BOSTON   Michael Bettencourt

The August - September stretch in Boston is a dry one for theatre. The trucked-in shows still show up, but the local scene, except for the Shakespeare in the Park program (a passable Tempest this year), recedes, like an ebb tide, and the theatre energies carom around the Berkshires.  However, some news has trickled through the haze.

Nicholas Martin, who was the resident director for the last two years of theWilliamstown Theatre Festival and last year won an Obie for distinguished director of Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer Vacation, will now be the artistic director of The Huntington Theatre. (Peter Altman, the director for 18 years, has left to be the artistic director at the Missouri Repertory Company.) In a generally laudatory interview/article in the Boston Globe of August 13, 2000, Martin said that "Boston has a vibrant and improving theatre community, but I don't think it's recognized nationally."  He aims to change that, beginning with a season that features Dead End by Sidney Kingsley, a work he has done before at Williamstown.  (Let us hope that the title of the work is not a prophecy of his efforts to revive the Boston theatre scene.)

Speaking of the ins and outs of artistic directors, the Boston Herald, on August 16, had a front-page, above-the-fold story by theatre critic Terry Byrne that American Repetory Theatre head honcho Robert Brustein is "ready to depart."  However, one searched in vain in the article for any quotes from Brustein or ART confirming the story, and the next day, the crosstown rival Boston Globe's Ed Siegel writes an article titled "Brustein says his time not up with ART."  Seems that Siegel actually called ART to get a confirmation.

Did the Herald 'fess up? Nope.  Features editor Kevin Convey and arts editor Greg Reibman stood by the accuracy of the article and justified Byrne's failing to call ART by saying that, if Ms. Byrne had called ART, the theatre would have called the Globe and leaked the story to them because ART does not like the Herald.  (And why should it, when Mr. Reibman has called ART "the most arrogant cultural institution in Boston"?)  To this day there has never been an apology or retraction from the Herald.

On August 6, Charles "Skip" Ascheim, a respected theatre critic in Boston, died from cancer. Several years ago, after his first diagnosis, the actors in Boston, through StageSource (an organization that links actors and theatre producers), put on a benefit to raise money for his medical costs. The fact that they did this shows something about Skip's character.  He and actors did not have the usual dog-meets-dog attitude toward one another that critics and performers can have. He was both generous and acerbic when the situations warranted it, but above he spoke honestly, which is what drew people to him. He was also a respected director and teacher.  He will be missed, and already is.

The Publick Theatre has been doing outdoor summer theatre for 30 years, and for two-thirds of that time, Spiro Veloudos and Deborah Schoenberg have shared the artistic and managing directorships. This summer they stepped down and handed operations to Diego Arciniegas, a widely respected local actor.  Mr. Veloudos will remain artistic director of Lyric Stage Company of Boston.

Several other theatre changes are going on as well.  The 57 Theatre, which used to a cinema, has now been redone as the Stuart Street Playhouse.  It will open with I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, directed by Joel Bishoff and produced by Jon Pollard, Fred Zollo, and Nick Paleologos. And while not in the environs of Boston, Shakespeare & Co. has bought a 63-acre site in Lenox (MA) for $4.1 million. And on that site artistic director Tina Packer proposes to build a replica of the Rose Theatre with the help of British theatre consultant Iain Mackintosh. Ms. Packer envisions great things for the site, which will allow them to offer more theatre in more ways and provide more room for their well-known actor training programs.

"BOSTON'S  UNION ACTORS & BROADCASTERS RALLY TO PROTEST COMMERCE WITHOUT CONSCIENCE" read the incoming email, and indeed the Boston campaign of the on-going SAG/AFTRA strike continues. On August 23 at noon, actors and other supporters gathered at Copley Square to hear Jimmy Tingle be master of ceremonies and watch members of the cast of "Shear Madness" in "Mock Auditions" compete for their chance to appear in commercials. Lightning-quick squads were sent to Hill Holliday, Arnold Communications, and Entercom to demand fair contracts for actors and broadcasters. For more information, call the Boston SAG/AFTRA office at (617) 742-2688.

It is not exactly a secret that Boston ranks fairly low on the philanthropic scale in support for the arts, and that image received another demerit since it was reported that Boston still does not have a full-time arts commissioner, 20 months after the post was vacated.  Esther Kaplan has headed the city's Office of Cultural Affairs part-time since February 1999. Mayor Thomas M. Menino has twice told the Boston Herald that Ms. Kaplan can have the job if she wants it. But neither Ms. Kaplan nor Mayor Menino will say why a decision has been delayed.

Part of it may be due to a potential conflict of interest. Ms. Kaplan is executive director of Arts In Progress, a nonprofit organization that has been the largest single provider of arts education programs for the Boston Public Schools and which uses city money to do this. She has restructured her role at Arts in Progress so that she no longer handles external or government relations or fund raising for the agency but has not said whether she would step down as director of Arts in Progress if she ever became Mayor Menino's arts commissioner.

Neither the mayor's press office nor Kaplan would comment on the status of the long-vacant full-time commissioner post. ``There are no new developments,'' said Elizabeth S. Sullivan, spokeswoman for the mayor. ``I have nothing to tell you.''

Gloucester Stage Company, founded by artistic director and playwright Israel Horovitz, has thrown a wrench into the Equity actors community in Boston.  On August 11, as reported in the Boston Globe and Herald, Horovitz decided to abandon its current 3-year contract with Actors' Equity, based primarily on the argument that the costs are too high and that Gloucester needs to get its financial house in order.  Jim Bodge, Equity's rep in Boston, sent out an all-points email stating he felt it was "awful" that Gloucester has abandoned the professional community that helped build its reputation and earn many awards and disputed the economic arguments.  However, for the time being, Horovitz's decision stands.

On another note, Horovitz previewed a new play of his, promises.com, done with scripts-in-hand at a staged reading. The story involves a medical discovery by Dr. Aaron Keyes about how to shrink tumors and a subsequent moral wrestle with whether he should sell the knowledge to the highest bidder or give it away for free.  Horovitz acted in the piece along with Ricardo Engermann, Yasmin Dixon, and Jennifer Allison.  And award-winner Ed Bullins (now teaching at Northeastern Univeristy), debuted a new play, King Aspelta: A Nubian Coronation.  The venue was interesting: the Museum of the National Center of Afro -American Artists in Roxbury.

The season is warming up, though, as Labor Day passes and the theatres roll out their new wares, especially now that several companies in Boston consider themselves something of Broadway and Off-Broadway North (we will see Side Man, Fuddy Meers, Saturday Night, to name a few). Still not much homegrown going on, but a few of us anarcho-syndicalists are working on that. More to come.

© 2000 Michael Bettencourt ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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september 2000

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