Monday, January 19, 2026
Enter ‘Stage Right:’ Central Ohio home to nation’s only conservative theater company
NBC4 WCMH-TV: If all the world’s a stage, Robert Cooperman feels half of it is missing its spotlight.
“Artists will look at society or an issue in our culture and say, ‘I don’t like that,’ and they might write a play about it. … Why can’t people who are more conservative do that?” Cooperman said. “When we do it, it’s considered political. And when the other side does it, it’s considered art.”
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Except, funnily enough, there are no theatre companies that feel the need to label themselves as “liberal.” I’m having a hard time with the whole “when they do it, it’s art, when we do it, it’s political.” Leftist art… is political. I’m confused here. I think that what are tells us is always reflective in the issues of the time period. There… are… not really many anti-woke musicals. Not any new ones, at least–recent Broadway has been very much driven by leftists for all of its history. What confuses is me is what makes a play acceptable to be put on by a conservative company. What do they consider “woke,” (and more interesting, what do they consider to not be woke?). That’s what confuses me. “Woke” plays tend to be a criticism on society as a whole, but the plays listed on Enter Stage Right’s websites are (mostly) criticisms of liberal ideals. A woke play isn’t an anti-conservative shouting match.
Reading this immediately made me annoyed. Specifically when this guy said “when we do it, it’s considered political. And when the other side does it, it’s considered art.” This makes no sense because often, liberal-leaning theater is just as political as it is artistic. Same goes for whatever conservative theater is going on in Dublin, Ohio. Art is inherently political as it is inseperable from the time and circumstances it is created in and the culture it is created for. I think this whole thing about there being a lack of conservative perspectives in theater is a little hypocritical, considering how much conservative rhetoric has devalued the arts as an asset and gone to great lengths to censor the arts. I do agree that its important to portray diverse perspectives in the arts, but I’m not sure that that is even the goal of this “conservative theater.” I think this is more a reactionary, retaliatory effort to stir the pot.
This is not only strange, but a hysterical concept to me. Theatre and art is an inherently political and left-leaning craft, and this "right wing" attempt to make it not that is strange and foreign to me. I wish I could know what shows they were doing so I could fully dissect the hilarity of their message and the irony of their mission statement in terms of the themes of the show. It reminds me directly of how the first show at the renamed Kennedy Center was LES MISÉRABLES. Does he, Donald Trump, and his administrators know what that show is about? Do they know what "Do You Hear the People Sing" is about? It sso funny to see a complete lack of either knowledge or care for media literacy from many arists and politicians. I can't even think of a show that they could do - every play is trying to say something.
This is a really strange concept to me. Given that the right wing seeks to control and police expression across America, what does a theatre company dedicated to the right wing seek to add to the theatregoing culture? If an artwork doesn’t say anything, what is the point of bringing it into existence? It's all just quite incomprehensible. Let me be clear: I am all for viewpoint diversity within the arts, in fact I endorse it. But I question why a particularly conservative theatrical product needs to exist. Theatres aren’t descriptively liberal or leftist, that is just the inherent nature of the art form. I have never heard of a theatre that is deliberately liberal just to prove a point, but now I have heard of one that is conservative just to prove something. This also seems to be reflecting what is happening in Washington, as countless artists continue to leave the Kennedy Center. Who knows, maybe these theatres can find an audience, but I find that improbable.
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