Artistic director banks on broad vision for fledgling Black theater company

Our guest this week is Ben Rose, a longtime creative force in the Indianapolis arts community who recently was named the inaugural artistic director of the fledgling Indianapolis Black Theatre Co. If you want to think about it as a startup, the theater has a long runway thanks to a campaign that raised $1.5 million dollars. Part of Rose’s job as artistic director will be to establish revenue streams that can maintain momentum once that first round of funding runs out Rose has several outside-the-box ideas for supporting the company while serving the careers of company members both on and off stage. They’re influenced in part by a varied career that took him to Atlanta and Los Angeles for significant periods of time, as well as his professional experience in several artistic modes, including stage acting, writing, videography, filmmaking and photography. And he has learned to see the world through several lenses due to his unusual upbringing as a mixed-race child from Indianapolis who was adopted by a white family at a very early age and grew up in relatively rural Tipton. In this week’s episode of the podcast, Rose discusses how he forged a career in the arts through what he calls fortunate, back-door opportunities and developed his vision for how Indianapolis Black Theatre Company can sustain itself while helping its members find work in other venues. He also delves into the group’s first official production which has something to say about taking professional risks in places where you might not have felt welcome in the past. It’s a staged reading of a play about a groundbreaking black woman who became the first professional female baseball player as a member of the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro Leagues. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.