Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Rovirosa.
Hi Alexandra , can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started A Place For Us Productions in 2022.
A longtime member of the local Kansas City theatre scene, I realized that there was a strong need for a theatre company that went above and beyond the expectations for local, non-professional theatre. There has been an unspoken dichotomy in the KC theatre scene that non-professional equals low quality productions and a lack of education or standards for actors, and I wanted to create something different. As someone who is passionate about the craft, I heard from my fellow non-professional actors about how they wanted to create beautiful, high quality theatre and have a space to grow in their craft and be challenged, but that did not exist currently in the non-professional space. In addition, I am a strong believer in the power of community and creating a space that is free of toxic competition and the egos that theatre can sometimes attract.
A Place For Us Productions comes from my own experience in theatre as well. A survivor of an extreme religious cult, theatre was my secret passion and something that I wanted to do throughout my childhood and teens, and when I escaped in my early twenties, the local community theatre scene became my safe place. My first show was an incredible experience where I found family, community, and a sense of home I had never felt before, and set up the foundation for what I’m doing today. That experience fueled my desire to create that space for others as well, a place for artists and creatives to have a home to both feel safe and to encourage them to grow, challenge themselves, and prove their abilities to both themselves and their creative world.
We aren’t actually a community theatre but a rather, a non-professional theatre company – a group of actors who are passionate about our craft and elevating art in Kansas City. Through our unique leadership model, experienced mentors take on guiding roles both onstage and off, modeling professional standards while creating room for emerging artists to step into their full potential. We aim to cultivate a space where serious performers can be nurtured, challenged, and inspired, developing not only their talent but their confidence, discipline, and passion for storytelling. Master craftsmanship and artistic excellence are two of our core values, along with a firm no-ego policy. Leaders in our company aren’t just picked for their talent or experience, but also for their character and ability to lead with humility and understanding of what being a lead is all about – a servant to the community and the company. Our strongest example of leadership is our artistic director, Kai Chapin – a longtime theatre collaborator (since my first community theatre show!) and dear friend, he was the first on the team and models our standards for excellence, humility and servant leadership to our company. As we’ve expanded our team to include our teen interns and volunteers, it has been a joy to see our team grow and evolve under such a strong example of the excellence we hope to cultivate in our company.
We opened with our first musical, She Loves Me, in 2023, followed by A Tale of Two Cities the Musical in 2024, where we were nominated for ten Broadway World KC Awards. In 2025, we moved from our temporary home in Independence to Pleasant Valley, where we are partnering with The CO-OP at Shoal Creek. Our collaboration with them has allowed us to expand our children and teen’s classes, where young performers learn about the craft from our experienced actors, culminating in a show at the end of the semester.
As someone who was desperate to be in the theatre scene as a child and teen, I am deeply passionate about our children and teen programs, and I am thrilled to have created a strong teen internship program as well, giving teens an opportunity to grow and learn about all the different aspects of theatre, including directing opportunities, working with our seasoned actors, and having the space to create their own craft and develop skills to use in their own artistic journey. It’s a deep responsibility to me to be able to mentor our teens, to create a safe space for them to grow and create art. Our teen shows The Importance of Being Earnest and The Miracle Worker have received rave reviews from the community.
We continued with our family shows as well, with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 2025 (nominated for nine Broadway World KC Awards), as well as our latest musical, The Secret Garden in August 2026. We were able to expand with our first live orchestra in The Secret Garden, and received massive acclaim from our audiences for the level of excellence that was brought on stage from our performers and company.
We have expanded beyond the stage as well, with musical showcases throughout the season giving our artists even more chances to perform and gain experience on stage, and we are hoping to expand to more shows each season as well within the coming year. We are also excited about the chance to expand our impact on the local community, with plans to open up classes, volunteer opportunities to serve the community, and hang-outs that can play a part in strengthening our corner of Kansas City.
I am deeply passionate about small businesses and strengthening small businesses, and I want to do my part in helping our local community grow. We were thrilled to be a finalist for Best Theatre Company in The Pitch KC’s Best of Kansas City 2026 Awards, and we strive to continue to bring excellence to Kansas City.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There are definitely challenges to running a theatre company. The arts are massively undervalued and undersupported, and helping raise awareness of the vitality of the arts can be a challenge, but we are so fortunate to have the support of so many amazing small businesses in the area, including The CO-OP at Shoal Creek, who has been an incredible support over the past year in helping us to grow.
One of the biggest challenges is creating and maintaining a space that demands both excellence and also humility and strong character. We are unbudging in our standards for both artistic excellence and strong character, and our no-ego policy means that we have the very highest standards for our leadership. We are incredibly lucky to have a company of performers who genuinely desire the best for the company and each other, and we challenge the belief that theatre has to be a cutthroat, dog eats dog environment. We are not competition for each other, but a company of people who are dependent on each other to grow and become better artists. We understand that artistry takes work and the ability to admit shortcomings and weaknesses, and we expect our leadership to model that behavior. Toxic leadership is a rampant issue in theatre and one we do not allow, and it has definitely challenged me as a leader to both model servant leadership behavior and to maintain it within our company and be willing to stand strong for our values and principles as a company.
The result has been an environment that both artists and audience have noted to be full of support, love, and a place for them to challenge themselves to be better at their craft, and be supported by our leadership to grow and thrive.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I began my theatre journey in 2014, but my earliest theatre credits include elaborate home Christmas plays starring my siblings, which probably should have let me know what I wanted to do with my life! I’ve performed in multiple shows around the Kansas City area, and previous roles include Mary Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life: The Musical (Blue Springs City Theatre), Sister Agnes in Agnes of God (City Theatre of Independence), Gwendolen Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest (Metropolitan Community College), Amalia Balash in She Loves Me (A Place for Us Productions), Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities the Musical (A Place For Us Productions), Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (A Place For Us Productions), and Lily Craven in The Secret Garden (A Place For Us Productions).
My recent directing credits include Stop the Presses!, Little Women, Annie KIDS, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Tale of Two Cities the Musical, The Miracle Worker, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which I directed with Kai Chapin and Olivia Simmons), and The Secret Garden, among others.
One of my passions is historical costuming, a skill that has come in handy in musical theatre! I have designed and produced costumes for productions like Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka, She Loves Me, It’s a Wonderful Life: The Musical, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Tale of Two Cities the Musical, The Miracle Worker, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and The Secret Garden.
As any owner of a small business can tell you, I wear many hats at A Place For Us Productions. As Creative Director, I not only plan and execute our season, but also direct the kids and teens programs, run the internships, make the costumes, source props, direct the shows, create connections in the community, run our sponsorship program, and run the administrative backend of the company, but I am a vocal instructor as well! With fifteen years of experience in vocal instruction, over ten years of professional stage experience, and a background education in psychology and drama, I strive to create and teach a well-rounded, practical approach to training that balances technique, storytelling, and a constant quest for excellence.
With over a decade spent teaching children and young performers, I am deeply passionate about training up the next generation of artists with patience, kindness, and genuine connection, creating a learning environment where students feel supported, focused, and confident. This combination of high standards and steady guidance allows performers of all ages to grow, not just in skill, but in their self worth and readiness for the stage. Most of all, I want creatives to feel safe and supported in their journey to become established members of the Kansas City artist community in their own right, and I want people to feel equipped and able to pursue their dreams. There’s nothing I want more than for Kansas City to become a place known for its thriving small businesses and a community of local artists who change the world with the unique message that each of them have to share.
When I think about why I do what I do, why I think art is important, and what my part is in doing my part in bringing it to the world, I always go back to my favorite quote from one of my favorite films, Dead Poets Society – “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?’ ‘Answer. That you are here — that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.’ What will your verse be?”
What were you like growing up?
I have always been deeply in love with the arts. Although my opportunities were limited because of the religious cult I was in, I found ways to perform and grow as an artist, playing piano for the church and singing in the choir, writing, directing, and putting on shows with my siblings, and creating singing groups with my friends.
I was a precocious child and have always been someone who feels very deeply, and music and theatre were ways that I felt I could express the feelings that were bursting to come out. As an oldest daughter of eleven children, I was the quintessential Type A bossy leader, used to running a tight ship and making sure everything ran as smoothly as possible, a skill that has been an essential part of running a business! I have always been deeply passionate about the beauty in the world and the necessity to express it, and I always knew from the time I was four years old and learned that Maria von Trapp and Mary Poppins were the same person and you could tell stories and pretend to be other people that I wanted to be an actor, and that secret desire carried me through my childhood and teens.
As I went into my teens, my desire to act and sing intensified and became a big part of my teen angst as I struggled against what I wanted to do and what was allowed. Acting and theatre were forbidden in the cult I was in, and as a woman I was expected to stay at home taking care of my family until I got married and had a family of my own, and there was no room for any other kind of life. So I would sneak cast albums and bootleg YouTube videos of musicals and study theatre like it was illegal contraband, dreaming of another life where I was surrounded by family like I saw in the Broadway backstage videos, acting out my dream roles in my room by myself, never imagining that my life could possibly end up like that.
The fact that this is my life now is something that I never, ever want to take for granted and I am so, so deeply grateful for it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aplaceforusproductions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aplaceforusproductions
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aplaceforusproductions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@aplaceforusproductions
Image Credits
Dave Hahn, Tiara Menjivar, Daniel and Laura Crawford
