The longtime Chicago actor and playwright has chosen a moniker for her new venture that hearkens back to the salad days of storefront theatre. Stormfield Theater, named after the now-defunct company that City Lit artistic director Terry McCabe ran in the 1980s, will “be based around writers and living writers,” says Thatcher. The company kicks off with a staged reading of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Kimberly Akimbo, a dark family comedy about a teenage girl with progeria (the rare disease that causes premature aging), on Nov. 6-8, featuring longtime BoarsHead favorite Carmen Decker in the title role.

Thatcher, who lives in Lansing with her teenage daughter, had been artistic director of BoarsHead since 2005. She learned officially on May 28 that her contract for the 2009-10 season would not be renewed, since the board decided to eliminate the artistic director’s job entirely. BoarsHead was one of at least three professional theatres in Michigan that lost or eliminated their top executives this year. Jewish Ensemble Theater (http://www.jettheatre.org/) in Detroit announced in June that founding artistic director Evelyn Orbach was no longer with the company, and Christina Johnson, executive director of Tipping Point Theatre (http://www.tippingpointtheatre.com/) in Northville, resigned in early May.

There were earlier signs that her job was in peril, says Thatcher. Back in April, she sat in on a board executive committee meeting featuring a call-in from a board member who was in Florida.

“I hadn’t spoken up yet and this guy said, ‘How much notice do we have to give Kristine?’” According to Thatcher, another executive member of the board “looked me straight in the face and said ‘90 days.’” However, Thatcher says, “Then I had a great job review and I thought maybe it was okay.”

“I am not a political animal and I think I made it known to the board that they were cutting people, not lumber [in budget cuts],” says Thatcher. “We had an education director who came on at the same time I did, and he brought in more than twice his salary in grants. He was cut by the board after his first year. I don’t think I handled it very well. There might have been more diplomatic ways to go about it, but there were a number of people being laid off and that was their livelihood.”

According to an article by Bridgette M. Redman of the Lansing State Journal, audits filed with the city of Lansing showed that the BoarsHead net assets grew from a 2007 deficit of $63,288 to a surplus of $13,305 in June, 2008. But Thatcher says that she had agreed to a condition in her contract that gave the board cover for eliminating her job—that the theatre would sell at least 50 percent of its 250 seats every night.

“In this economic time, it was hard to sell all the seats,” Thatcher says. “I was stupid to sign that contract.”

The board also cited the loss of foundation money and donations from local businesses as a reason for eliminating Thatcher’s job. BoarsHead executive director John Dale Smith took over artistic responsibilities for the theatre.

Decker and John Peakes both canceled plans to appear in the BoarsHead season opener, James Sherman’s Beau Jest. Sherman, like Thatcher, is a member of the playwrights’ ensemble at Victory Gardens Theater. BoarsHead had also featured fellow ensemble member Jeffrey Sweet’s Bluff over the summer. Thatcher says that both Sweet and playwright Paul Slade Smith, who has also been produced at BoarsHead, have been very encouraging of her new venture.

“[The board] didn’t understand exactly what I did, because they were all business people,” says Thatcher. “As a friend of mine said, ‘They thought they were making toothpaste.’ But that isn’t what we were making at all.”

What Thatcher hopes to make with Stormfield is a company based in the Old Town neighborhood of Lansing that produces new plays. The name comes from a work by a great American writer: Mark Twain’s short story, “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven.” Thatcher says she asked McCabe, an old friend, for permission to resurrect the name and he was enthusiastic about it.

“The thing about the name that always appealed to me is that when you go to a play, you sit in small groups, live and around you, and you watch this storm unfold on stage,” says Thatcher.

Thatcher is in the midst of scouting board members and raising money for her new venture right now, hoping that the goodwill she banked during her time at BoarsHead will translate into support for Stormfield. The readings of the Lindsay-Abaire play take place at Studio 1210 in Lansing, next door to the Lansing Arts Council, and Thatcher hopes a fully staged version of the play can kick off the new company’s first season.

Anyone interested in purchasing tickets for the reading or making donations to Stormfield can do so by calling 517/372-0945, or sending a check made out to Stormfield Theater to: The Greater Lansing Arts Council, 1208 Turner Street, Lansing, Michigan 48906. Thatcher says she is also open to receiving submissions of new scripts through the arts council address.