Early support came from the City of San Jose's Fine Arts Commission, which provided funding and worked to help create a viable board of trustees.

Artistically, San Jose Rep was a bit uneven, but given its age, many productions were surprisingly high quality and were given excellent critical notices and are still revered by patrons.

Educator Stevie Coyle; Cecilia Pang, Associate Chair of Theatre and Professor at University of Colorado, Boulder; Kelvin Han Yee,American actor of Asian descent with a successful film, television and theater career, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Associate Artist, director and resident actor -James Edmondson; Oregon State Representative Peter Buckley (D-Ashland); and Kenneth Kelleher, artistic director of Pacific Repertory Theater.

The arrival of Timothy Near as artistic director in 1987 signaled the theatre's commitment to produce plays that spoke to the city's diverse community both directly or by inflection.

[4] In 1997 the company moved from the Montgomery Theater (attached to the San Jose Civic Auditorium[5][6]) into the Sobrato Auditorium, a new building in downtown San Jose that was built specifically for the Rep. No longer restricted by space or required to share their venue with other organizations, the Rep was able to offer a wider range of programming, produced to high artistic and technical standards.

[4] Artistic Director Timothy Near's vision of reaching the ethnically diverse San Jose population was highlighted by opening the newly built new home of the Rep with the West Coast premiere of Thunder Knocking on the Door by African American playwright Keith Glover, with a Rep-commissioned score by Michael Butler and local blues legend Chris Cain.

Lombardo joined the financially struggling company[14] after 13 years as the producing artistic director at New Repertory Theatre in Boston, where he was credited with bringing in a younger and more diverse audience.

About the closing, Lombardo had this to say: I was in mourning, it was the same grief I felt when my parents died.The Rep started performing at the 500+ seat Montgomery Theatre, owned by the City of San Jose.