UPTOWN PLAYERS INC
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Mission Statement
The mission of Uptown Players is to present professional theatre that meets a rising demand in the community for audiences to see their life experiences represented on stage. We offer diverse productions focusing on contemporary and alternative lifestyle themes that explore topics including diversity, relationships, family, prejudice, and values. We present plays and musicals that challenge audiences artistically, strengthen cultural bridges with the LGBTQ+ community, and create greater positive public awareness and acceptance through the performing arts. Uptown Players produces plays and musicals that represent the LGBTQ+ community attitudes, mindsets and prospectives about their lives and current situation. We also provide the LGBTQ+ community an opportunity to examine itself and to develop confidence, self-awareness and pride. We provide a safe place for LGBTQ+ patrons and their allies to fellowship, educate and entertain through plays and musicals that create a greater positive public awareness and acceptance through the performing arts.
About This Cause
Now entering its twenty second season and thirteenth at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, Uptown Players has gathered a dedicated following and is providing an opportunity for a wide diversity of gender styles to come together and explore life choices through great theatre themes such as relationships, family, prejudice, and values. The response from the community and critics has been remarkable, including over 25 Leon Rabin Awards from the Dallas Theatre League, and over 30 Theater Critics Forum Awards in its first fourteen seasons. Uptown Players has also been named the best theatre company by the Dallas Voice Readers and by the Dallas Observer and was also featured in D Magazine and on WFAA’s Daybreak and Good Morning Texas programs. Uptown Players has a rich 21-year history, with an emphasis on its core mission celebrating tolerance, acceptance, and diversity. Subscribers, donors, and the press continue to provide positive feedback about the creative and innovative elements of our theatrical productions. Critics indicated that Kinky Boots was one of the best musicals produced in Dallas in the past 10 years with local actors. The cast consisted of 26 local actors from all ethnicities and gender identities. Kinky Boots and Head Over Heels continued Uptown Players focus on challenging its audiences - gay, straight and everything in between - to practice tolerance and to appreciate our diverse and multi-cultural community. These two shows are among the few Broadway musicals that feature a gender- nonconforming African American lead, which was played to perfection by transfeminine artist/drag performer Lee Walter in both our productions. Uptown Players provides the LGBTQ+ community an opportunity to examine itself and to develop confidence, self- awareness, and pride. We provide a safe place for LGBTQ+ patrons and their allies to fellowship, and to be enlightened and entertained. Uptown Players is the city's only LGBTQ+ focused professional theater and one of the largest in the nation. This illustrates how underserved our community is in arts and culture representation. Thus, we play an important role in the city’s vision to be an equitable, diverse, and connected community. The LGBTQ+ community and its allies is an intersection of many cultures, gender identities, and lifestyles. Although nearly 50% of our audience identifies as heterosexual, they recognize the importance of the stories we tell and how they continue to grow the cultural equity across Dallas. The stories we tell on our stage remind us to embrace and love our differences. Uptown Players has presented world premieres, including Silver Foxes (2023), A Very Sordid Wedding (2021), A Very Judy Christmas (2018), Gilligan's Fire Island (2015), Redesigning Women (2013), Crazy Just Like Me (2011) and the stage adaptation of The Valley of the Dolls (2007), along with the United States premieres of the West End hit musical Soho Cinders (2014), and the Pet Shop Boys Musical Closer to Heaven (2010). Uptown Players was the first regional theater in the United States to present the Tony Award winner The Boy from Oz and the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Next To Normal, following the closing of the Broadway productions. Each season, Uptown Players presents several regional premieres, including recent productions of Fun Home, The View Upstairs, The Cake, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Nance, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2013 Tony Award for Best Play), Hello Again (featured in a Broadway World article about the upcoming movie) and The Producers.