The Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s (BETC) 2022 staging of The Royale, about a Black boxer during the Jim Crow era, won nine Henry Awards, Colorado’s version of the Tony Awards. Despite the show’s success, BETC’s future was in question the following season, after its founders announced they were leaving the company. Enter: Mark Ragan, who moved to Colorado in 2014 after retiring as the CEO of his Chicago communications company and started dabbling in regional theater. Ragan and Jessica Robblee, an actor and director in Colorado, took over as BETC’s managing director and artistic director, respectively.

We spoke with Ragan before his second season in charge to find out how his plans to save the 18-year-old company are playing out.

5280 October 2024
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Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

5280: What’s your background in theater?
Mark Ragan: I fell into a rough crowd in high school—doing drugs and drinking. A counselor said, “We want you to audition for Oliver.” It saved my life. Until my early 30s, I was never really out of a play. Then, in 1993, my father was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and I had to run the family business.

Why did you decide to take over BETC?
I met Jessica three years ago while acting in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and I asked her if she wanted to start a company together. Then we learned that [founders Stephen Weitz and Rebecca Remaly] were leaving BETC. Why start a new company when you could take over one with very loyal patrons?

I was surprised to learn that BETC was on the verge of closing after The Royale’s successful showing. Were you?
A successful production has no impact on your financials. You’re always facing losses unless you can get sponsors and donors to fill in the gaps. I’d say 70 percent of my job is fundraising and community outreach. The pandemic brought about the destruction of a lot of theater companies around the country, and I’m sure it was one of the reasons that Stephen and Rebecca called it quits. My guess is that after 18 years they were exhausted.

How do you appeal to donors?
You have to move them. You have to produce plays that really touch their hearts and brains. If you’re not presenting quality productions, then you’re not going to have donors either.

How was your first season?
It was fabulous. We sold out almost every show. We raised $165,000 during our Colorado Gives Day campaign. And we killed our budget: We came in tens of thousands below what we thought we were going to spend.

You still own Ragan Communications. How much of its $17 million annual revenue finds its way into BETC’s coffers?
A lot. What we’re trying to do over the next three years is slowly reduce the amount of money I put in, for obvious reasons. If the theater is to survive, it can’t just be dependent on me.

BETC’s 2024-’25 season opened in September with An Enemy of the People (through October 13 at the Savoy Denver; November 8 to 17 at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder), an 1882 play about how fascist societies are born, while the comedic Ballot of Paola Aguila (October 17 through November 3 at the Dairy Arts Center) skewers an anonymous political party—psst, it’s the Democrats—that can’t figure out why it’s losing Hispanic voters.