Kevin Rice hopes to bring
performing arts center to next level

TRURO - After nine years in which he produced more than 600 shows at the performing arts center he founded, Guy Strauss is turning over the reins to another well-known name in the Lower Cape arts scene.

Kevin Rice - co-founder of Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater as well as a director, actor, teacher and internationally produced playwright - will become Payomet Performing Arts Center's managing artistic director Dec. 15.

Rice plans to continue offering the mix of summer theater, music, comedy, lectures, yoga, storytelling, film and classes that already have filled Payomet's massive white tent at the Highlands Center at Cape Cod National Seashore. But he hopes to expand class offerings and "build on what (Strauss) has done."

"I want to help put Payomet on the map," Rice said this week. "I want to be active ... look to involve the community and look forward. ... There will be no radical changes. What he has done is really good."

Rice previously taught Payomet's children's theater classes, and Strauss, a longtime friend and colleague, had talked to him for years about taking on a larger role. Rice's new position, under a three-year contract, is part of an overall reorganization as Payomet seeks to grow. Strauss and Rice have become members of an expanded board of trustees, along with longtime Truro supporters Robert H. MacKinnon and Fred Schilpp. A fifth member is due to be named soon.

Strauss, a professional actor who has a small recurring role on TV's "Brotherhood," hopes to pursue more acting with this changing of the guard, possibly even at Payomet, which employs Equity and Cape actors.

"I feel very, very positive about this, but I do sort of feel a little nostalgic about letting go. People said I couldn't do it," he says. While Rice will have "full control" of artistic decisions, Strauss adds: "Payomet is one of my major, major loves, and I'm not going too far. I'll be there to help Kevin."

Strauss started Payomet as a multi-genre venue in a tent off Route 6 before moving it two years ago to an open site at the Highlands Center, becoming the first tenant of the slowly developing reinvention of a former Air Force base into an arts and environmental complex. He has produced some regional and world premiere theater; regularly hosted comedian Jimmy Tingle, nationally known lecturers and Shakespeare troupes; offered concerts in a variety of music styles; and featured historical programs in keeping with Seashore activities.

"I've felt for a couple of years now that to bring Payomet to the next level would probably require some new ideas and new people," he says. "It needs a lot of energy and a lot of vitality. ... (Rice) already has a lot of ideas, and this is the logical next step for the theater to take. I think I've built up a certain amount of momentum over nine years, and I want to make sure it continues, thrives and grows."

Strauss says all of Payomet's bills are paid - in a budget that has grown to $100,000 annually - and the center is coming off its most successful summer.

The change in Truro is coming at a time of transition in the Outer Cape theater scene. WHAT opened its new year-round Julie Harris Stage in June, effectively doubling its programming. The new Counter Productions formed in Provincetown last summer, with shows that included the New York sensation "I Am My Own Wife." Shakespeare on the Cape expanded its offerings in Provincetown and performed in Wellfleet. Provincetown Theater, however, faltered, and officials there are in the midst of "refocusing" its mission, laying off longtime artistic director Guy Wolf and seeking partnerships with other theater groups and performers in and beyond Provincetown.

Rice considers this an exciting time to be taking over Payomet, because the Outer Cape continues to grow as an arts mecca. "I think (Payomet) fills a gap. There's a lot of theater, and people have asked if there's too much theater going on down here. But it seems to me that it really is building. People certainly still come here for the beach, but it's also becoming a cultural oasis here. A lot of people are also thinking of this as a cultural destination."

Rice doesn't see his new role in competition with WHAT, which he has been associated with on and off for more than two decades, or other theaters. He instead hopes they can all work together to build the reputation for that cultural destination. "I'm a collaborative, cooperative guy," he says, noting that WHAT artistic director Jeff Zinn already has offered any help he needs in Truro.

Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll can be reached at kdriscoll@capecodonline.com.