Scruggs tackles new role leading Town Theatre

Shannon Scruggs stars in a new role at Town Theatre beginning Aug. 1.

She takes over then from her mother, Sandra Willis, as executive director of Columbia’s oldest community theater.

“I’m not coming in to make great significant changes,” Scruggs said. “I want to keep going what has been a gem.”

It’s a job she’s been unconsciously groomed for since first stepping on Town’s stage 32 years ago as a young orphan in “Annie.”

She’s grown to become one of the main actors and directors there, giving her experience in working with a three-person staff and dozens of volunteers.

Willis regularly exchanged ideas over the years with her daughter about operation of the 96-year-old institution.

Scruggs brings business and fundraising savvy after 15 years with the South Carolina Bar, where she spent most of her time mostly running its nonprofit foundation, which handles a variety of projects for the lawyers’ organization.

She was a natural choice for the theater post, Town leaders say. “We wanted someone who has the good of the theater at heart,” said Mary Lynn Barnette, president of the theater board.

Scruggs takes charge as Town is on a roll, adding members and garnering praise and awards for recent productions.

But increasing competition for entertainment – not only theatrical but across the board – means “every single show in a season has to be a ‘wow,’” Willis said.

Town’s forte is musicals and comedies.

Its leaders are expanding the repertoire beyond longtime favorites, cautiously blending newer Broadway hits into the mix.

That change is coming with some missteps.

The quality of a recent production of the musical comedy “Spamalot” drew a rare barb from onstagecolumbia.com.

Still, Town got a rave for mounting the show.

The bawdy British farce is “an odd fit for a theater that is known for presenting conservative fare to conservative audiences,” reviewer Jillian Owens wrote. “But I commend Town for trying something unusual for them.”

Despite the pan, Town intends to continue offering some shows a bit outside its customary niche – but not radically so.

In part, that’s a necessity since that is mostly what’s coming out of Broadway these days, Willis said.

Town has more freedom to test productions that may lack mainstream appeal locally, as well as more talent to try them.

It has less competition since Workshop Theatre abandoned large-scale musicals after losing its home last year. Workshop now rents sites too small and not equipped for such shows.

That followed Workshop’s decision to shoo away veteran production teams who put on its musicals for what its leaders call “new blood,” causing some actors to go to Town and elsewhere.

Town is in comfortable shape for sporadic experimentation. It is in the black financially after Willis worked with theater leaders to erase a $300,000 debt existing when she took the post 22 years ago.

But Willis and Scruggs expect Town to stay mostly with the approach that has been the hallmark for nearly a century. Change will be evolutionary, not dramatic, they say.

For instance, Town just began taking ticket orders online. That step comes a few years after every other theater in the Columbia area did it.

Scruggs wants to strengthen Town’s young performers’ troupe so its members can entertain at events and learn backstage work such as building scenery and making costumes.

Keeping a building opened in 1924 up-to-date is a never-ending demand. Constant renovations are vital “to improve what we do on our stage,” Willis said.

Doing that is a challenge on a downtown site shoehorned in among state offices and the University of South Carolina.

But there are no plans to move elsewhere.

For Willis, at 69, it’s time to say farewell to a job she initially accepted as a temporary fill-in after a decade as a volunteer. “They asked me to come in and keep the theater running, and I’m still here,” she said.

She plans to be available for her daughter as an adviser, as well as volunteer again.

Scruggs is free to act and apply to direct shows on top of overseeing day-to-day theater operations. Her switch comes after finishing direction of “Mary Poppins” this month.

Scruggs, 40, isn’t sure how she’ll juggle multiple roles at her home away from home amid being the mother of four youngsters.

“I’ve got to figure out my balance,” she said.

Tim Flach

“Mary Poppins” shows at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Saturdays through Aug. 2. Tickets: $15-$25. Call (803) 799-2510, drop by the theater at 1012 Sumter St., or go to towntheatre.com.

This story was originally published July 15, 2015 at 1:24 PM.