What Would Paulus Do?

Diane M. Paulus ’87 wears a navy blue suit to her office, but not without a thick silver bracelet spiraled around her wrist. The flashy piece of jewelry set against the somber hue of her skirt and jacket hints at the tension between the art and business sides of drama, a tension Paulus negotiates daily as the new artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre. “The primary mission of the A.R.T. is to advance the art of theater,” says Robert Brustein, the A.R.T.’s co-founder. And since her hiring this spring, Paulus has worked to create a program that will fill the A.R.T.’s currently empty seats, restabilize its financial situation, and maintain its reputation as a beacon for innovative theater.

Yet it is her charming smile that reveals most about Paulus’ plans for the 2009-2010 season. She hopes to lure every Harvard student to her theatrical events, integrating the A.R.T. more fully into campus life.

“At the top of my agenda is to make the A.R.T. the most thriving, vital center for theater at Harvard,” she says.



THAT WAS THEN THIS IS NOW

When Paulus was a Harvard undergraduate in the 1980s, the American Repertory Theater was just such a center for students involved in theater.

“Being a student here at Harvard and coming to the A.R.T. and seeing shows in the mid-80s was a huge influence on shaping my vision for the possibilities of theater. The work they were doing here was so bold and innovative,” she says. “It was a really important influence in saying, ‘Wow! You could do this professionally.’”

Paulus has now come full circle, returning with an aim to give the theater and Harvard what it gave to her in her school days: the impetus to create art. Though Paulus’s experience as a Harvard undergraduate motivated her to pursue theater as a career, the A.R.T. plays a strikingly minimal role in campus life today. Few apart from those students heavily involved in dramatic arts can say that Harvard and the A.R.T., a university affiliate, have been as nurturing to their artistic development. In fact, most undergrads outside of theater have little notion of what the A.R.T. is besides a clever acronym for the concrete building on Brattle Street.

“It’s a shame that students that aren’t involved in theater don’t know about the A.R.T. I’ve met so many students who don’t even know it’s there,” Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) board member Olivia A. Benowitz ’09 says. “I just think that if we’re going toward finding a solution about integrating the art into the Harvard community, the first question is why Harvard students aren’t coming to see the shows.”

Benowitz, among other students, feels that the A.R.T. needs to improve its student outreach. “If Harvard doesn’t feel like it’s the A.R.T.’s friend, then it’s not going to go,” she says.

Changes as simple as postering around campus and advertising the free college nights for every production could have a dramatic effect on the A.R.T.’s integration into campus life, Benowitz adds. Additionally, more involved efforts like seeking faculty support for the shows and hosting lectures and workshops with visiting and resident professionals might increase the A.R.T.’s campus presence.

Paulus believes that the main solution lies in producing shows that Harvard students would actually want to see.

“You have to foster that feeling that ‘I have to see that event!’” she says. “That’s what I’m trying to do with every show I program.”

As part of this plan, Paulus has begun to line up productions for her 2009-2010 inaugural year. One of these works will be an adaptation of the ancient Greek drama “Prometheus Bound.” Paulus is already collaborating with Serj Tankian, the lead singer for System of a Down, and Steven Sater, co-producer of “Spring Awakening,” on the music, which will take its lyrics from Sater’s successful Broadway musical.



SPACE ODYSSEY 2008

Improving the relationship between the Harvard student community and the A.R.T. also includes rectifying its currently contentious relationship with HRDC, with whom it shares the Loeb Drama Center. The Loeb was formerly an exclusive student space, but students’ time on the main stage was reduced to six weeks when the A.R.T. was founded in 1980. HRDC member Daniel Pecci ’09 sighed when asked to describe the nature of interactions between the A.R.T. and student theater before explaining that their tense relationship was a matter of compounded frustrations over a long period of time.

“It really comes down to little things that tend to escalate,” Pecci says. “There’s not enough space. I mean, we do our best, but that sort of carries over into this feud. I think Diane, having been here, understands and is the best person for the job to alleviate that tension and to improve the student faculty and professional relationship for everyone’s well-being.”

Despite the resentment HRDC students may still feel over having to share the Loeb Drama Center, both they and other undergraduates involved in theater express a desire for greater collaboration with the A.R.T. and look forward to Paulus’ commitment to improving both the theater and its relationship to students.

“There are so many opportunities for the A.R.T. to get involved in undergraduate theater. They could stop by rehearsal, give advice to student directors. There’s so much [undergrads] could learn from A.R.T. professionals,” theater student Talisa B. Friedman ’09 says. “Having more involvement of the A.R.T. in undergrad theater will be much appreciated and I hope she tries to further that relationship.”



BEYOND BOUNDARIES

Historically, the A.R.T.’s aim of advancing the art of dramatic theater has led to remarkably innovative, if not occasionally risky, work. In 1984, a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” damaged the theatre’s relationship with the playwright when stage directions were interpreted too liberally. Paulus plans to continue and re-invigorate this mission of pushing theater to its boundaries.

“I’m interested in bashing apart any limitations of what that theater should be,” Paulus says.

As a director, Paulus has bashed apart boundaries by emphasizing audience inclusion, integrating music, and combining elements of high and low culture. In her 1999 adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she transformed the classic play into a 70s disco party called “The Donkey Show.” The production, which opened in a club on the Lower East side, offered a visceral experience, and people poured into the seat-less “theater” to dance, cheer, sing, and smoke with the cast.

“I really think her work is about reinforcing that idea of the communal effect, of getting people together in the same place, seeing something together, sensing bodies in the same room, hearing people breathe,” Pecci says. “It’s a human experience. Someone smells. It’s not like you’re home by yourself watching something on your laptop.”

Paulus understands the importance of an active audience to her work. “The audience is just as culpable as the creators of the art in terms of shaping how we do theater,” she says.

But the difficulty of producing likeable plays that manage to be original is an important balance for Paulus to strike.Brustein sees her as up to the challenge.

“She knows how to appeal to people who have minds and imaginations and are cultivated and have read a lot, and to an audience that may have never been in the theater before,” Brustein says. “That’s a marvelous combination.”

This summer, Paulus directed a revival of “Hair” for Shakespeare in Central Park, a free annual event in New York City. Under the moon, in the rain, and even during lightning storms, “Hair” presented audience members with an opportunity to sing, dance, and experience what the musical claims to be about: freedom and hope for the future. Staged right after the Democratic and Republican conventions, the show was especially timely.

On closing night, audience members flooded the stage singing the show’s songs. In one climactic moment, an elderly bald man moved away from security guards to the center of the crowd and unfurled a peace flag covered with a dove and a rainbow. People started weeping.

“This is why I do theater,” Paulus says. “When the show ends, something starts to happen and you are changed.”



A TIMELY MESSAGE

With the Task Force for the Arts questions the university’s role in sustaining and creating culture, Paulus’s commitment to the A.R.T. as a flourishing center for undergraduate theater at Harvard comes at an ideal moment. Paulus hopes to provide the Harvard community with moments as transformative as those experienced during the final performance of “Hair.” Her dream is for every Harvard student to see at least one A.R.T. production in his or her time here and incorporate the experience into Harvard’s many traditions.

“If I can touch people and show them what theater can be, how vital, how transformative, people will remember that and that will build our support for tomorrow,” Paulus says.

—Staff writer Ama R. Francis can be reached at afrancis@fas.harvard.edu.