Aurora Theatre to Reopen Under New Leadership
When Aurora Theatre announced it was suspending productions last summer, audiences worried the 33-year-old theater wouldn’t make it through a year of hibernation. So many other theaters, both experimental and mainstream, had closed in recent years: Cutting Ball, Theater First, PianoFight, Cal Shakes, Bay Area Children’s Theatre.
Bucking that trend, Aurora Theatre announced its return on Monday under the new leadership of Artistic Director Jennifer King and Managing Director Jenn Ruygt. The theater will return to producing shows in the 2027/2028 season.
Both King and Ruygt have a history with the company. King was a frequent Aurora actor and director; she directed The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Aurora’s last show before the 2025 closure. Ruygt was previously the company’s production manager.
When the theater closed last year, it had a $500,000 operating deficit. “We’ve taken the past nine months to really get our ducks in a row so we can move out of having to be in crisis management,” King told KQED. “That means being really responsible, both fiscally and artistically, with our community.”
Many details about Aurora’s return are yet to be determined. King and Ruygt hope to remain in Berkeley — whether as a roving project or a brick-and-mortar space, which may be decided by trying out both.
“This is the first update in a series of updates,” Ruygt said.
Aurora fans may also be wondering about the theater’s distinctive thrust stage, the one that made audiences feel like they were part of the action. King said that even if their future space lacks that specific characteristic, that “intimacy” will be part of the experience.
Founded in 1992 by Barbara Oliver, Aurora Theatre became known over the decades for its high-quality productions with talented local actors. By restarting the program, King and Ruygt inherit Aurora’s reputation with both audiences and the local theater community.
“We look at Berkeley Rep, we look at ACT, and they’ve really moved to a different model. They utilize local actors, but they really have become places where you’re seeing things either come from New York or move on to New York,” King said. (Aurora has also produced New York-bound shows, including the Tony Award-winning Eureka Day in 2018.)
King’s point is that Aurora played an important role in the ecology of the local theater scene — what theater critic Lily Janiak called “a ladder from ‘Here I am making theater with my college buddies on $1,000,’ to something with more prominence and more reach.”
“What we heard over and over again is that artists and artisans reached for the opportunity to work at the Aurora,” King said, explaining that bringing it back isn’t about staking a personal claim. “It is the Bay Area’s theater company.”
