After building Amphibian Stage into a nationally known theater, landing a permanent physical space in Near Southside and, more recently, growing annual revenue to $1 million, founding artistic director Kathleen Culebro announced May 9 she is stepping down at the end of the year.
Culebro will hand over the reins to Jay Duffer, who has been with the Fort Worth stage company since 2019 and has served as its co-artistic director since late 2021.
Culebro described her current role as the ideal job that “so few people get to have.”
“I'm working with a completely drama-free (team) — surprise, surprise in a theater,” Culebro told the Fort Worth Report. “Everybody's supportive. We take care of each other. Everybody works so hard, and so it's a little bit of insanity to walk away from such a dream situation. And yet it feels right.”
The idea came, Culebro said, early in the COVID-19 pandemic when there was an industrywide conversation about limited professional leadership opportunities and lack of turnover.
“It's always going to be my baby. I founded this company,” she said. “I'm really going to try not to pester Jay … and just come as a patron because he deserves that. … He just brings so much to the table. I wanted to give him the opportunity to spread his wings.”
When Culebro first broached the subject, it came as a surprise, Duffer said.
“We have a great working relationship, and there was a great amount of contentment in my role, what I was doing,” he said. “Obviously, I've got big shoes to fill. And when you take on a company that's got 25 years of history on it, you want to do the right thing. You want to keep the boat afloat. You want to make sure that it succeeds.”
Amphibian Stage can seat between 70-115 people, depending on the stage and set configurations. (Courtesy photo | Evan Michael Woods, Amphibian Stage) But that does not mean Duffer won’t take risks as he leads Amphibian to its next stage.
“I don't have the expectation that I'm going to just program one big hit right after another because that's not us,” he said. “I mean, Kathleen would be screaming and pushing me out the door if I were the person coming in and saying, we've got to put ‘A Christmas Carol’ at the end of our season.”
The theater will continue to present new works and artists. The trick, Duffer said, is finding the sweet spot where they can experiment but still sell tickets and connect with the audience.
The nonprofit has come a long way since its beginnings in 2000. Culebro recalled a show where the theater sold five tickets.
“I've always followed my intuition … if I had followed the facts, I never would have started a theater company,” she said. “This is just something I want to try. I mean, this is a great time to move on when everything is in its place, there's an obvious leader to take over, who really gets what the vision is … so let's see what transformations will happen.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers arts and culture for the Fort Worth Report. Reach her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org.
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