In Boston, On Broadway

On an August day in New York this past summer, Madeleine F. Bersin ’14 found herself at a table surrounded by world-class actors from the cast of “The Glass Menagerie,” a revival of the Tennessee Williams play that the American Repertory Theater had debuted in Cambridge earlier this year.

“The director was asking everyone what time they were first exposed to Tennessee Williams,” Bersin recounts. “And so I just felt like the luckiest little girl in the world, getting to hear all these amazing actors say, ‘Oh, my first exposure to Tennessee Williams was this, this, and this!’”

Bersin, who had been an intern on the show at the ART, also assisted for two weeks in its transition to New York. “I was blown away by being in the room in the first place. And of course, I was not expecting to have to give an answer!” To her surprise, director John Tiffany then asked her to share her own experience.

“To be asked that in that room was so heartwarming and made me feel very included,” she says.  “[What] makes the best theater [is] when you’re really willing to include all your collaborators, from lowly interns to two-time Tony Award winners,” she says.

What was most memorable to Bersin about the experience was not being on Broadway so much as this moment of togetherness with the crew. This sense of sharing in the project of theater is something the ART has been cultivating for the past five years. Since the arrival of artistic director Diane M. Paulus ’88, the ART has been developing a new identity for itself on several fronts, including increased ties to New York, opportunities for Harvard students to assist large productions, and devotion to spreading participation in making theater.

ART HISTORY

Like Bersin, audience members at many recent ART plays may be caught off guard by the invitation to participate in what they are watching. In “The Donkey Show,” which plays in the ART’s OBERON Theater, the audience wanders a disco floor, dancing with actors who run around enacting scenes from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as musical numbers. “Pippin,” a show from last season that went on to win four Tonys, ended with a sudden dismantling of the backdrop so that the actors broke the fourth wall and joined the “real world” of the spectators.

A major aim of ART productions under Paulus is “always including the audience as a partner,” as the ART’s website reads. Whether on the stage or off, whether in costume or not, everyone is a valued participant.

This was historically not always the case. From its opening under Robert Brustein through the first two decades thereafter, the ART ran nationally well-known productions, including several Broadway shows. But by 2008, when his successor had reportedly brought the ART into financial trouble with high-cost, low-revenue, low-attendance productions, a new leader was needed. Hiring Paulus, who had attracted attention with the 1999 off-Broadway premiere of “The Donkey Show,” would be the start of several changes for the ART.

Civry P. Melvin ’14, a former production intern with the ART who worked on the set of “Pippin,”  believes that Paulus bridges a gap between commercial theaters and less accessible intellectual theaters. “She has a foresight to understand what audiences are going to respond to,” Melvin says. “That’s why people like her so much: because she thinks about what an audience is going to respond to and what an audience is going to find interesting.”

BRATTLE TO BROADWAY

One of the most visible signs of this growth in commercial appeal is the new ART’s recent back-to-back sequence of shows that go to New York. This year, both “Glass Menagerie” and “All the Way” will appear on Broadway, following the path of “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” in 2011 and “Pippin” in 2012. But for the ART’s staff, this image of their theater as a kind of “fast-track for Broadway” is misleading.

ART producer Diane Borger acknowledges the trend: “Definitely more shows have gone in the past three years than in the previous 30, so that’s true,” she says. “As soon as you send one thing to New York, the New York people start looking more.”

But these developments, Borger says, haven’t affected her way of looking at the ART’s productions. “We don’t start thinking, ‘Oh, how can we do it on Broadway?’” she laughs. “I think sometimes in the theater, that’s a recipe for failure.” Getting name association with Broadway, to many who have worked on ART productions, is useful for income and publicity, but is not the main goal.

Krithika Varagur ’15, who was a J-Term marketing intern for “The Glass Menagerie,” agrees. “I think the ART wants to be first and foremost providing theater for the Cambridge and Boston metro community,” Varagur says. “So [Broadway is] definitely not like a telos or anything.”

“A VERY DIFFERENT ANIMAL”

There is a great difference between theater and Broadway and at the ART: the ART can afford to focus more on the artists’ vision and worry less about selling tickets. “We are a not-for-profit theater, and so we’re very mission-driven,” managing director William Russo says.

“[This] is what we are here to do: to give the artist that we work with that kind of freedom, to say, ‘It’s okay if it fails,’” Russo says.

By contrast, there are more risks and pressure in for-profit theaters like those in New York. “If a show is done on Broadway, immediately you’re starting with the mission to return the investment and make a profit,” Russo says. “No one’s going to say, ‘Take my $14 million—if you fail, that’s okay!’”

Both Borger and Russo habitually refer to past productions as if each show were a human being. “We can protect a show much more than a Broadway producer in New York can,” Russo says. When he says “protect a show,” his arms make a hugging gesture, as if he were a drawing a child protectively to his chest.

Varagur believes that whether a show goes to New York or not implies nothing about its quality. “There are so many factors involved in getting it picked up for New York,” she says. “There are a lot of things, like availability and what kind of show it is.”

It is also a matter of having industry connections in New York. “Diane Paulus is very well connected, obviously,” Melvin says. “She’s done a bunch of shows on Broadway.… She’s a person that people know in the business. [She and Diane Borger] both have reached out to other producers in New York.”

For each show that does go, the experience is different. One thing is consistent, though. “It will always involve some kind of partnership,” Russo says. “In that partnership, we will participate artistically and financially. When it goes to New York, that commercial partner usually takes over control, and we’re in support of that.”

According to Russo, the New York staffs have more knowledge on marketing shows to a Broadway audience. “It’s a very different animal,” Russo says of New York theater. “It’s kind of like both parties joining at a point where they really have the expertise.”

While management shifts, the same costumes and scenery are transported to the new location. Slight alterations may be made to the direction, and at times cast members may change, but otherwise, it is the same production.

For the cast and crew, Borger says, getting an extension on the life of their show also means having more time to perfect the show. “The artist goes, ‘Oh my goodness! So lucky! I get to do it again! And that scene I never got right? Now I know how to fix it.’”

COMMUNITY THEATER

One outcome of the ART’s spirit of inclusivity and outreach to more potential audience demographics is its improving relationship with Harvard drama students. Through the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, as well as other venues on campus, many Harvard students already participate in non-professional theater. But a chance to work with the ART confers distinct advantages, whether through resume-building internships or through theater workshops offered by staff of the affiliated ART Institute. As there is no theater concentration at Harvard, the role of the ART becomes especially significant.

Bersin, who is the HRDC president, says these opportunities—often with stipends—have been mostly recent implementations. Internships such as the ones Varagur and Melvin did, for example, were not created until recently.

It was one of Bersin’s main goals for the year to create even closer ties to the ART, including more advising for students. “We’re all here all the time, so there’s no reason we shouldn’t be taking advantage of the amazing people that are here,” Bersin says.

She also notes that formerly, relations between HRDC and the ART had more friction. ”I think there was a time when students felt they were being stepped on,” she says. According to Bersin, this came from communication problems and a mentality that each group should keep out of the other’s way. “But now we’re in a place where we can talk and [recognize that] working together actually produces better work,” she says. “There’s still work to be done, but I think we’re moving in the direction of being a more collaborative entity.”

NATIONAL FAME, LOCAL FOCUS

The role of the ART as a professional tool for students is significant not because of the ART’s reputation, but more because of the community values it teaches. For all involved, there is a sense of connectedness—not only for audience, but also among the people in the production.

According to Melvin, Paulus is the main force behind the close bonds forged between actors. “She has this magic where she can take a cast—they don’t know each other at all, and suddenly they become this great community.”

Her own experience with “Pippin” was in keeping with this: “I came in, and this was the first time this cast was meeting each other. And they are still together.… They’re like best friends now. Diane Paulus is really good at creating that community within a cast—really, you can see that on the stage.”

For her own part, Bersin agrees. “I think the ART for sure has been one of the most welcoming places where I’ve worked,” she says. “When you do good work, they recognize it and continue to give you good opportunities, which is what I’ve been so lucky to have here.” Having worked on the sets of “Marie Antoinette” and “Pippin,” she now has many connections and valuable friendships to help her advance in a dramatic career post-graduation. “To feel like everyone that I’m working for and working with knows each other is really great,” Bersin says. “You get this expanding network of people that all have worked with you…and can pass you on to other good people you would like to work with.”

For Varagur, who was not working directly with the cast and is not sure if she wants a career in drama, the theme of connection promoted by the new ART was profoundly impressive.  “Working for a really professional theater like the ART, where everyone is just on point and they bring really amazing quality artists from every field, really oriented me to their goals,” she says. “And I found it really in line with [the ART’s] goals to bring art to the wider community and make it more accessible, so I was really interested in their outreach initiatives.”

Today’s buzz around the ART’s successive Broadway shows fades to secondary significance in the minds of its workers. All interviewed ART staff and interns agreed that repeat Broadway calls are a great phenomenon and well-deserved for the ART. But Borger speaks with as much tenderness of their pieces that go to New York as she does of those that go to London or other destinations. “We’re doing a show this year with a performing arts center in Las Vegas, which probably seems a bit unlikely, but that’s what we’re doing,” Borger says. “I don’t think we rule anything out. We’re like, ‘We could do that! Oh, we could do that!’”

“I just think that if we’re trying to get it out to wider audiences—sometimes it’s on Broadway, sometimes it’s other places in New York, sometimes it’s on tour,” she says. “One of our shows went over to London. So there are many ways for us to give extended lives to our shows.”

The ART’s project to redefine itself is partly reflected by its Broadway streak in recent years. But going to New York is just one chapter in the story of the ART’s modelling of a new identity. After each show in Cambridge, what is most exciting to Borger, Russo, and all those who work with them is the simple possibility of keeping their creation alive. It matters not which afterlife shows have; what matters is that there be some life to be had at all.

—Staff writer Victoria Zhuang can be reached at victoria.zhuang@thecrimson.com.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: November 25, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the time period in which Civry P. Melvin ’14 did an internship on the set of “Pippin.” In fact, Melvin did that internship over the summer, not during January Term.