With Scott Beers, conversations always turn back to the stage.

The 36-year-old founder and artistic director of Brüka Theatre of the Sierra dons many hats: director, actor, grant writer, businessman. To keep Brüka — now in its 12th season — vibrant, he’s done it all, but he lives to put on shows.

“We’ve done a lot of plays, and that’s the exciting thing,” Beers said. “Just getting lost in the play.” In 1991, Beers opened Brüka in Nevada City, and two years later moved it over the hill to Reno. Money was meager, but he was convinced Reno had an underserved audience: children.

For three years, Brüka’s adult actors produced programs for kids. Then the theater’s leaders gave mature audiences a try. More than a decade later, the theater is one of the most successful in Northern Nevada.

VIM AND VIGOR

Children’s theater still is in the repertoire, but those shows are matched by an ambitious schedule of main stage productions, ranging from classical to avant-garde. Whatever the company produces, it does so with zeal.

That’s what attracted actor Michael Grimm to join shortly after moving to Reno in 1996. Grimm had made the rounds to most local theater companies when he stumbled on a Brüka production of The Mystery of Irma Vep. Back then, Brüka was producing plays in a small room on the second floor of the Reno Masonic Temple.

“By the end of the show they were all sweating,” Grimm said. “I could just tell there was a different passion involved in the shows. ... Other shows in town might have had more of a budget, had a little more backing and money and stuff, but I was intrigued by the garage-type of performance that was going on there.”

Today, Grimm is one of Brüka’s most prolific performers and directors. Last year, he directed William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, adding to a Brüka résumé that includes two original productions and numerous starring roles.

“The great thing is that we’ve grown,” Grimm said. “I don’t think if the company hadn’t grown, and me grown with them, that I would have stayed with them. It’s that concept of, ‘OK, we’ve done this. Now what can we do?’”

DOWN TO EARTH

Brüka graduated from producing bare bones shows on the second floor of the Masonic Temple to full-time theater space on the building’s first floor in 1997. Today, Brüka’s theater, on the corner of South Virginia and First streets, is a crux of the downtown arts corridor. But gaining a full-time venue didn’t separate the group from its earthy roots.

To look at Brüka’s space during a dead week is to walk into a small, bleak room that, more than anything, is black. Every wall is slathered with dark paint, making it a chameleon of sorts. With no distracting color on the walls, production designers can transform the venue into anything from a seedy German cabaret to a warm family home.

“You never know, when you go in there, what the setup is going to be,” said Reno’s Debbie Smith, a regular Brüka patron. “They change it so often.”

Often, however, you’ll find the famous Brüka couches. When setting up shop, Beers decided to forgo traditional theater seats, instead inviting audiences to lounge on a mismatched collection of sofas.

“That’s one of those things that, man, I would piss some people off if I ever changed that,” Beers said. “I just felt like the more I could do to make (audiences) feel like they were comfortable, whether they were dressed up or in jeans and a T-shirt, would be good.”

The strategy seems to be working, as Brüka audiences have grown over the years. The company now supports eight full-scale productions a year on its Main Stage, plus a schedule of smaller shows in an intimate, downstage venue called Sub-Brüka. The Main Stage theater seats between 80 and 85 patrons, and it can be tough to find a ticket after a show’s first couple of weekends.

“I think that’s really the only thing that keeps us going, is the steady word-of-mouth and the dedicated patrons of the theater,” Grimm said. “There are some people, the faces, I know them by heart now.”

Smith probably has one of those faces, because she’s been visiting Brüka for years.

“I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve been going there, but years ago for my birthday I asked my family for a theater pass,” she said. “I just would call some friends and say, ‘Hey, let’s go.’ And then pretty soon that started snowballing. ... There’s about a dozen of us women who go every season.”

Smith attends performances by other local theater companies, but she said Brüka is her favorite because its productions tackle real life. She and many of her friends volunteer or work in fields involving social justice — such as family violence, women’s rights — and Brüka’s plays often address those topics.

“They dare to be real is the way I kind of look at it,” Smith said. “There will be instances in certain plays where we willbe cringing because we know it too well because we work so directly with these issues ... It kind of pushes us to recognize our work isn’t done.”

Past Brüka productions have included ’night Mother, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a woman on the verge of suicide; and Buried Child, playwright Sam Shepard’s tale of family tragedy. But the company isn’t all doom and gloom. Earlier this year it wrapped the showbiz comedy Ruthless! The Musical, and in May, Beers directs Shirley Valentine, a comedy about an English housewife in a rut.

FROM THE HEART

Brüka Producing Director Mary Bennett said much thought goes into the way a season of shows unfolds.

“We put it in all sorts of orders,” she said. “We think about what’s going to fit. ... A lot of it just comes from your heart.”

She and Beers discuss plays and toss ideas around with potential directors and actors, sometimes as much as two years in advance of the proposed show date. By April, Bennett said, the theater had a pretty good idea of its 2005-06 season.

For the current season, Bennett said, Brüka had a $180,000 budget, about one-third of that funded by individual donations. Grants covered another third, and the slack will be picked up by ticket sales, she said. Some companies are more reliant on grants, but Beers said Brüka does whatever it takes to keep the doors open.

“When all of a sudden the funding isn’t there for culture, you have to go to the street or you close up and die,” he said. “Theater is fragile. You just want it to succeed.”

AGAINST ALL ODDS

By most accounts, Brüka is an unlikely success. According to The Small Theatre Handbook, the average life of a small theater that survives more than one season is six seasons. Brüka has doubled that.

Still, running the company isn’t easy. Beers and Bennett are the only full-time employees, and they supplement their salaried positions with additional jobs. Among other duties, Bennett works on theater education projects, and Beers has a yearly contract doing organizational chores for Burning Man.

Neither, however, seems beaten down by the long hours; and Beers grins when he talks about their salaries.

“We make less than a Burger King employee,” he said, “but we’re quite rich emotionally and spiritually.”

Shirley Valentine. Written by Willy Russell. Directed by Scott Beers. Shows at 8 p.m. May 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 14.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Written by Paul Zindel. Directed by Rod Hearn. May 27, 28, June 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 30, July 1 and 2. Matinee at 2 p.m. June 12.

As Bees in Honey Drown. Written by Douglas Carter Beane. Directed by Kahele. Shows at 8 p.m. July 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, Aug. 4, 5, and 6. Matinee at 2 p.m. July 17 (part of Artown 2005).

Brüka Theatre is at 99 N. Virginia St. For reservations and more information, call 323-3221 or visit www.brukaland.com

Forrest Hartman is the arts editor and film critic for the Reno Gazette-Journal.