Monika Browne-Ecker ready to inaugurate the next act of the Theatre B – InForum

MOORHEAD — As a child growing up in Warsaw, Poland, Monika Browne-Ecker remembers feeling comfortable as a spectator in the city’s vibrant arts and theater scene.

“Warsaw is a huge city and we had access to art and different ways of doing theatre,” she said.

Browne-Ecker, who took over as Theatre B’s general director on Aug. 1, intends to create a similar welcoming environment in Fargo-Moorhead’s performing arts scene.

“When you go to a show, you’re not the only vulnerable person in the room. I want more people to feel that way,” she said. “I aspire to bring theatre experiences to others, to show them that being in the audience is a way to be inspired and emotionally fulfilled.”

Browne-Ecker has been involved with Theatre B for many years, discovering it when she and her family moved to North Dakota in 2008.

“Theatre B reminds me a lot of Warsaw,” she said. “I feel incredibly privileged to have grown up in a city that helped shape my way of thinking, and it’s nice to have a bit of that here in the city.”

His active involvement with Theatre B has expanded over the years to include acting, directing and designing various productions.

“I volunteered at Theatre B, then auditioned for my first show and continued to be involved as an artist until I was invited to be part of the ensemble in 2017, and then applied for a job here in 2018,” she said. “After that, I never left.”

As the nonprofit community theater’s only full-time employee, at least for now, Browne-Ecker has many roles to play in an organization facing financial challenges that have plagued many in the local arts sector since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But life is full of unknowns,” she said, noting the challenges and opportunities she faced as an immigrant. “When you move to another country, you open up many avenues and possibilities in your life.”

Although she was still the director of operations and production at the time, Browne-Ecker was already thinking critically about the organization’s future during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adding to the tension, she recalls that the organization received notification in 2022 from the Minnesota State Arts Board that Theater B had lost its funding due to eligibility requirements related to expenses.

“This is a very long-term process for us to recover, even though in 2022 we embarked on a full season of production and everyone was very eager to get back. It just wasn’t enough to make up for the losses that we suffered during the pandemic,” she said. “And frankly, funders in our country, particularly those that focus on the arts, are a little less likely to be patient with this recovery and stabilization of arts organizations.”

Ecker added that the compromise is a two-way street. “They (donors) also have to get back to their normal funding model, and it really shows us that we have to figure out how to be dynamic without being dependent on those donors,” she said.

The theater plans to reapply for funding to the Minnesota State Arts Board when the next grant cycle begins in December.

While waiting for the grant window to open, Browne-Ecker is busy learning her new role, bringing in part-time staff like John Micheels Leiseth as artistic director, Bekah Forness as technical director, and Whitney McClain as operations assistant, so they can begin building an organization that focuses on their art first, funding second.

“I want our artists to be able to focus on what they love,” she said. “It’s incredibly important that our artists focus on the art and not what they were previously doing as volunteers for the organization. It’s a distraction when you’re asking your artists to help with other things like marketing… and now we’re kind of freeing up our artists to really focus on what they love and reminding them of what they’re doing,” she said.

While running a nonprofit theater organization remains fraught with unknowns, what is clear to Browne-Ecker is the unwavering vision for Theatre B’s programming: to bring the community together in meaningful dialogue with thought-provoking theater.

“I personally am looking to introduce Theatre B to a new generation of customers,” Browne-Ecker said. “We’ve been around for 22 years, and a whole generation of customers have grown and matured with us, and they’ve been incredibly loyal and supportive, but there are always new people in our community who just don’t know that we exist.”

Organization leaders hope to connect with the community, starting with a Season 22 preview celebration on Sept. 4 at the RiverHaven Events Center in Moorhead.

“We look forward to strengthening our presence in Moorhead and seeing our artists become bolder in what they dream of now that they have more support from their staff,” Browne-Ecker said. “We are an organization that brings something vital to this community.”

Theatre B will reveal the titles for its twenty-second season later in September. Stay informed on their website at theatreb.org.

What: Celebrating the preview of the 2024-25 season of the Théâtre B

When: 6 p.m. Wednesday, September 4

Or: RiverHaven Events Center, 700 1st Ave N, Moorhead

Tickets: Free and open to the public. Register here.

This article is part of a content partnership with The Arts Partnership, a nonprofit organization that cultivates the arts in Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo. For more information, visit

theartspartnership.net.