Black Actors Theatre May Finally Have a Home

When the Orange County Black Actors Theatre was founded in 1982, it had no budget and no home. Its first show, a satirical work about racial stereotypes called “Trouble in Mind,” was produced for $3,000.

Today, it has a six-figure budget, produces four shows a year and still has no home. But that may soon change.

Artistic director Adleane Hunter says a storefront space in Santa Ana could be transformed into a 100-seat theater for the troupe if a deal currently under negotiation with the landlord and the city is completed. “A former board member of the theater, Mae Ussery, wants to lease the store and run it as a cultural facility,” Hunter says. “She would rent the store back to us.”

In addition to a season of plays, cultural offerings there would include comedy nights, jazz and blues nights, poetry readings and drama workshops, says Hunter, who would be hired as program director for the facility.

Ussery, who lives in Irvine, also would install an art gallery and would finance the renovations for the 6,000-square-foot store at Main Street and Washington Avenue, Hunter says.

“We still don’t have a contract with the owner,” she says, “and we still have to get a zoning variance for the space. But we’re very excited. It could happen by the first of the year.”