Editor’s note: The San Antonio Report is pleased to feature the weekly bigcitysmalltown podcast hosted by Robert Rivard, co-founder of the Report. We’ll be publishing a brief synopsis of the podcast each Tuesday.
When Asia Ciaravino stepped into her role as president and CEO of The Public Theater of San Antonio last year, she realized the theater company had a big problem on its hands.
The then 110-year-old company was running out of money.
To prevent layoffs or closure, Ciaravino went into crisis management mode. She shut down the 2023 season in July and began a “Save the Playhouse” emergency fundraising campaign to raise at least $500,000.
In early March, Ciaravino reported resounding success from the campaign, raising $800,000 and counting. The company announced an energetic 112th season and a name change back to the words emblazoned on its historic Greek-revival 1929 building: San Pedro Playhouse.
In instituting such dramatic change, Ciaravino drew upon her background as a theater actor, recalling a dual role in a production of Miss Nelson is Missing — playing both the kind Miss Nelson and the abhorrent substitute teacher who replaces her, Miss Viola Swamp.
“I had to really play nice guy when it comes to the [outside] world, and making sure that people understood how important the Playhouse is and how much we need to support it,” Ciaravino said to host Robert Rivard during episode 50 of his bigcitysmalltown podcast.
“But then on the inside, you have to go to Miss Viola Swamp, because so much stuff needs to get done,” she said.
Ciaravino also shares her background growing up in an upper midwestern “hippie family” with artist parents, her origins in theater and move to San Antonio, the spiritual “energy exchange” between audience and actors in live theater and her belief that theater can change lives.
She reflects on the company’s groundbreaking adaptation of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol incorporating both deaf and hearing actors and its upcoming April 9-14 production Midsummer Sueño, a novel adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for its Shakespeare in the Park series.
“If you’ve ever performed outside as an actor, you know that’s the top of the mountain,” she told Rivard.” There’s nothing like being outside with the wind and random birds flying in your hair and eating bugs and rolling around on the stage when you know that you could fall off into the dirt. … Anything can happen and everything happens.”
Ciaravino also reveals plans for the theater that involve touring to New York and professes the importance of maintaining a vital theatrical presence in San Antonio.
“We need it right now more than anything, especially in times of crisis, like political crisis and the craziness from the economy. There’s nothing that the world needs more for their spirit and their psyche than the arts,” she said.
