OFFBEAT: Valparaiso theater director now riding waves of Hawaiian stage

After a year-long search, Kumu Kahua Theatre in Hawaii announced last week a Northwest Indiana theater favorite will serve as the venue's new point person.

Donna Blanchard, who arrived in Honolulu on New Year's Day, has been given the appointment of the new managing director.

The theater said in its announcement: "The Indiana native not only has a strong theater background, but also years of success in nonprofit fundraising and marketing — skills the theater board sees as essential for bringing Kumu Kahua to the next level after weathering the current difficult financial times."

For three years, Blanchard was managing director of Valparaiso's Chicago Street Theatre, the 57-year-old, award-winning theater company. While there, she "oversaw an extensive renovation of the 130-seat facility, increased grant funding by 300 percent and saw attendance double."

She said she reached these goals by working with theater members to establish a successful marketing plan, writing grant proposals, and developing community outreach.

"We feel very fortunate to have found someone who has such a wealth of experience in fundraising and theater, and a love for all of the things that we do," said Jason Kanda, president of Kumu Board of Directors.

Blanchard left Chicago Street Theatre in 2010 to work as a client services manager and writer for the consulting firm Insight Strategic Concepts, as well as a grant proposal researcher and writer with the nonprofit Grants Inc. and development coordinator with Leadership Northwest Indiana.

For 41 years, Kumu Kahua has been dedicated to producing plays about life in Hawaii, plays by Hawaiian playwrights and plays for the Hawaiian people.

It's that mission that Blanchard said attracted her to make the move.

"Telling the story of a community of people is my artistic priority — it's my personal mission, especially to tell what are sometimes difficult stories with integrity and not judgment," she said.

"Kumu Kahua is able to present sometimes dark history in a way that is approachable for a haole like me. If this theater was in the rural Midwest, I would have gone there too. It has the mission I was looking for — it's a bonus that I'm living in paradise now."

She's excited about her new opportunity, and yet, also sentimental about Northwest Indiana.

"I sold almost everything I owned when I moved here," Blanchard told me when we talked Thursday.

"But one thing I kept and brought along is a cup I love from El Taco Real in Hammond. I love that silly cup, so I kept it and recently used it exclusively during my two-week holiday travels to see family members one last time. That cup even came in the plane with me on New Years Eve and I had a drink in it to celebrate the new year here! I'm so very happy and comfortable here. But it still makes me feel really good to know folks back home are thinking about me."

For more information, visit kumukahua.org.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at philip.potempa@nwi.com or (219) 852-4327.