AMERICAN THEATRE | Making My Playhouse Great

The following is a chapter from Sheldon Epps’s new memoir, My Own Directions: A Black Man’s Journey within the American Theatre. For a Q&A with Epps about this ebook and about his profession, go right here.

On this lengthy, rewarding journey, there was actually one highway that was essentially the most fulfilling and rewarding. It was additionally irritating, exhausting, and generally surprisingly treacherous. It was stuffed with great highs and lows. The journey alongside that highway was all about constructing a Great Theatre. Sounds like a reasonably easy objective, doesn’t it? That is what I had in thoughts after I accepted the job as inventive director of the famend Pasadena Playhouse in 1997. By that point I had labored on and off Broadway, on the West End in London and at lots of the nice theatres throughout America, together with the Guthrie in Minneapolis, Cleveland Playhouse, and Crossroads Theatre, and I had the advantage of my four-year stint as affiliate inventive director on the Old Globe theatre in San Diego. I later would seek advice from my time there as my graduate faculty training in what I name “The Art of being an Artistic Director”—and fairly an excellent training it was! And blessedly, I had been watching nice theatre at many nice theaters on this nation and everywhere in the world for many years. So I had a fairly clear thought of what makes for theatre greatness.

Pasadena Playhouse had lots of the important components in place after I received this calling: an extended and illustrious historical past, a ravishing bodily facility, and the theatre is situated in larger Los Angeles, a dynamic metropolis with an viewers for good theatre and an urge for food for good work—regardless of a robust popularity on the contrary. Many of the necessities had been in place to realize this lofty objective. So why not? Surely that’s one thing that may very well be achieved if I gave it, let’s say, an excellent five-year dedication. So why not? Two a long time later, I used to be nonetheless pushing to make this dream a actuality with nice success, inevitable failures, highs and lows, great rewards and causes for pleasure, and most actually by no means every week, month, or 12 months wherein there weren’t nice challenges of all types with a scale from hardly noticeable to catastrophic! All of that was sooner or later. In the second of resolution about starting this journey I had the freedom of dreaming of greatness. Any actually good artist should of necessity even be a dreamer. So why not let the dream start?

I didn’t come to the job strictly as a dreamer or with out preparation. I’d had some superb function fashions who had generously ready me for the job over time. Certainly my latest graduate faculty coaching with Jack O’Brien, inventive director of the Old Globe, had been massively helpful and informative. But I’d had some nice mentors lengthy earlier than that. Going all the way in which again to my days as a younger actor on the Alley Theatre in Houston, when Nina Vance, really one of many pioneers of the resident theatre motion, would come into my dressing room and really sit not simply on, however within the sink and regale me with tales of the early days of creating her theatre. Her tales, advised with theatricality and nice Southern charms, had been each inspiring and sometimes hysterical.

I used to be fortunate sufficient to spend time with certainly one of her compatriots and finest pals, the good Zelda Fichandler, founding father of Arena Stage within the nation’s capital. Zelda was one of many solely folks I’ve ever identified who might communicate extemporaneously in good paragraphs—so simply think about how nice her ready and written speeches had been. Zelda beguiled me together with her personal nice tales of the founding of the motion. She was particularly inspirational when she spoke of “the value” of the work that we do and the way it can change our lives and our society. I met the leonine Lloyd Richards, a pioneering man of colour in our subject (most notably because the director of the primary manufacturing of A Raisin within the Sun and later as accomplice to August Wilson within the growth of his first performs) when he was head of Yale Repertory Theatre and the distinguished Yale School of Drama (now generally known as the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale). A person of few, however principally good and profound phrases, summed up a lot for me when he suggested me to “Keep your eyes on the prize, not on the prizes.” Thanks for that, Lloyd.

And in some methods most profoundly, Garland Wright, inventive director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis throughout certainly one of many shining eras within the historical past of that prestigious theatre. In my temporary however very full time there I used to be capable of spend time in “the court of Garland,” because it was known as, not by him, however rightfully so. This was at a second in my journey after I began occupied with a life as an inventive director, most likely subconsciously. Garland taught me many classes about being an amazing one. Patience, belief, religion, staying out of the way in which till you’re wanted after which getting in the way in which (and figuring out find out how to get in the way in which) when that’s vital. Also figuring out that it’s not all the time vital—that’s the religion half. And vitally, he subtly taught me about having a imaginative and prescient for a theatre that included the artists, the viewers, and the neighborhood, and placing equal worth on all of these “partners in the endeavor,” as he known as them. Garland was one other fellow Scorpio who impressed me together with his good work and his good phrases, which he was all the time cautious to not characterize as recommendation. “Just a thought, do with it what you will,” he would say about small issues or very huge ones in his eloquent and dark-hued baritone voice. My sojourn on the Guthrie was temporary, however oh so helpful to me. The classes of those and plenty of different giants in our subject really ready me to be able to run the theatre. I had an amazing deal to be taught, to make sure. But these icons had given me an actual head begin and actual classes in how to consider creating an amazing theatre and discovering your individual solution to be an inventive chief. Willingness to dream was an idea that all of them shared, which gratefully they handed alongside to me.

The Pasadena Playhouse was based in 1917 by one other mad dreamer named Gilmor Brown. He got here to Pasadena as a touring participant earlier in that century and fell in love with the small however vibrant neighborhood’s bodily magnificence, close to good climate, and his personal sense of the potential of the place. He began his theatre firm in a tiny saloon in what’s now known as the Old Town space of the town. With nice dedication, drive, ardour, and, we’re advised, a particular penchant for charming the “Little Old Ladies from Pasadena,” he managed to construct a ravishing first-class theatre for his firm in 1925. This superb palace of artwork was in the course of an orange grove, a number of blocks from the middle of city. Although its starting was fairly humble and definitely way more neighborhood theatre-based (the truth is the unique title of the theatre was Pasadena Community Playhouse), Gilmor managed to push the corporate into changing into probably the most profitable and well-known theatres within the nation. It attracted well-known actors and administrators and premiered performs by a number of the nation’s most well-known authors. Several years into its life within the magnificent residence that he constructed for the corporate, he charmed just a few extra of these little previous girls to construct an adjoining five-story constructing which housed the Playhouse School for the Arts, which for a few years was thought-about the most effective coaching applications for younger actors within the nation, serving to to launch the careers of Robert Preston, Charles Bronson, Dana Andrews, Sally Struthers, Morgan Freeman, and even ZaSu Pitts. Many years later, two of the varsity’s college students who educated there got slim possibilities for achievement as actors. That can be Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. A pity that their careers by no means went anyplace! That misjudgment apart, Gilmor Brown actually did accomplish exceptional issues at Pasadena Playhouse even earlier than the regional theatre motion actually took maintain within the nation.

Alas, certainly one of his few failings was doing little succession planning. When he handed away, nobody knew fairly how he managed to maintain the place afloat and the place the our bodies had been buried (some say actually!). As a end result, the theatre floundered for just a few years after his dying, and a nasty mixture of monetary points, lax inventive requirements, and the gradual diminution of the recognition of the varsity’s coaching program led to the theatre shuttering in 1968. The as soon as lovely theatre was principally gutted by collectors and went into nice disrepair. Pictures of the state of the theater throughout this era recommend {that a} site-specific manufacturing of the musical Follies would have been very a lot at residence there with out touching a factor! Things received so unhealthy that the theatre was almost torn down with the intention to, as Joni Mitchell wrote, “Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” Indeed, that precise factor very almost occurred. The constructing was very a lot on the verge of being leveled when just a few courageous souls staged a Norma Rae-like protest to cease the progress of the demolition crew. The efforts of this identical passionate group finally allowed the in-terrible-shape-but-still-standing construction to obtain designation for being traditionally important. Bulldozers stand down! The theatre was right here to remain.

Sadly, nevertheless, the constructing didn’t spring shortly from that courageous second into new theatrical life. The theatre was boarded up and remained closed and sadly uncared for for a few years. There are some horrible pictures of what it regarded like as the results of water injury from a leaky roof, lack of upkeep, and occasional vandalism. Finally, a gentleman from the actual property growth enterprise named David Houk got here alongside and saved the day. Mr. Houk truly had little or no curiosity within the theatre or the leisure enterprise. He was a developer. Based on analysis, he had come to be taught that placing a theatre or a performing arts venue on the heart of a dicey neighborhood would and sometimes did improve the worth of the blocks across the venue. David had a imaginative and prescient of getting the theatre reopened, shopping for up and creating the properties across the theatre, and populating the neighborhood with new development of all types that will home residential properties, workplace area, eating places, and retail prospects. His thought, which was a sound one, by no means got here to fruition throughout his time on the theatre. Ironically, what he had predicted and hoped for (and even drawn up on absolutely realized plans) was precisely what occurred a few years later, when the theatre would certainly be the centerpiece of what grew to become generally known as a revitalized Playhouse District that gave the town nice pleasure. He didn’t get all of that accomplished, alas, however in collaboration with the town, he did rebuild, refresh, and reopen the theatre, and blessedly, primarily based on historic pictures and plans, restored it to its authentic Spanish palace-style glory. He made some errors additional down the highway, however he ought to be nicely credited for that accomplishment. After just a few matches and begins, Houk and Associates did get the theatre open and functioning as soon as once more. And truly, it was not lengthy earlier than they had been producing with nice success and as soon as once more being acknowledged as one of many extra necessary of the bigger theatres within the Los Angeles space.

I first directed at Pasadena Playhouse in 1991 on the invitation of Paul Lazarus, a longtime pal from my early producing days of working a small (actually small) theatre in NYC known as the Production Company. Paul, throughout his temporary however thrilling tenure as inventive director, requested me to direct an excellent previous chestnut of a play known as On Borrowed Time. It was throughout the preview interval earlier than the opening of that play that I received the decision to come back right down to the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego to fulfill Jack O’Brien to direct a brand new play known as Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting. That cellphone name finally led to my graduate faculty matriculation throughout my 4 years at that theatre. During that point, I returned virtually yearly to direct at Pasadena Playhouse and fashioned an excellent affiliation with the present government director, Lars Hansen, and plenty of on the workers on the theatre. Sadly, my pal Paul left the corporate quickly after my first manufacturing right here. And not lengthy after that, Mr. Houk himself exited the constructing, giving up his adventures within the theatre to return to actual property growth. Lars Hansen, nevertheless, remained and soldiered on, working each the enterprise and the inventive operations of the corporate.

Lars was the one that invited me again to direct a number of instances, and we fashioned a stable working relationship which shortly would result in an sudden and life-changing invitation. Many suppose that I made the choice to go away the Old Globe as a result of I used to be supplied the place on the Playhouse. That is just not fairly true. For plenty of causes, I knew that it was time to make a transfer after working beneath the auspices of a grant from Theatre Communicaions Group on the Old Globe. One motive was actually that each the grant itself and the munificence of a two-year extension on that grant had been exhausted. The theatre would have been challenged to take care of a full-time wage for me with out that outdoors assist. And I’d have been challenged to remain it doesn’t matter what, on condition that I had hit a stunning however fairly unbreakable glass ceiling on the firm. So, I needed to “Move On,” as Mr. Sondheim would say. After considering a renewed life as a gypsy freelance director again on the highway as soon as extra, dreading the clean white partitions of the visitor artists’ housing, I had already made the choice to maneuver “up North” to Los Angeles to additional pursue a nascent profession as a tv director, hoping for monetary safety eventually, if not full inventive success. When he heard of my plans, I acquired a blissful invitation from Lars to work with him at Pasadena Playhouse as inventive director on a “half-time basis.” A little bit of an odd assemble, however, as I mentioned, why not? Of course, this was by no means the case in fact. Especially as my alternatives started to take off within the land of tv, which generously supported my theatre behavior. I discovered myself the truth is having two full-time careers. Challenging, to say the least, however I used to be younger, robust, pushed, and maybe somewhat bit insane. So, as soon as once more, why not?

Over the course of the subsequent a few years there have been many weeks after I would spend a lot of the day on the set of a tv present and my late afternoons, evenings, and weekends on the theatre on El Molino Ave. constructing the theatre! It was difficult, rewarding, generally a bit reckless, and very often exhausting. But one way or the other I made it work, each for me and, I imagine, the theatre. My work within the tv world fed my work on the theatre and actually instantly influenced the expansion and enlargement of Pasadena Playhouse, as I used to be capable of convey artists, donors, and influencers into the lifetime of the theatre as the results of my collaborations with many passionate theatre lovers who had been now discovering nice success in different areas of leisure. At a sure level the calls for of the theatre, together with my very own slackening vitality for conserving the entire balls within the air, made this juggling act much less attainable, and I drifted away from doing tv work (earlier than it drifted away from me) with the intention to absolutely concentrate on working the theatre.

And concentrate on the theatre I did! I took supportive inspiration from these nice women and men who had fought tough however vitally necessary battles earlier than me. I requested myself these time-honored and most useful questions: If not me, then who? If not now, then when? I targeted on this theater with the imaginative and prescient of constructing an amazing theatre, as I mentioned. Did I ever truly obtain that objective? That is for others to say. But I do know that we had moments of greatness. Many of them. I do know that it was a much better and extra extremely revered theatre after I stepped down from my place after 20 years than it was after I walked into the job with such excessive hopes and nice expectations. I do know that it grew to become a theatre that many acknowledged as first-class—a theatre to which “Attention must be paid!”

The subsequent 20 years of my life can be stuffed with making this occur, which might make for an usually fairly glamorous and starry journey. But it began like this….

Shortly after it was introduced that I’d be ascending to the throne as inventive director of the Playhouse, a really radical weekly newspaper in L.A. did a characteristic story praising the choice however predicting that the waters may very well be a lot lower than easy. The essay pointed to Pasadena’s lengthy historical past of conservative politics and racial division. The author expressed a mixture of shock and awe {that a} Black man had been designated to take a management place at what was then broadly regarded as “a white theatre.” The article, which made some fairly salient factors, predicted that my tenure on the theatre wouldn’t be tolerated by some and would possibly very nicely be fairly quick. It predicted that the fair-skinned constituency of the theatre would discover a solution to make a transition within the close to future (code for “get rid of me”) and take their theatre again! The well-written essay was accompanied by a startling and unsettling little bit of art work: an Al Hirschfeld–like drawing of me boiling in a pot of sizzling oil whereas rich conservative WASP sorts danced across the cauldron with spears and knives. When I noticed the article and the drawing, I used to be considerably agitated but in addition entertained by this aggressive approach of depicting my new inventive endeavor. When my mom noticed it, she merely bowed her head and softly cried. Ever a loving and caring mama! The article, titled “Theatre of the Absurd,” started with this: “Sheldon Epps may be just the man to bring new flavors to Pasadena, a town known mostly for its vanilla.” And later, “Is Epps the man to satisfy the geezers, galvanize the hipsters, placate the board of directors and keep the closet racists at bay? If so, this Black artist leader in a racially complicated community has his work cut out for him.” So very true!

There had been actual causes for concern. Or on the very least, consternation. The Playhouse was designed within the lovely and applicable Southwest mission type, and is fronted by a gracious courtyard with an impressive fountain. This commodious area serves because the theatre’s de facto foyer, given the gracious Southern California climate, which affords up balmy days and nights even within the depths of winter. As each a contract director after which within the early days in my new place, I’d steadily sit in that commodious courtyard because the viewers gathered earlier than a efficiency. It was all too usually the case that I used to be the one particular person beneath 60 going into the theatre and, much more scary, the one particular person of any colour ready for the theatrical occasion to start. Both issues struck me as basically flawed on so many ranges. Warning bells went off as I noticed this present day after day. This represented an amazing problem for me and for the theatre from the inventive, the emotional, and even the enterprise degree. An incredible problem for each theatre in America was an ageing viewers that may quickly disappear if new audiences weren’t recognized and wooed to fill the seats.

The theatre neighborhood was rife with rumors that this Black man meant to show the place into Negro Ensemble Company West and that the prevailing white viewers would quickly be working from the theatre in droves as I programmed one Black play or musical after one other. No one who had paid any consideration in any respect to my profession or my vastly wide-ranging style in materials up so far might have presumably believed that this was true. Nor would it not be if I had any enterprise savvy in any respect. I actually acknowledged that the way in which to shake up this theatre and its viewers was via the programming. And certainly I did need the assist of all of the various communities in larger Los Angeles. I needed that each artistically and emotionally. But would it not be reworked into an all-Black theatre in a single day? Not my goal, not my need, and never my solution to the exit door.

But issues would certainly change. I imagine that any good theatre is pushed by the style, passions, and inventive needs of its leaders, and that’s appropriately. If you don’t imagine in these qualities in an inventive chief, don’t rent that particular person! Yes, I needed to provide performs and musicals by artists of colour (of all colours, by the way in which), however I additionally had a well-demonstrated and wholesome urge for food for Tennessee Williams, Noël Coward, Cole Porter, and Shakespeare!

Here’s one thing to recollect: One of the nice issues about rising up as an individual of colour in America is that you just get to know “your own stuff” and your individual tradition, to make sure. But the well-kept secret is that, if one is sensible, you additionally get to know theirs. Either by selection or necessity, you get to know all the things concerning the white people, however you additionally get to know all the things from your individual cultural expertise. And that’s not usually a two-way avenue. So being an individual of colour is on this regard a profit. I’m pressured to be taught all that you just white people know, and I get to know all that comes out of the Black expertise. It may be very uncommon certainly that artists with out pigmentation profit from this equation. I actually did.

I needed to make nice Art, to make sure. But because the Civil Rights icon John Lewis used to say, I additionally needed to stand up each morning to make “good trouble.” I got down to shake issues up in a significant and vital approach as a result of it was time for the work on the Playhouse stage, and on the entire phases of American theatres, to mirror the thrilling variety, colours, and form of America! So my very first seasons on the theatre did certainly embody selections from the African American and Latino canon of dramatic literature, however blended in with works by Tom Stoppard, Noël Coward, Moss Hart, David Hare, and plenty of others.

These selections had been hardly ever commented on in well mannered Pasadena society, however there have been actually questions within the air. Would long-term subscribers sit nonetheless for such a wide-ranging program, or would they be made uncomfortable by seeing artists of colour on the stage and hopefully in rising numbers within the viewers? Would this chase some folks out of the theatre? Probably. And my agency perception was that it was finest to allow them to go. Running out, I hoped, by no means to return once more, if journeying to a world that was completely different from their very own was an excessive amount of for his or her delicate sensibilities. Let ’em go!

I firmly believed, and it actually turned out to be true, that the small quantity who would go working away can be valuably changed in a lot larger numbers by those that would embrace the magic of variety on the stage and all through the constructing.

Did I do know that for positive? I didn’t. Remember that this was nicely earlier than variety, the “D” phrase, grew to become ever so prevalent at main arts establishments. In truth, Pasadena Playhouse was one thing of a pioneer on this combat. I used to be taking an opportunity, sure. But it was extra a leap of religion. And one which paid off with wealthy rewards for the theatre in each approach. Artistically, culturally, aesthetically, and fairly frankly on the field workplace.

Over the subsequent a number of seasons the reveals that rose to the highest of the gross sales charts had been those who had attraction to audiences of colour. Clearly they had been wanting to be served up good meals from their very own cultures, their very own tales, and their very own experiences. I used to be comfortable to do the serving. And much more comfortable, the truth is proud, to say that this new strategy to programming was by and enormous not solely embraced however certainly celebrated by the prevailing viewers on the theatre even because it attracted hundreds of recent theatergoers of all colours into our home. Those “Little Old Ladies from Pasadena” could have been a bit nervous and even shocked on the very starting, I think. But lots of them grew to become my most ardent and constant supporters.

But earlier than any of the highs or any of the lows, earlier than I had an opportunity to make a theatre nice, and even attempt to accomplish that noble objective, there have been simply questions on how I received there. How did I get myself positioned in that cauldron of boiling oil, daring to convey literal and figurative colour to an establishment which was so pleased with its whiteness? How did this man of colour dare to ascend to the management of this conservative bastion of artwork and tradition in what was probably the most conservative and nonetheless racially divided communities in America?

Others requested these questions, and different questions that I’ve usually requested myself, to be trustworthy. Over the course of an extended and rewarding profession, precisely how did I get into so lots of “the rooms where it happened” even earlier than I received to Pasadena Playhouse? How did I handle to face on the phases of Broadway and the West End theatres? How did I handle to journey via my work to so many mysterious and enchanted locations, together with what they name “The Lots” of Hollywood, the place I’d look as much as that well-known signal on the facet of the hill? As I made my solution to and from phases that had been stuffed years earlier than by the foremost stars of the stage and display screen, and as I shared rehearsal rooms with a number of the legends and brightest lights within the leisure world, there have been many moments when it hit me with a type of blinding actuality that creates each great humility and overwhelming gratitude.

Somehow I used to be truly there. But how did that occur? How did I get from the south facet of Los Angeles—the “colored” a part of city—to all of these rooms and all of these phases? How did I make my approach into the chief workplace of probably the most illustrious theatres in America as its inventive director for 20 years? Especially at a time when it was all too uncommon for an individual of colour to have such an exalted place? How did I get the possibility to work with a number of the biggest actors, administrators, writers, and producers of our time each right here on this nation and everywhere in the world? How did all of that occur?

As I started my lengthy tenure at Pasadena Playhouse and got down to make it an amazing theatre, these questions lingered within the air, within the press, and, to be fairly trustworthy, even in my very own thoughts. How did all of this occur? After all, I used to be only a child from Compton….

Sheldon Epps served because the inventive director of the Pasadena Playhouse from 1997 to 2017.

Related