WHAT’S ON THIS WEEKEND—AND WHY IS IT ON?

 By Wendy Orley 

Rain or shine, Albuquerque’s theatres regularly offer between five and ten choices of live entertainment to our residents and visitors every week.  If you haven’t tried a range of theatres yet, interesting experiences await you—and all at very reasonable prices. 

So how do the boards and, specifically, the artistic directors at the Guild’s 18 theatre groups decide what shows to put on?   More factors are involved in the process than you might expect:  costs, available resources, demands of the local audiences, and—ultimately—creative imagination.  

Since most of our theatres rely heavily or entirely on box office receipts, costs are constrained by attendance.  Plays under copyright must obtain permission, which also entails a rights fee of, usually, $50-$100 per performance.  Special effects, period costumes, or particular set requirements may put expenses for some plays beyond the reach of small groups.  Albuquerque’s theatre community can offer such a wide range of productions partly because they run on mostly on volunteer power.  Actors, designers, set builders, light and sound operators, box-office workers, and publicity managers all give their time and talent as volunteers.  A few companies are able to offer directors a small honorarium, but otherwise, these productions are given as a gift to the community. 

Constraints on available resources go well beyond costs.  A play may require running water, front curtains, or actors of a certain age, race, or size.  Without a large pool of Asian actors, for example, it would difficult to mount Wayne Wang’s adaptation of Amy Tan’s popular The Joy Luck Club.  Large-scale musical theatre may be able to use makeup for their Flower Drum Song, but drama staged in a small space requires more.  

Many of our small theatres survive because they have a very loyal group of local followers or because they occupy a particular niche in the overall scene.  Albuquerque is fortunate to have organizations committed to performing works by and about people of color, those with disabilities, the Hispanic community, children, seniors, gays and lesbians, etc.  We also have groups committed to developing and performing improvisational theatre, physical theatre, the works of Shakespeare, and the works of new writers—from New Mexico, New York, or New Zealand. 

So, while each individual theatre may not attempt a full spectrum of tragedy, social satire, modern masters, and musicals, for example, Albuquerque culture fans can sample any of these and more through the year by selecting from the many offerings available around town.  Recent Broadway and off-Broadway award-winners often get their regional premieres here, due to the diligence of local artistic directors in pursuing rights.  Perhaps the most important element in the selection of an organization’s season is maintaining a broad knowledge of what is out there—dramatic literature, world drama, new drama—and using a creative imagination about how a production might work, given the constraints of their performance space and budget, or how to create a new take on a familiar work.  In fact, one of the great joys at Albuquerque’s theatres can be to see how directors and designers use their imaginations to overcome the “handicap” of having to work with very limited resources.  For a production of She Stoops to Conquer a few years ago at the Adobe, designer Barbara Bock made some costumes of plain, white fabric, but painted on the ornamentation required by the seventeenth-century setting.  Locations are often suggested with clever, minimal scenery—returning to the type of imagination-spurs that were almost certainly employed on the stages of Shakespeare’s day.   

Keeping things new and fresh may involve changing the priorities from time to time.  Sol Arts Performance Space, for example, has offered a very interesting range of works ranging from the classic Lion in Winter and the London hit Duet for One through lesser- known works by or about well-known cultural icons such as Gertrude Stein and Charles Busch, and also including many new writers.  “This coming season Sol Arts will select entirely from new works and re-imagined classics,” says Artistic Coordinator Kristen Loree, also an Assistant Professor in the UNM Theatre Department.  “All plays and directors go through a discussion at the board level, and the artistic coordinator works out the nitty-gritty.”  Sol Arts also hosts music events and late-night cabarets. 

Albuquerque’s newest Artistic Director, Theresa Reid, is making her mark at the Albuquerque Little Theatre, the oldest and one of the largest theatres in town.  Here is how she sees her task:  “A balance must be maintained between choosing material that is internally inspiring for a theatre company to produce, and will also garner enough public attention to keep the theatre flourishing in the community.  When I sit down to read scripts, this is always in my mind, and I never select a play that I feel is vapid or is lacking a strong heartbeat.  My role as artistic director is to produce seasons of plays that are not only exciting for my company to stage, but will inspire new generations of theatrical artists and patrons.”  ALT’s current season includes a contemporary work dealing with the theme of immigration, as well as classics such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Cyrano de Bergerac, Aida (Elton John and Tim Rice’s recent musical), and a comic evening of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).  

The Vortex Theatre recently celebrated its thirtieth anniversary of offering “classic, contemporary, and cutting-edge theatre” in its black-box space near the University.   David Richard Jones, head of the English department at UNM, was one of the Vortex’s founders and has now returned as President of the Board and Artistic Director.  He brings a wealth of experience in dramatic literature to his task.  “Traditionally, artistic directors have to triangulate audience taste, personal taste, and available talent.  Those who pay no attention to audience taste frequently lose their jobs.  To some of us, the most interesting ones are frequently those with highly differentiated personal taste who also connect with audience desires, even when the latter are un- or semiconscious.  And in many kinds of theatre, another kind of hero-A.D. is one who not only recruits the best available talent but also discovers and nurtures unknown talents.  People often talk, rightly so, about "vision," but most often vision reduces to these three issues.  Otherwise, don't forget charisma—an outdated and unfashionable concept that I believe to be absolutely essential to leadership anywhere.”  The current Vortex season includes traditional and contemporary masters like Shakespeare, Dorfman, Mamet, and Shepard, as well as lesser-known writers Nicky Silver and the “Tuna” team. 

The Mother Road Theatre Company is a new professional company with plans to produce “theatrical performances comparable in production values, financial success, size, and scope to those of other, more established companies, such as the Guthrie in Minneapolis or the Steppenwolf in Chicago.”  Their first season is yet to be finally decided, and the group intends to involve audience participation in the selection process. 

North 4^th Arts space is home to performing arts across the spectrum of theatre, dance, music, and poetry.  Jessica Barkl is the Programming Assistant for Theater at North 4^th/VSA, and Artistic Director of her resident theatre group, In Strange Company.  She has strong, clear ideas about her task:  “I look to find plays that will challenge the company members I have, that would expand their vocabulary as theater artists and keep them growing as artists—and thus make our company grow in the process.  I also look for plays that ask questions of our time, or that asked important questions of the period they were written in.  So, this season we chose to produce The Oresteia and Troilus and Cressida.”  Barkl feels that the explorations in these classics of themes such as war, hedonism, and vengeance are particularly pertinent and poignant for us today.  “Then, of course, we get into the conversation of new plays vs. classics.  Right now, as a company, we are trying to develop new skills and strong skills in all walks of live theater.  My own conservatory training tells me that if you can perform the classics with finesse, you can perform anything.  Our Oresteia was a new adaptation, but not a new play:  new plays require royalties, and as a new company we can't afford that….  VSA is also a presenting house that sees holes in the community with regard to contemporary theater/dance and will present those works.  We noticed, for example, that there isn't a theater here committed to producing works by Native Americans, so we decided that we should, and we have produced two, in addition to cultivating Native American actors, directors, and designers.…  VSA will co-produce any good idea that comes to us that we see isn't already in the community.” 

Perhaps these thoughtful comments from a few of our local artistic directors will prompt audiences to taste the wares on offer at a few theatres they haven’t yet sampled.  Albuquerque’s theatre scene, rich with classics, contemporary works, and a bit of the unknown, surely has something for everyone.  For more information on upcoming seasons, please refer to the ATG calendar.  Jessica Barkl’s comment in full can be found on the ATG blog and there is a profile of her and several other local talents on the “Featured Profiles” page of the this website.  Additional comments are always welcomed.  Please send them to blog@abqtheatre.org 

(Note: ATG’s intention of facilitating interaction among its members includes plans to organize meetings of the artistic directors of its theatres, to allow them to bounce their ideas off each other, and also to attempt to coordinate balanced seasons among the city’s theatres, so that, for instance, there aren’t three productions of the same play in the same year—unless, of course, there’s a very good reason for having three!)