Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company struggles with transition after SU eliminates salaries

In theater companies, the drama offstage frequently is as captivating as that onstage. The Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company finds itself in such a spotlight.

For 28 years the community theater company has presented African-American productions in Central New York. Now it struggles to chart its future, raise funds for salaries and productions and activate a plan for a new executive director. At the same time, its complicated relationship with Syracuse University is being re-evaluated.

The main players are William Rowland II, co-founder and executive artistic director of PRPAC, board president Karin Franklin and SU.

Opinions differ on what has brought PRPAC to this point: a poor economy or SU’s re-examination of whether its partnership with the theater company is of maximum benefit and fits with its educational mission.

In October, SU eliminated the positions of Rowland, as adjunct professor in the African-American Studies department and executive artistic director of PRPAC, and associate artistic director Annette Adams-Brown.

The university paid the two and an administrative assistant about $130,000 in salaries and made available an account of about $40,000 in the African-American Studies department to cover production expenses, said Rowland. SU also pays rent and utilities for the building at 805 E. Genesee St. that serves as home to both PRPAC and Community Folk Art Center.

The theater company has an operational budget of $160,814, which does not include salaries.

Rowland says he understood from discussions with SU over the years that the day would come when the university would sever its now 21-year-old relationship with PRPAC and halt funding. For the past two years, Rowland has worked with consultants planning the company’s future. Consultants, funded by the New York State Council on Arts, spent eight months in 2009 with Rowland and produced a manual with strategies on raising funds, recruiting new board members and planning for the transition from a founder-directed company to a new executive director.

http://blog.syracuse.com/entertainment/2010/04/future_unscripted_robeson_comp.html