In 2003, Shane Morrow did so well in his Chattanooga Theatre Centre performance of "A Raisin in the Sun" that he won an audience-voted award for Best Actor.
But when he returned to the theater to perform again, he says, there were so few roles for actors of color that he eventually started his own organizations, Creative Underground and Jazzanooga, to fill in the gap.
This year, the CTC's new Executive Director, Todd Olson, hopes to flip the script.
"For a theater to be vital, it has to accurately reflect the community," says Olson.
Actors of color will have more opportunities, he says, and the theater will be more diverse.
Every theater in the country wants an audience that is younger and more diverse. The Theatre Centre also programs toward that goal, but during times of financial duress, theaters tend to cling to their core audience, Olson explains.
"I don't know if we've done enough work courting young and diverse audiences and really expressing to them how much we need them," he says.
One key move by Olson, who started at the center in April, is implementing a plan to expand the center's audience and opportunities for actors of color.
The 53-year-old former executive arts director in Columbia, Md., tapped Morrow to direct "The Wiz," a seven-time Tony Award-winning soul musical based on "The Wizard of Oz." The production opens Sept. 15.
"I was shocked," says Morrow. "They asked me to direct the show, and it's their season opener."
Olson made another unprecedented step toward outreach in June when he granted Morrow's request to hold an audition for "The Wiz" at Southside Recreation Center. It was the first time in the theater's 94-year history that auditions had been held off-site.
Southside Recreation Center is less than three miles away from two communities with majority African-American residents, including Emma Wheeler Homes and the Villages at Alton Park. It's just outside the racially mixed neighborhood of St. Elmo.
"If we want to hold an invitation for artists of color to come and take part with us, we need to go where they are also," says Olson.
Olson credits his immediate predecessor, interim director Kim Jackson, with the decision to produce "The Wiz." He resolves to continue efforts toward inclusion.
Morrow says having auditions at the recreation center resulted in discovering unknown talent, a bit of a surprise, he acknowledges, since he started Creative Underground six years ago to showcase local performers.
Olson expects to have a multicultural cast, with the majority of actors being African-American. There will also be white and Latino performers, says Morrow.
"I heard a couple of Latinos who came in there and blew it out," he says. "I was like whoa. I thought I was listening to Ricky Martin."
Oz is going to feel like a jazz club that's a mix between the Harlem Renaissance and the Big 9, Morrow says.
Olson anticipates having many first-time Chattanooga Theatre Centre visitors in the audience this fall.
But he's not done yet.
His next move toward diversity is to put more blacks on the Theatre Centre's board.
He says black board members are a necessity. He expects the board to formally vote at the next board meeting this month to put three African-Americans on the board. He says board members have already suggested potential office holders.
His goal is to make the theater center more reflective of the population, which is about 30 percent black.
Then he wants to let the public know that they can expect culturally diverse performances at the center. He plans to do at least one or two such shows every season.
He implemented a similar plan in St. Petersburg, Fla., after an August Wilson play, "Gem of the Ocean,"proved particularly popular. He was on track to do a Wilson play each year for 10 years, showcasing all 10 of the Pulitzer Prize winner's works. He made it through seven before he relocated to Maryland. As part of the community outreach, the theater partnered with African-American churches and organizations, and theater staff even joined the St. Petersburg NAACP and attended M.L. King breakfasts.
""We've done a lot in the past," Olson says of the Theatre Centre. "We're going to do it slightly different now. We're going to make a serious effort to keep our door open forever."
Ricardo Morris, an African-American who has directed and acted in shows at the Theatre Centre, says the danger of increasing diversity and attempting an all-black cast is that white attendance could decrease as diversity increases.
Diversity efforts must include educating white audiences that "black plays aren't just for black people," he says.
"Theater has universal meaning and understanding so no matter what color the people are onstage, the same universal themes are going to come through: love, hate, home and family. That goes across color," says Morris.
Morris played the Lion in the Theatre Centre's production of "The Wiz" in the late 1980s, performed in "Dreamgirls" and directed the all-black cast of "Fences" (a Wilson play) in the 1990s. He remembers organizers held "Fences" in the smaller Circle Theatre because they were concerned the audience wouldn't be large enough for the main theater.
Olson remains optimistic.
"People will come to see good theater, period," he says. "I think we can have it all. We can target stuff young people want to see, diverse audiences want to see and people who want to come with their kids. We have stuff for everyone."
Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.