Arts :: Theater
Keeping the community in theatre by Brian Jewell
contributing writerThursday Aug 21, 2008 Peter DuBois on the Huntington’s future
Peter DuBois has a novel way of ending an interview. "Do you want to meet my dog?" he suddenly asks as our conversation winds down. It might sound abrupt but its rather charming, and certainly in keeping with the energy and enthusiasm he brings as the new artistic director of the Huntington Theatre. At 37, DuBois is the youngest AD the Huntington has ever seen, and fresh ideas are one of the things he brings to the table. He also has an impressive resume that includes a five-year tenure at New York’s prestigious Public Theater, including stints as associate producer and resident director.
For DuBois the move to The Huntington offers more benefits than the ability to bring his black Lab, Simon, to the office. In an interview with Bay Windows, DuBois spoke enthusiastically about what an "amazing opportunity" it is to build on the work of outgoing AD Nicholas Martin, particularly the new performance spaces of the Calderwood Pavilion. "It’s like having a Broadway and off-Broadway theater in one," says. "There’s so much opportunity here with these three diverse spaces." Diversity was a recurring theme in our discussion, which ranged from the Huntington’s role in the Boston theater community, to bringing new audiences and voices to the stage, and DuBois’s eclectic first season, which runs the gamut from two world premieres to a revival of The Corn is Green.
Q: I heard that the highlight of last week’s Boston Theater Conference was your discussion with Diane Paulus [new Artistic Director of American Repertory Theatre] and Curt Columbus [Artistic Director of Trinity Rep.]
A: It was great. There are over 200 companies now in Boston, which blows my mind. Diane and I are colleagues, and I really liked Curt, so I feel like there’s a lot of camaraderie among the three of us. I think that’s exciting, because I don’t know if that’s historically always been the case.
Q: Could this lead to collaboration between the theaters?
A: Absolutely. Diane and I are talking about that. We’ve been talking about doing some salons when we have guest artists in, and getting together with Boston artists and mixing it up. Looking at how between the two theaters can work on unifying the community and getting a larger dialogue going. And I’ve been thinking about having some gatherings in the Calderwood Pavilion on a dark night that are basically just parties. Because conferences are great but they’re once a year. We need to create social space for artists.
Q: What other plans do you have for using the Calderwood more?
A: We’re going to be converting the Deane Rehearsal Hall into a cabaret space. I’ve got a lot of friends who are Broadway stars who are working on cabaret shows, like Euan Morton, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Lea DeLaria. The idea is you can order some food and wine and see a show. I come from the Public Theater, where we have Joe’s Pub as one of our theaters, and I think when you have cabaret and music and standup in the mix, it adds a new energy. And we’re doing more with the "Huntington Presents" idea. We’re bringing Carrie Fisher and Adam Pascal, and we’re very close to finalizing four other deals.
Q: What about local talent?
A: For cabaret or in general?
Q: Well, both. Start with cabaret.
Bevin, my artistic associate, has done a huge amount of research into the local scene, looking at Boston and Providence. I also did a round of auditions when I first got here. I saw 90 people in 2 days, including some cabaret-type performers. We’re thinking about doing a night dedicated just to local talent. I don’t think Boston has the critical mass necessary to fill out a series, and there’s a lot of work outside Boston that people want to see. To create the level of theatrical experience that we want to create, it’s got to be about combining the best of what’s here with what’s outside.
Q: That sounds like an extension of what the Huntington has been doing with casting, balancing local talent with actors from New York.
A: I think Nicky [Martin, the previous Artistic Director] has been extraordinary with that. We have people here whose primary job responsibility is local casting.
Q: What about you? How do you approach finding that balance between local and outside talent?
A: We do local auditions for each show. If the director can’t come to Boston, we’ll bring the actors to New York. Our next show has Will LeBow and Jeremiah Kissel, who are both Boston based actors. There’s amazing talent here and there’s also talent that’s maybe more raw. So how do you help develop that talent, so that the pool of actors continues to grow? Chicago has really been great at that. That community has trained itself. It’s not New York transplants moving to Chicago. What I love about that city is that it supports theater and so the actors have really developed their craft by being on stage and working with exceptional directors. And I think there’s the opportunity for that in Boston. I’ve been really impressed with the talent I’ve seen here.
Q: The Huntington has also been a leader in new play development. How are you going to continue that work?
A: I take the long view with plays. When I work with writers, like David Grimm or Chay Yew, I tend to work with them over long periods of time. I’ll have the draft of the script 2 years before the actual production. Once the first draft is done, there’s the opportunity to take a few days with a group of actors and really pull the play apart and develop it. We did a pilot version of this this summer. Next summer the plan is to take a playwright and director out to Provincetown for a week to work on the play. I actually just go back from working with David Grimm on The Miracle at Naples. So then week two, a group of actors comes out and they do scene work. At the end of the week a designer joins them, and they start staged readings. Then the designer, playwright and director come back to Boston and spend time in the theater with the production staff. So the staff develops a community around the play. They develop an early emotional attachment to the play. That’s a real estate term. They say you shouldn’t have early emotional attachments to apartments.
Q: But it’s your art, how can you not be attached?
A: You’ve got to! So a community builds around the piece. And the audience gets exposed to it in its nascent stages, so that when it comes to production the audience is rooting for it. That’s one of the primary focuses in terms of new play development, to allow the writer and director to make the play really good. By the time they go into rehearsal they have a really strong script. That’s a step that hasn’t been in place here. There are some bucolic new play development things, like Sundance and the O’Neill Center, but there isn’t one connected to a professional theater with a commitment to production. One of the problems right now is that theaters are over-commissioning writers. When you tell them, we’re committing to producing your play, that’s a totally different ball game. When Nicky came here he wanted a theater where he could do new work. That’s how the Calderwood Pavilion got built. So it’s an amazing opportunity to come in, and the space is already there, and say how do we build on this. I’m excited. I love it there. I live in the South End, I love the neighborhood.
Q: How are you going to bring the neighborhood in, and other communities? People are always saying that the theater audience is aging, it’s dwindling...
A: I think it’s critical to tap the neighborhood and the university communities. But I think there are misconceptions about risky work vs. audience age. I don’t think older audiences are more conservative necessarily, and I don’t think younger audiences are more progressive, necessarily, in terms of their taste for theatre. I did a wild play at The Public called Measure for Pleasure. It was bawdy and very funny but very edgy. It pushed a lot of buttons. Night after night, I saw the white-haired people loving the play, just eating it up. I think we’ll be able to get younger audiences in if the work is vital and of interest to them. So by diversifying the programming, by bringing in cabaret and bringing in younger artists, we’re going to be able to turn things around. In terms of connecting to the community, we’ve been doing a lot of open houses with different groups in the city. Everyone from educators to the LGBT community. We want to open the doors of the theater to everyone. The other thing is giving people access to the work. We’re going to have podcasts on the website, and behind the scenes looks at how the plays are created. We’ll be doing more in terms of post-show discussions and talks with the artists. I’m interested in the idea of connoisseurship. I think it’s what people crave nowadays. You know how in some restaurants you know what farm your lamb came from, and what state your carrots came from? I think we can do something similar with theatre, in giving the audience insight into how the play was prepared. That’s another way to give people a sense of ownership with the work.
Q: Can you say more about reaching out to the LGBT community? You’re continuing the Out and About club, right?
A: Yes. It used to only be a couple of show a year. Now it’s going to be a subscription night, so you can go for every show. And every show will include a backstage tour and a party. It’s funny, when I came in they were saying, we don’t want it to be like a singles scene. I said, that’s absolutely what it should be! We need to encourage people to come and I know that if I was single, I would want to meet someone with similar interests. It’s such a diverse community here, and it’s spread out across the city. This is one of the great gay cities in America. This is part of why we want to be working in Provincetown, because so much of the gay community goes there. And I want the Huntington to really open its arms to the gay community.
Q: How will that be reflected in the programming?
A: Well for instance, Miracle at Naples has a strong gay love story at the center of it. You know, I started making theatre when I was 5 years old by putting on my mother’s wigs and creating plays about an old lady named Grandma who would take people to the supermarket. Because as a little gay boy my favorite thing to do was go to the supermarket with my mother! So anyway, I feel like being gay has always impacted who I am and what programming I do. I get concerned about programming that ghettoizes a community. You can be gay and love all kinds of things. That said, at Perseverance Theater and the Public, I have consistently done gay-themed theatre that is specific to the community, and I will continue to do that. It’s important to me. There are a lot of different voices I think need to be heard from the stage. I’m working on a new musical about the Filipino immigration to the U.S., and we’re looking at a new play that focuses on issues of class and ethnicity in New England. There are a lot of different voices that need to be heard, and theatre is a great medium to tell those stories. The unifying factor needs to be the quality of the theatrical experience.
Q: So let’s talk more about your first season. It’s very contemporary and eclectic, and you once described it as putting an iPod on shuffle. Is this to sort of clear the palate, or is this the direction the Huntington is gong in?
A: A little of both. I like the iPod metaphor. If you look at my iPod, I’ve got classical, jazz, punk, hip-hop, house, spoken word. I think most people are like that; they have a very diverse range of music that they listen to. What I want to do with this season is take all these genres of theater and try to come up with the most exciting possible version of each genre. I really want the season to be comprised not of seven plays, but of seven events.
Q: And what about future seasons?
A: Well this is going to be a year of listening and seeing what the audience responds to. We’ll always be committed to new plays, and musical theatre, and looking at how we can re-present the classics. Those elements are always going to be there, and then we’re doing some experimenting to find new ways to approach the possibilities of theater and what the audiences respond to. The last thing I want to do is create a kind of isolationist programming agenda. I like to be in a crowded theater with a lot of people who are responding emotionally. I think you can be populist and smart at the same time.
Q: When the Huntington first announced your hiring, there was talk about exciting new approaches to the classics. When you reduce that idea to a blurb it sounds a lot like the A.R.T. So what’s the difference in the aesthetics?
A: Our primary mission is grounded in eclecticism. I only go into a classic when I know there’s a really good reason to do it, when there’s a really strong idea behind it. For instance, we’re looking at setting The Mikado in an Edwardian whorehouse. That feels different to me from what has historically been produced at the ART. Classics have always been done here, but it’s a slice. It’s not the whole pie.
|
|
|
Email
Print
Share
