and Camp Mikell became his summer job for eight years. There is a tiny theatre stage at Camp Mikell where Pierce created countless comedy acts, music concerts, variety shows, dance presentations and psychedelic light shows. Books, music, debate, nature and conservation were woven into the fabric of every Camp Mikell day. Service to the world, kindness and intellectual curiosity became Pierce's life habits here in this mountain retreat. One older priest, the Rev. Gordon Mann, once told Pierce, "the most important job of a Christian is to preserve the dignity of every person they meet." That stuck with Pierce and he carried it with him throughout his life and career.

Education

East Rome High School did not have a drama program of any kind. However, Pierce had an English teacher, Monte Sue Howell, in Ninth and Twelfth grades who ignited in him a passion for great literature, recitation and writing. Howell once tore apart a copy of Steinbeck's THE PEARL and had small workgroups transform those chapters into a play script which the class read. It was his first experience writing dialogue. Latin and Spanish classes spurred an enduring love of languages. He was on the wrestling, track and cross country teams and enjoyed the individual challenge of those sports for all four years. He was voted "Wittiest" his senior year and appeared in numerous skits, student talent shows and pranks.

In 1971, Pierce began his higher education studies at the newly-opened Floyd Junior College (later renamed Georgia Highlands College) in Rome. Unshackled from the strictures of the public high school environment, he was inspired by the young, energetic professors of History, Art and Psychology he found there and discovered for the first time the true joy of learning and the satisfaction of academic rigor. For two years, he lived the small-town, junior college life and rented a ramshackle house with his lifelong friend, musician and restauranteur John Schroder, while continuing to work the night shift at Fox Manufacturing Company.

He transferred to the University of Georgia in Athens but did not declare a major right away. He was a curious young man with no particular ideas about a career. By chance, a girl in a math class invited him to attend a play in the UGA Theatre Department with her in which her roommate was performing. It was a children's theatre production of Remus Tales. While the show had very rudimentary production values, Paul was enthralled by the characterizations, humor, lighting and costumes. It was at this moment in the darkness of that tiny studio theatre that he thought, "I could do this." He declared himself a drama major the next day.

Not having come from any of the prestigious Georgia high school Governor's Honors drama programs or Thespian troupes like his classmates, Paul was a babe in the woods, learning about theatre from the ground up. His first year at Georgia, he took classes in theatre history, voice and movement, costume construction and scenic design. He didn't yet know enough to audition but he got a paid assistantship in the department's scene shop where he could demonstrate the one skill he excelled in - carpentry. Before the year was out, he was eventually cast in a graduate thesis project production of Susan Yankowitz's avant-garde drama, Terminal, and an undergraduate directing project, Herb Gardner's A Thousand Clowns.

Pierce did not have family financial help for college so he had to work to pay his rent for the little trailer he shared with a former high school friend, musician Michael Garrard, as well as for his tuition, food, books and fees. Having spent his whole young life working, it had not occurred to him that it would be hard to find a job in Athens. But there were thousands of other working class students at the University of Georgia who needed jobs, too, and the competition was fierce. After mowing grass and doing maintenance at the trailer park for the landlord, he eventually got a job at a waste disposal plant on the graveyard shift. A short gig doing roofing work for Athens Academy led to a janitorial job there and ultimately a bus driving job, which he kept all three years in Athens.

But the University of Georgia proved to be just the experience Paul needed. Besides formal instruction by talented professors in acting, directing, playwriting, play analysis, costume design, scenic design, lighting design and theatre history, he received major performing opportunities with lead roles in Robert Edwin Lee's Inherit the Wind, Lanford Wilson's The Rimers of Eldrich, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, Moliere's Tartuffe, Eugene O'Neill's The Long Voyage Home, Murray Schisgal's LUV and Christopher Marlow's Doctor Faustus. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama and Theatre.

Theatre Career

An audition at a Southeastern Theatre Conference "cattle call", held in Norfolk Virginia in 1977, resulted in callbacks from numerous summer stock, outdoor dramas, children's theatres and touring companies. A callback audition for the Repertory Theatre of America yielded not only Paul's first paid theatre job - a ten-month national tour - but a lifelong friendship with the theatre's respected founding director, Drexel H. Riley. On that first tour, Pierce did some 200 performances in 31 states with productions of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Harnick and Bock's The Diary of Adam and Eve and Neil Simon's The Star Spangled Girl.

In rehearsal, Riley recognized Pierce's maturity and appointed him company manager which made him the overall authority on the road and netted him an extra $5 a week. On that tour, Pierce not only saw much of the country but was challenged to adapt to an ever-changing array of performance environments while navigating severe weather conditions and public relations challenges. As company manager, Pierce had a weekly phone meeting with Riley during which he shared the status of the tour, company morale and learned about all of the veteran producer's business concerns. With this initial professional experience, Pierce was learning the ropes of producing and business management which provided the grounding of his entire career.

With the Repertory Theatre of America tour ending in the spring of 1978, Pierce went on to work for various stock, children's theatres, dinner theatre and touring companies around the country until, in 1980, Drexel Riley invited him to return to RTA for another national tour, this time for more money and more responsibility. While on the road, Paul authored a presenter's handbook that contained tips on space preparation, marketing, sales and logistics. Riley had it published and distributed to all of the theatres, arts councils and presenting groups the company performed for. This improved the relationships between RTA and its customers and resulted in more bookings and more revenue.

At the end of this second tour, Riley offered Pierce the job of booking manager. This was his first year-round job in the theatre and involved marketing, public relations and direct sales. He settled down in the charming little Texas Gulf Coast arts village, Rockport, where RTA had its booking offices and production facilities. He was now sharing his work days with one of America's most skilled theatre producers. Riley coached Pierce on every aspect of running the operation and began to rely on him for decision-making and planning. In 1981, Riley appointed Pierce associate director. He was now preparing and managing three national touring units a year - each with three or four productions in repertory - for ten month tours - and booking as many as 600 performances a year. His first directing assignment at RTA was Noel Coward's Private Lives, of which he mounted three productions. For the next four years, Pierce directed, produced, booked, designed scenery and helped select each season's repertories - 28 national touring shows, in all.

Harbor Playhouse

After each touring unit departed in September, Pierce became a nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday theatre worker- something he had never experienced. After several years of this life, he decided to drive 30 miles up the Texas Coastal Bend to the seaside city of Corpus Christi to audition at local theatres there. He quickly got cast in two shows at the modern theatre overlooking Corpus Christi Bay, the Harbor Playhouse. The first show was Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution and the second was Lawrence Roman's Broadway comedy, Under the Yum-Yum Tree. During those productions, Pierce became aquatinted with numerous board members and staff and in the fall of 1984, the board decided to make changes in the company's leadership and offered Paul the position of producing artistic director. He resigned at RTA and became the CEO and artistic director of a high-profile theatre in a wealthy city of 400,000. He restaffed most to the theatre and added both a studio theatre series and a children's theatre series to the program. He offered a mix of commercial favorites, classical literature and new works. Among others, Pierce produced G.B. Shaw's Saint Joan, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Sam Shepard's True West, Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man and Preston Jones' The Oldest Living Graduate.

When Pierce became director of Harbor Playhouse, the theatre had a massive amount of unsecured debt and the 1972-era theatre was showing wear with a backlog of deferred maintenance problems. He persuaded the owner of the fast-food company, Whataburger, to pay off the theatre's debt, renovate the public areas of the theatre and purchase lighting and sound equipment for both of the performance spaces. Harbor Playhouse was also where Pierce met his talented wife, Dona, a costume designer and ultimately his most essential artistic partner and confidante.

Wayside Theatre

In 1987, Pierce moved his family to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to become managing director of the venerable Wayside Theatre in Middletown. While he was only at this popular Equity stock company for a year, he learned a lot and, along with Julliard-trained artistic director Christopher Owens, renovated the theatre's interior and exterior, built up the audience and donor base and created a regional touring company. Owens and his talented wife, actor Tamara Johnson, also became good friends and longtime artistic collaborators. Owens went on to become producing artistic director of the Virginia Shakespeare Festival.

Springer Opera House

In 1988, an opportunity to return to Georgia presented itself when the job of producing artistic director of the Springer Opera House in Columbus opened up. Pierce applied, was interviewed and hired. Founded in 1871, the Springer has hosted stage greats like Edwin Booth, James O'Neill, Ethel Barrymore, Oscar Wilde, Lily Langtry, Ma Rainey, Agnes deMille and countless others. It was spared from the urban renewal wrecking ball and partially restored in 1965, bringing the grand old theatre back to life. With an Italianate architectural exterior, the Edwardian interior was designed by famous Broadway theatre architect J.B. McElfatrick. When Pierce arrived, two thirds of the three story building was still in ruins and, despite some hopeful hints of an eventual downtown renaissance, the Springer audience had diminished to fewer than 10,000 admissions a year, possessed a dwindling subscriber base, had no annual donors or corporate sponsors - and was broke.

It had been several years since the theatre had had a full-time, year-round director and, in the interim, a small group of volunteers were keeping shows on the stages with scant financial, human or material resources.

Pierce announced two major priorities: One: To professionalize the operation and Two: Lay the groundwork for a multi-million dollar capital campaign and historic preservation project. He recognized the importance of first building audiences and generating production revenue. Feeling strongly that audiences follow excellence, the Springer launched a strategic plan to increase the quality of every aspect of the customer experience. While personally directing almost all of the mainstage shows at first, he simultaneously used his experience in fundraising and grant writing to generate the fresh cash that would allow new investments in the program and staff. Gradually, the shows were professionalized, new staff hired and community relationships built. By 1996, attendance had tripled to 30,000 a year. But there was still a problem: The Springer audience was still principally white and over fifty and Pierce felt like he was running out of new ideas.

The Springer Theatre Academy

It was at this point that Pierce offered an old University of Georgia classmate, Ron Anderson, a job. Anderson was the director of First Stage Theatre Academy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin which had a philosophy of teaching "Life Skills Through Stage Skills," combining theatre training with character and leadership development. It was a big program with 900 students and Pierce asked Anderson to come to the Springer and establish a similar program in Columbus. Pierce and Anderson committed to having young people and young families coming and going constantly in the theatre and to build a youthful cadre to energize the Springer's mission and atmosphere. They did just that - and more. Anderson and Pierce agreed that if there were children's roles in any mainstage, studio or children's theatre shows, they would be played exclusively by students of the Springer Theatre Academy. Once that was established, it created loyalty, parental involvement and promoted Academy enrollment. Anderson also created an arts-in-education program, ArtServe, that bussed school children in for daytime matinees. This not only generated fresh revenue with 15,000 new admissions a year, it diversified the Springer audience and ultimately influenced diversity in all of the theatre's programs, board and staff. Today, the Springer Theatre Academy has over 1,000 registrations a year.

Renovation and New Construction

Once the Springer gained recognition for high-quality productions and innovative children's programs, it was time for its board to devise a plan for the future. Inspired by a sizable death bequest from one of the theatre's most loyal patrons, the Springer quickly joined with the boards of eight other arts organizations in 1996 to launch a joint capital campaign called "The Columbus Challenge" which ultimately raised $120 million for nine arts organizations, providing the Springer with the funds to do a complete foundation-to-roof $12 million renovation and historic preservation of the theatre. In 1998, world-renowned historic preservation interior designer Reneau de Beauchamp and interior restoration specialists, Conrad Schmidt Studios, were hired to lead the effort. In addition to the historic preservation work, modern lighting, sound and stage rigging were installed and studio classrooms for the Springer Theatre Academy were built. The Springer also converted half of the third floor of the building into guest artist apartments that would allow the theatre to import more professional actors, designers, choreographers, teachers and musicians. The newly renovated theatre was unveiled in January of 1999 with Arthur Miller's The Crucible, featuring many of the Springer Theatre Academy's top students alongside top adult industry professionals.

Over the years, Pierce led the Springer Opera House to new artistic and operational heights, building an audience of 112,000 admissions a year, establishing a national touring company and a film institute. Today, the Springer staff has grown to a staff of twenty-seven in addition to over 100 contracted actors, technicians, dancers, musicians, teachers and choreographers.

In 2014, after another $12 million capital campaign, the Springer built the McClure Theatre - affectionally called "The Dot" - a 300-seat flexible-space black box theatre, a new prop shop and six new studio classrooms for the Springer Theatre Academy. This project added another 35,000 square feet of operating space to the theatre.

Consulting

Pierce is a certified Technology of Participation (ToP) facilitator and trainer, having led non-profit boards, staffs and teams in project development, strategic planning, board development, audience building, fundraising, visioning, capital campaigns and institutional transformation. Technology of Participation (ToP) is a powerful collection of structured facilitation methods that transform the way groups think, talk and work together. They enable highly energized, inclusive and meaningful group collaboration that lead to successful outcomes. ToP Methods support genuine participation, which leads to long term commitment and quality outcomes, as well as more effective teamwork. ToP methods recognize and honor contributions from all group members, identify commonalities and pool contributions into useful patterns - all while welcoming diversity and minimizing conflict. Pierce employs his humor and skills as an entertainer to maximize collaborative results.

Playwriting

Mother of Rain, based on Karen Spears Zacharias' Weatherford Award-winning novel California Dreaming Why, Baby, Why? Kudzu Once Upon a Single Bound In the Mood Red, White and Murder Murder by the Book Stage Door Cabaret The Great American Vaudeville Show Breakfast at Tiffany's, adapted from Truman Capote novella

Retirement

In 2023, Paul Pierce retired after 35 years as producing artistic director of the Springer and 47 years in professional theatre. He still serves the Springer Opera House as senior advisor and devotes his attention to writing, fundraising and consulting.

Personal Life

Paul Pierce is married to theatrical costume designer, properties designer and gardener, Dona H. Pierce. Living in Columbus, Georgia, they have two children and five grandchildren.

He is an avid collector of American art pottery including antique Roseville and works by contemporary art potter William Wilhelmi.

Awards and Acknowledgements

In 1998, the Columbus Kiwanis Club named Pierce "Citizen of the Year" of Columbus, Georgia

In 2013, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal presented Paul Pierce with the Governor's Award for the Arts in recognition of his years of service to the cultural life of Georgia.

In 2013, Georgia Trend Magazine named Pierce one of Georgia's 100 Most Influential Citizens.

In 2017, the Georgia Theatre Conference presented Pierce its "Lifetime Achievement Award."

In 2018, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring Paul Pierce for his 30 years of service to the American theatre.

In 2023, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp presented Paul Pierce with a proclamation honoring him for his 35 years of leadership of the State Theatre of Georgia.

Born: Paul Rodgers Pierce, Jr.

January 19, 1953

Anniston, Alabama

Occupation: Theatrical director, producer, playwright, consultant

Education: University of Georgia

Wife: Dona H. Pierce

Children: Zach Helke & Jessica Helke

Grandchildren: Zoe Helke-Pierce, Theo Hinton, Matthew Robles, Zarius McGill & Cadence Hawk