For the past 50 years, St. Paul’s Park Square Theatre has been a hub for Twin Cities performers to perfect their craft. After overcoming a period of financial hardships and near closure, Park Square is moving towards a brighter future.
After an abrupt cancellation of all but one show in its 2023 season, Park Square Theatre has returned to a four-show season of unique American contemporary plays and performances. This season is led in part by Stephen DiMenna, the theater’s executive artistic director.
“For our audiences, I want to bring them challenging new American plays that they’re not going to see at any other theater in town. So that they feel like ‘I don’t have to go to New York to see a high-quality production of a new play. I can see it right here, in downtown St. Paul,’ ” DiMenna said.
DiMenna joined Park Square in October 2023, when the theater had a staff of two and was struggling to remain afloat. After a reconfiguration of leadership and a season spent looking for financial backers, the theater returned the following year.
After 25 years living in New York City, working as a freelance director and teaching directing courses at New York University, DiMenna moved to Minnesota in 2019.
“What’s so wonderful about working in the Twin Cities is that it’s a community and all the actors know each other,” DiMenna said. “It’s much more of a family here.”
Park Square opened in 1975 in the 70-seat Park Square Court building. Today, it can seat 550 in the Historic Hamm Building in downtown St. Paul. Its current production, “It’s Only a Play,” runs through Oct. 19.
“I was proud of the work we did when we were tiny, and I was proud of the work that was happening by the time I left, when we were not so tiny,” said former artistic director Richard Cook.
As Park Square’s former and longest-running artistic director, Cook said his responsibilities in those first years included thawing radiator pipes with a propane torch. Cook worked at the theater for 43 years, in different capacities, before retiring in 2018.
“There was a special joy in finding those moments, whether it’s a comedy with a good house laugh, or a more serious play with an ‘Aha!’ moment,” Cook said. “It’s those artists and that audience being in the same place in that moment. There’s that sense of communal experience.”
Twin Cities jazz vocalist and performer Thomasina Petrus has worked with Park Square for years, starring in their production of “Lady Day” as legendary vocalist Billie Holiday in 2008. She later returned to this role ten years later at the Jungle Theater.
“I hope the public starts to realize just how important theater is,” Petrus said. “Theater can encompass so many layers of artistry: dance, music, song, storytelling, set design. All of it is so thoughtful.”
Petrus worked previously with DiMenna in her high school career, when he helped direct the North Community High School production of “Romeo and Juliet” and “West Side Story,” where she played Maria.
“Part of what pleases me is that it seems a good deal of what the theater is doing right now, picks up on some of the points of the legacy that I helped build,” Cook said.
Looking toward the future, DiMeena hopes to expand the theater’s season to six shows, as well as begin high school theater programs in the St. Paul community.
“I think we still have room to grow,” DiMenna said.
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