Encore Donations

A new theater has made its debut in the City of Birmingham, AL. Encore Theatre and Gallery has brought life to a former movie house in the Roebuck Area. The perhaps long since forgotten space, once deemed the Roebuck Plaza Theatre, opened in the fall of 1966 as a single screen first run theatre. Now more than 50 years later, the space is getting an entertainment encore, literally. “Encore Theatre & Gallery will exist as a non-equity performance space, which will bring year-round contemporary, inventive and distinctive works to the city’s eastside” according to the theatre’s creative director, Marc Raby, an award winning playwright, director and native of Birmingham.

The facility offers two stages, one which will redefine the former one screen auditorium and an additional intimate studio stage space. 

When expounding on the future of Encore Theatre and Gallery, Raby states, “We see Encore as a bold idea in our city, its our pursuit to utilize the arts to, heal, entertain, educate, and serve the urban creative community, while also unapologetically saluting the African-American experience through the arts.” The Encore joins in the pursuit of African-American Theater companies across the nation that aim to fill a void for minority performing artist by consistently producing plays by minority playwrights and/or showcasing the skills of minority performers in non-ethnic works. The Encore will further aim to host itinerant troupes as well. “The Encore shares in the testament that the field of theater arts, contains a distinctive capability to stimulate the human spirit.” Declares Raby “We tend to also believe that no other art form embraces the whole being or so enhances one’s self awareness and relationship to others.”