Casey Prince, 32, Cedar Rapids

Managing Director @ Theatre Cedar Rapids

A 50 percent increase in yearly patrons. A 30 percent increase in the number of annual volunteers. All debt paid off. These figures speak well of Casey Prince’s three year tenure as the managing director of Theatre Cedar Rapids.

Consider too that half of Casey’s time with TCR has been as the theater first reeled, then recovered and now returns from the Floods of 2008.

As Friday — TCR’s much anticipated return to its downtown home at the Iowa Theatre Building — approaches, Casey is determined to set an example of how the arts can have an economic impact in a city’s downtown core.

“I want us to be the domino that tips downtown and accelerates things. If we’re getting 30,000 people down here in small numbers night after night, I look forward to feeling like we had an impact on other downtown businesses.”

Both before and since the floods, Casey’s role as managing director at TCR has meant he is a jack of all trades. He oversees theater operations – from hiring to fundraising. He’s also directed the occasional TCR production.

“In one moment, I’m helping load scenery. In another moment, I’m working on a grant. In another moment, I’m auditioning kids to be orphans in Annie,” he says. “There’s a surprise around every corner.”

Casey grew up in Cedar Rapids and went to Washington

High School.

“I was notorious for running to choir concerts straight from the wrestling mat or a game,” Casey says.

Theater was always part of his life, but never his priority.

“It was always theater and something else,” he says.

At Drake University in Des Moines, he played football and majored in business. Then, after graduation, he honed in on acting. Casey packed up and moved to Los Angeles to pursue the dream for 18 months.

When a sales opportunity arose in Cedar Rapids at a family business, he came back to Iowa.

“The next thing you know, I’m also the drama director at Franklin, McKinley, and Wilson (Middle Schools), and I’m a guest director at Kennedy (High School),” he says. “I fell in love with the impact that arts can have on kids.”

Those experiences put Casey in the right place at the right time. After a musical at Franklin, he crossed paths with a TCR board chairman, who asked him some questions. A few weeks later, while helping at a TCR fundraiser, a few other board members approached Casey and encouraged him to apply for the managing director position.

The board members were looking for a change as they conducted their search, and they found it in Casey.

“Unfortunately, I had to be ‘that guy,’ ” he says. “But, fortunately, I’ve developed a strong staff that’s passionate about our mission. If you focus on your mission, the people who value what you do will come out of nowhere. We’re an important story today, and we were a forgotten story a few years ago.”

When Casey was hired, it was clear that TCR was struggling and operating in the red.

“Call it adolescence; the theater was having growing pains,” says Casey. “It was in a scary place. It’s mind-numbing to look at newspaper clippings — how few we had a few years ago, and how many we have today.”

Thriving in situations where he’s told things can’t be done, Casey remains focused on his personal mission: to turn TCR around. And it’s working.

He wants to give back to the community he grew up in and where he’s now raising his own family.

“One reason I was so invested in helping the schools is because I felt like I was paying forward what I got,” he says. “In a lot of ways, I’m also paying it forward through TCR. I feel like I’ve left my 50-year mark, and that was my goal.”

— LEAH

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• Behind the scenes at the Iowa Theatre Building
• What’s new at TCR
• Progress on other area arts venues
• “The Producers”