For 45 years, Bob Carter’s Actor’s Workshop and Repertory Company (Actor’s Rep) has been a haven for actors, comedians and amateurs trying out the stage for the first time. Today, the beloved theater company is fighting to continue its legacy of fostering new talent after being ousted from its longtime home on Dixie Highway in downtown West Palm Beach. The theater community is banding together to launch fundraising efforts to give much-needed fi- nancial support to Actors’ Rep, a place they say has a legacy that has endured for generations.
When Actor’s Rep opened in 1980, it immediately established itself as an outlier in the South Florida theater world. “Our first play was ‘A Perfect Relationship,’” recalls Bob Carter, the founder of Actor’s Rep. The play was a comedy about two men living together in the heat of the gay liberation movement in 1980-era New York City. “On opening night, there were times in the play where there were some lines and I thought, okay, this is where the audience is going to get up and walk out,” says Carter. Instead, the laughter was so loud that the actors had to wait to deliver their lines. The play was a hit and Actor’s Rep soon became a darling of theater critics.
Originally from Lake Worth, Carter left home at 19 to pursue an acting career in New York City. He toured in many Broadway shows and was a working actor in New York City until 1972, when his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he returned home to help care for him. He opened a record store in Lake Park and served on the board of directors for the Lake Worth Playhouse before opening Actor’s Rep in 1980.
Carter’s experience in the New York City theater world allowed him to see the opportunity to bring more progressive plays to South Florida. “At the time, a lot of good playwrights like Lanford Wilson and Doric Wilson were writing great plays that could be seen in New York, but no one in the south would touch them,” says Carter. “What we needed in Florida was a theater that would do any play as long as it had merit and had something socially to say.”
Over the years, Actor’s Rep has become known for its avant-garde plays and rarely performed classics, often featuring subjects too risky for other, more mainstream theaters. The theater’s most recent play, ‘A Song for Coretta,’ ran for five performances in February. A tribute to Coretta Scott King, the play tells the story of five Black women from diverse backgrounds waiting outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church with mourners to pay their final respects to the late civil rights activist.
In addition to producing live performances, Actor’s Rep offers acting workshops and improv classes. Carter teaches the acting workshops along with other talented actors who, like him, came from the New York City theater scene. Actor’s Rep also hosts summer camps for budding young actors. “We were the first in the area to do theater summer camps for kids,” says Carter…