The Show Must Go On At West Chester’s Professional Theater

WEST CHESTER, PA —Standing in the control booth of Uptown! Knauer Performing Arts Center, Carmen Khan can hardly wait for the show to start.

As the pandemic winds down, Khan, the theater’s first professional artistic director, has been preparing for three theater productions.

“We’re getting ready for theater season,” Khan said Wednesday afternoon, as a group gathered in lobby area to tour the theater, 226 N.High St.

Khan, who lives just several blocks away from the theater, has decades of experience working in professional theater.

“I love it,” Khan, speaking with an authentic British accent, said of live theater.

Khan grew up in London, graduating from the University of London in 1980 with a degree in education and teaching.

Looking for adventure, Khan took a course at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, where she met her future husband, Jack.

From Texas, Kahn moved to Washington, D.C., earning a master’s of fine arts in acting.

In the early 1990s, Khan's friend, Abigail Adams, a fomer executive artistic director of People’s Light, a theater in invited Khan to the theater in Malvern.

Khan moved to downtown West Chester and founded the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre, a nonprofit committed to classical acting.

As the pandemic continued, the Shakespeare theater programs went virtual. Khan was doing commercials. She also wrote a children’s book.

In January, Khan landed a job as artistic director of Uptown, a 1916 armory that has been converted to a 307-seat theatre.

Since then, Khan said she has been preparing for three plays.

The first play is "The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod The Nut, & The Slaughter Of 12 Hit Carols In A Pear Tree." a Christmas play by William Gibson

The play is a comedy/drama about a spunky Mary and the birth of Jesus from a creative perspective.

“I was looking for something different,” Khan said, noting she previously produced the play.

The second play is “The Mountaintop,” a play about Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night on earth set at the Lorraine Hotel.

The third is “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” a comedy based on Mark Twain’s novel.

More information about Uptown's educational, musical, and theater events is available here.