Preview...
Building a Theatrical Season,
Month by Month

By Robin Pogrebin | New York Times, September 29, 2000

August: It is late morning on a muggy day in August. Most of New York City seems to be rushing to appointments or toiling in air-conditioned offices. But in a cramped, dusty East Village space on 13th Street, four people who make their lives working in the theater are talking about a hat.

This is a costume meeting for the Classic Stage Company's production of "I Will Bear Witness," a one-man adaptation of the diaries of Victor Klemperer. "Witness" is one of four productions that make up the company's current season, and this meeting is one of the countless, painstaking rituals of preparation that the company has gone through over the last several months to make it all come together.

A nonprofit theater's season planning is a craft all its own, one of mundane logistical maneuvering as well as lofty creative ambition; of sleepless-night angst and pride-swelling triumph; of big-picture matters like building audiences and details as precise as choosing a hat. It's a balancing act of egos, schedules, budgets and creative visions. The process is happening at theaters all over the country and at many in New York, but it formally begins in earnest in the spring and ends in the fall. The planning is conducted at many levels, depending on an institution's finances. And it almost always involves a deep and consuming commitment of passion and time.

At the 33-year-old Classic Stage Company, which has an operating budget of $1.3 million and is on a par with Off-Broadway companies like the Atlantic and the Vineyard, the first offering of this season, "Texts for Nothing," started previews yesterday and opens on Oct. 15. It is a one-man performance of prose pieces by Samuel Beckett featuring and directed by Bill Irwin. After that is "Race" by Ferdinand Bruckner, about the effects of the Nazis' election on a group of medical students in Germany in 1933. This will be performed in repertory in February and March with "I Will Bear Witness," which was adapted for the stage by Karen Malpede and George Bartenieff and will be performed by Mr. Bartenieff. These will be followed by "In the Penal Colony," a music-theater work by Philip Glass based on Kafka's story, which will run in June and July.

Watching this theater company create its season over the last six months offers a window into not only the running of a small nonprofit institution but also the making of art.

March: When Barry Edelstein, 35, was selected to be the artistic director of the Classic Stage Company in 1998, one of first things he did was call artists he had worked with in the past to say, essentially, "I'm running this theater now; come work with me." The first of them was Mr. Irwin, perhaps best known for his performance with David Shiner in the hit Broadway show "Fool Moon." Mr. Irwin had performed a version of "Texts," developed by Joseph Chaikin, in 1991 at the Public Theater. He wanted to go a little further with the Beckett play, in which he brings his clowning skills to portraying a tramplike figure searching for his place in the universe.

At this point, everything looks like a go: scheduling has been worked out, and the theater has agreed to Mr. Irwin's idea of building a large hillside with water and real dirt. Doug Stein will design the set. The one sticking point is getting the rights to the material from the Beckett estate, famously zealous in controlling the staging of the playwright's works. Mr. Irwin has had an exchange of letters with Beckett's nephew, Edward, in which Mr. Beckett has expressed some reservations about the project. In particular, he is opposed to any changes, and Mr. Irwin had hoped to perform 5 of the 13 original texts with a few minor excisions for pacing. This is nail- biting time; will Mr. Irwin get the green light or won't he?

It looks promising, but projects do sometimes fall through. In just a few weeks, Classic Stage's original choice for its fourth slot, an adaptation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," which takes place in a giant swimming pool, will evaporate because of scheduling problems with the director, Mary Zimmerman.

In choosing material, Mr. Edelstein says, several considerations are at work. First of all is scheduling. That includes questions like "Is so- and-so free then?" and "Who's going to come downtown in May to see a play about the Nazis?" But more important is the composition of a season. Classic Stage's mission is to present classics for contemporary American audiences, which means rewriting and reimagining works that already exist. The company's last two seasons have included "Naked," by Luigi Pirandello; Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"; and "The Misanthrope" by Molihre.

"That's what makes my job exciting," Mr. Edelstein says. "You're dealing at an incredibly abstract level with big philosophical questions: What is a classic? How does time intervene to change a piece of art? Then you have to find a community of artists who have perspective on that."

"What I'm trying to talk about is the deep inner heart of the play the way men and women relate, the way that power works, the questions that are at the heart of what the drama is talking about," Mr. Edelstein continues. "You can slap a three-piece suit on Hamlet; does that make a contemporary work? I don't think so. Yes, these plays survive across time. But aspects of these plays don't, and when they don't you learn that society has changed. So thinking about a play from 400 years ago, you have an opportunity to think about our world."

April: In planning a season, a theater also has ticket sales to consider, and featuring stars can help get people in the door. In the two seasons that Mr. Edelstein has been at Classic Stage, the company has featured Uma Thurman, Mira Sorvino and John Turturro. But he is frustrated because some people now associate Classic Stage with celebrities. "Those are the ones that generate attention," he says.

"The strategy is to cast the best actor for the part," he adds. "Of course, it's also to explore exciting people we think audiences are going to want to see."

Stars also matter to Beth Emelson, 34, Mr. Edelstein's partner as the company's producing director, because she is concerned with building Classic Stage's audiences. "Beth's challenge to me," Mr. Edelstein says, "was, `Give me two names people know in each season brochure.' "

Whether because of big names or because they simply like the shows, more and more people are coming to Classic Stage these days. In the last two years, the theater's membership has increased to 1,200 from 224. Now, thanks to an $850,000 capital campaign that is also paying for a new lobby, renovated bathrooms and a raised ceiling, the theater will have not only central air but also central heat. In the past the theater used two gigantic gas blowers that were so loud they could be used only before performances and at intermission. While it may seem to most like an incidental upgrade, to the theater it is a seismic change; whereas Classic Stage functions 12 months of the year, it has been able to earn money only during seven of those months. And the season as a whole is looking grim, with two Holocaust plays and an opera about capital punishment coming on the heels of Beckett.

In a later meeting, Classic Stage's production team gathers to talk nitty-gritty numbers. In addition to Mr. Edelstein and Ms. Emelson, those present are Angela Wendt, the costume designer for "Race" and "Witness"; Rachel M. Tischler, the theater's new general manager; and Ian Tresselt, production manager.

Ms. Wendt asks what her budget will be for the two shows. "The whopping sum of $9,000 for both," Ms. Tischler reports. But Ms. Wendt, who designed "Rent" on Broadway, doesn't blink. Somehow, actors, directors and designers who work in the big time are also willing to lend their talents to a theater like Classic Stage for considerably less than their normal fees. Mr. Edelstein and Ms. Emelson often say it's because they make up in personal attention what they can't offer in compensation. But the creative people say it's because they simply go where the good work is.

"This is one of the most exciting forays I've every made," Mr. Irwin says. "And it's as well supported here as it could be anywhere in the world."

"The mortgage," Mr. Irwin adds, "will have to be paid by some other kind of work."

Contents produced by JSM | Ed: December 10, 2001