A scene from “A Chorus Line,” part of Richmond Triangle Players’ 25th season
For 30 theatrical seasons, Richmond Triangle Players has maintained a balance between the sublime and the ridiculous in productions running the gamut from high drama to high camp. That the company has survived three decades, through economic storms and cultural shifts, is a testament to its faithfulness to its mission of bringing stories of the LGBTQ+ community to the stage.
The late co-founder, businessman Michael Gooding, who died in April 2022, described the RTP to Richmond magazine in 2009 as his riskiest venture, yet the most rewarding.
“We’ve never waved any flags or proselytized,” he said. “We just put up good shows that entertained and maybe moved people, or even taught them a little something.”
RTP Managing Director Philip Crosby
That’s part of the legacy he passed on when he stepped down as managing director for Philip Crosby in 2009. Other founders also helped build the theater, such as actor/director Steve Earle; entrepreneur Marcus J. Miller Jr., who died in 2009; and playwright Jacqui Singleton, who died in 2014.
Gooding and Miller had conversed with Earle about how Richmond companies seldom broached gay-themed plays. Gooding, with an interest in the arts from his music background, also worked the door nights at Fielden’s after-hours club. He thought the upstairs was appropriate for cabaret-style theater before the dancing started.
“So I went back to Steve and said, ‘OK, I got you a place,’ ” Gooding remembered, “and he said, ‘Oh, no! I don’t know what to do!’ ”
Ultimately, they figured it out and formed the company in 1992. Its first show went on the next year, a three-night showcase of comedic plays by Harvey Fierstein dubbed “Safe Sex.” The intention was to raise awareness and money for the Fan Free Clinic’s AIDS prevention program. They placed 60 mismatched folding chairs for an audience, the stage illuminated by kitchen track lights using dimmer switches. The shows sold out.
Crosby, looking back, says, “You know, there’s the textbook method of how to do this — and then there’s the way you make it work. Sometimes it matters whether you want it bad enough.”
RTP’s Robert B. Moss Theatre is named for the patron who purchased the former car radiator repair shop in 2008.
By 2008, RTP had outgrown the Fielden’s space, and a new home was considered in a former car radiator repair shop on the corner of Altamont Avenue and West Marshall Street in a part of town known as Scott’s Addition. Patron Rob Moss bought the building, and the company paid the mortgage. RTP’s conversion of the space occurred during the Great Recession.
“The bad news was, it was tough to raise money,” Crosby explains, “but the good news was that there were plenty of contractors and builders available to work willing to cut a deal to keep their people employed.” Also helpful were several gracious patrons who signed loan papers.
Crosby credits Gooding’s vision for the build-out: “His ideas were for the big full bar out front and the cabaret-style seating that allows people to drink in the theater. These seem like small things, but it’s helped make us different from everybody else.”
Since the move, Crosby says, RTP has taken a measured approach to developing an audience and donor base while keeping its mission at the forefront. The company has demonstrated that plenty of people outside the LGBTQ+ community attend the LGBTQ+-focused shows, too.
The work we’re doing is by and for queer folks, and at the end of the day, that resonance has some validity.
—Philip Crosby, managing director, Richmond Triangle Players
“We’re one of 15-20 theaters nationwide devoted to this mission,” he says. “The work we’re doing is by and for queer folks, and at the end of the day, that resonance has some validity, and I think that matters.”
Scott’s Addition went from a near-dormant district to a bustling commercial and residential center. “Used to be I could tell how many people were at our theater by looking at the cars lined up along the street,” Crosby says. “It’s kind of crazy — I certainly can’t do that now.” RTP maintains communication with the builders of nearby apartments about needs for parking and walking. They put up banners announcing to passersby that there’s an award-winning theater right here.
The pandemic brought challenges, but RTP entered the period in a secure financial position. The company was also one of the few smaller theaters to receive a National Endowment for the Arts assistance grant. “I think that’s kind of an indication that maybe we’ve been doing something right all this time,” Crosby says.
