By ELIZABETH BRIGNAC
Ira David Wood III has played an integral part in the growth of Raleigh’s theater scene during his 52-year career as executive director of Theatre in the Park. The beloved local actor and director has received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine award, North Carolina’s highest honor, for his significant contributions to the community.
He has received the North Carolina Award in Fine Arts. In 2004, the Raleigh City Council voted unanimously to name the historic building that houses Theatre in the Park after him.
In short, Ira David Wood III (who goes by David) is fully immersed in the history of theater in Raleigh—and he wants people to remember that history. “Being 77 years old and having spent 50 years here making theater, I think one of the things I would like to see more of is a better understanding and appreciation for the past—for generations that went before, whose shoulders we stand on,” he says.
Theatre in the Park opened in 1947 as The Children’s Theatre of Raleigh, Inc. In 1972, David Wood joined the organization. “When I came to Raleigh in the 1970s, there were very few theater organizations. Most of the theaters in town were college theaters, and the Raleigh Little Theatre was here,” David recalls. Theatre in the Park was still a children’s theater then. David says, “They asked me to go to New York and pick a rock opera to present.” Instead, David requested, “Let me go into each high school in the city, talk to the students and tell them we want to do an original rock opera.” A dozen students worked with David to write a play called Ecks.
Three hundred teens auditioned. The performances caused local controversy, Ecks completely sold out, and the theater promptly asked David to stay on as executive director. He agreed, under the condition that the theater shift its focus to performances that would appeal to all ages.
The first play the company performed as an all-age theater was Hamlet, which David starred in and directed. (“I didn’t know any better,” David says, chuckling.) He says they had a $127 budget and rehearsed in the Raleigh Rose Garden. “We made nighttime trips to houses that were being torn down, and we absconded with lumber. That’s how we built our set,” he recalls. Soon thereafter, the company adopted the name ‘Theatre in the Park’ when it moved to the National Guard Armory Building, located in Pullen Park.
Theatre in the Park has been performing David’s original version of A Christmas Carol since soon after it moved to Pullen Park, and it is now a Raleigh holiday season institution. David officially handed the role of Scrooge over to his son, Ira David Wood IV (who goes by Ira) in 2024, though David continues to direct the musical.
The company has been part of many “firsts” in Raleigh theater. “I think Theatre in the Park was the first to do a nude scene in Raleigh,” says David, recalling that in his original play, The Gathering, the performers were actually wearing white costumes with images of nude bodies projected onto them. “That was a very daring thing to do,” David says. “Nobody knew if it was going to succeed.” Later productions incorporated actual nude scenes, which are now accepted in local theater.
Theatre in the Park was also the first company to use Memorial Auditorium (now part of Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts) for theatrical performances, as the Pullen Park space could no longer accommodate the growing A Christmas Carol audiences. “So we said, well, let’s go down and look at Memorial Auditorium … which only hosted wrestling matches and graduations,” recalls David.
“When we asked the city manager for a key to Memorial Auditorium, he couldn’t find one! The president of our board of directors had bolt cutters in the trunk of her car, and we were allowed to cut the chain off the door to get into Memorial. When the doors opened, a rat as big as a dog ran across the opening. The light spilled in on Memorial Auditorium, and I just went, ‘Oh my Lord, this is incredible!’” That marked the beginning of the city’s use of Memorial Auditorium for theatrical events.
Meanwhile, Raleigh’s population was growing. More theater companies sprang up in the area, and they found audiences to support them. Theatergoers were interested in all kinds of theater, from contemporary musicals to classics. “When we started doing Shakespeare, we were told that people wouldn’t cross the street in Raleigh to see Shakespeare,” says David. “And we found out that was certainly not true. Raleigh has supported the classics. It has supported all of the arts in a wonderful way.”
The company plans to continue performing both Shakespeare and other classics at Theatre in the Park. Ira (now Theatre in the Park’s artistic director) has his eye on reprising Hamlet and doing Cyrano de Bergerac, and he also hopes to perform some original works. “We try to put something in for everybody—experimental plays, original [plays], Shakespeare, classic theater,” says David. Inspired by creative theater work done during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ira is also interested in filming some Theatre in the Park plays, using the entire theater as a setting rather than only the stage.
Finally, Theatre in the Park is interested in finding new ways to support the local theater community. “We have a finite number of performance spaces in Raleigh,” says David. “One of the directions that we’ve gone in is to try to open ours up to more representation from the artistic community so we can get new directors in and get these people a chance to direct full-length productions on stage.” “We want to create opportunities for actors, directors and playwrights in the area,” agrees Ira, noting that he would like to begin staged readings and group critique opportunities for local playwrights.
It’s all part of the collaborative theater community Theatre in the Park has helped build in Raleigh. “It really is a special theater community here,” says Ira, “and it is always growing.”
David concurs: “There is such a feeling of cooperation … We depend on each other for so many things—for talent, for technical expertise, for costumes, scenery … When one theater succeeds, we all succeed, and the more the audience knows about what it is we do, the better we become because they demand the best from us.” This principle has driven Theatre in the Park’s work for decades, and if all goes according to plan, it will continue to do so for many years to come.
David and Ira Wood had a lot more to say in our interview, but space limitations meant we had to leave out a lot of it. If you’d like to read an extended version of the interview, with a rich discussion of Raleigh’s theater history and the role of theater in the community, click here.
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