Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre is back with new leaders but no space

Asia Nicole Jackson, Anna Marie Sharpe, Carrie Paff, David Everett Moore and Jamella Cross in Aurora Theatre’s “Crumbs from the Table of Joy.” Credit: Kevin Berne

Aurora Theatre Company is plotting a comeback after vacating its longtime home in downtown Berkeley and laying off staff last summer.

The nonprofit theater never said it was closing, leaving room open for a second act, and on Monday, Aurora announced it’s planning to return for the 2027-28 season and that it has appointed new leadership.

Jennifer King, an actor and director familiar to Aurora audiences, will take over as the new artistic director, and Jenn Ruygt, formerly Aurora’s production manager, will be the new managing director.

Jennifer King, artistic director. Credit: Lisa Keating

Jenn Ruygt, managing director. Credit: Lisa Keating

Aurora’s 150-seat venue on Addison Street, in the heart of Berkeley’s theater district, remains vacant, and Aurora has confirmed it will not be returning to the space. “In order to have a sustainable organization, we need to look at other options,” said King.

The location, creative direction and staffing of Aurora have yet to be determined, but King said she anticipates more information will be released in the coming months.

King said as Aurora looks for a new home, it will aim to replicate the sense of intimacy between the audience and actors of the Addison Street theater.

“What happens between artist and audience, it’s up to the space that you are in and how you’re approaching those relationships,” King said. “What we’re really interested in is how to cultivate that intimate experience, and that will inform what spaces we are in next.”

New artistic director thinks Aurora’s near-death experience ‘could be just a matter of timing’

After a 33-year run in downtown Berkeley, Aurora cancelled its 2025-26 season in May 2025, citing meager ticket sales after the pandemic. The theater had previously faced a $500,000 budget deficit in 2024 and struggled to the finish line of its 2024-25 season in August.

Arts and cultural institutions and organizations across the country and the Bay Area have grappled with budget shortfalls since the pandemic. In addition to Aurora’s troubles, Bay Area Children’s Theater, TheatreFirst and California Jazz Conservatory’s degree program have all closed, and Freight & Salvage has faced significant headwinds. CalShakes, which got its start in Berkeley, shuttered in 2024, after 50 years of shows. Berkeley’s La Pena Cultural Center and Black Repertory Group are surviving, but also facing tough times.

Aurora wants to find a path forward.

“Our old subscriber base and donor base were very, very strong,” said Rebecca Parlette-Edwards, the president of Aurora’s nonprofit board until a few months ago. “COVID really did us in and we didn’t recover from that.”

Before closing, Berkeleyside reported that Aurora was considering merging with another local theater. According to Parlette-Edwards, who is no longer on the board, that plan fell through.

With attendance rates dropping and the cost of labor, insurance and lumber — used for set building — rising, the company could no longer keep up.

Aurora Theatre Company was located at 2081 Addison St. until last summer. Credit: David Allen

According to Ruygt, the Aurora team is using seed money leftover from the previous “chapter,” along with funding from local supporters, to rebuild the infrastructure of the company.

Though Aurora operated in the red in 2025, it ended the fiscal year with nearly $1.5 million in assets, according to public tax filings. And just before closure, business began to pick up again, and the final two productions were a great success, King said. The final show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” which King directed, was the most attended show post-pandemic, she said.

“Although things seemed dire, there seemed to be an ember of hope,” said King. “It seemed, given the pandemic, that it could be just a matter of timing. Momentum seemed to be ramping up as the theater was ramping down.”

Aurora’s Jenns hatched their plan for a revival at the farewell party

Tom Ross, Aurora’s artistic director until 2019, initially hired King as a director and later worked with Ruygt when she was a production manager. Throughout the process of trying to revive the theater, he’s advised them by providing budget advice, board member recommendations and participating in meetings.

According to King, the board has not been restructured, but some members have not returned after their terms finished, and new members have been added. Parlette-Edwards said she stepped down because of fatigue from the hard work post-pandemic. “I got very tired, and I just did not want to do it anymore,” she said. Daria Hepps is the current board chair.

According to Ross, the revival began at a farewell party last fall for Aurora that he and “the Jenns,” as he refers to them, were attending. Jokingly, King mentioned starting a theater company with Ruygt, Ross recalled.

Soon, the joke turned serious, and King and Ruygt were pitching themselves to Aurora’s board before the summer was over. (Josh Costello, Aurora’s previous artistic director, has been working as director of a movie theater in Larkspur since December, according to his LinkedIn page.) A feasibility study was completed, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Various stakeholders shared the unique characteristics of Aurora that they valued. Results showed that the company’s assets lay in its hiring of local actors and designers, and its intimacy with the audience.

“I’m just really delighted how well the two women have kept the thing going and alive and growing,” Ross said.

“These two new women, Jennifer King and Jenn Ruygt, are very serious about keeping Aurora alive and keeping the spirit of Aurora alive,” Parlette-Edwards said.

Kate Darby Rauch contributed reporting to this story.

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