TheaterWorks will stage at least two of the shows in its 2018-19 season in the Wadsworth Atheneum’s theater space while its usual Pearl Street space is undergoing extensive renovations in the spring and summer.
TheaterWorks Producing Artistic Director Rob Ruggiero, Wadsworth Director/CEO Thomas Loughman and Greater Hartford Arts Council CEO Cathy Malloy met with The Courant Tuesday morning in the Wadsworth’s theater to discuss the collaborative effort that, in Malloy’s words “keeps the arts downtown.”
TheaterWorks announced in March that several shows would be done in an alternate space while the Pearl Street venue underwent extensive renovations to its stage and auditorium. The theater did not, however, announce what the alternate space will be, but Ruggiero was clear that he wanted the alternate space to be in downtown Hartford, saying that “we have restaurant partners, parking partners… We have an economic impact on the area.”
“Our mission has always been connected to activating downtown,” Ruggiero said Tuesday. He and Loughman met several years ago when Loughman became director of the Wadsworth. When it was decided that TheaterWorks would continue to produce shows while the Pearl Street renovations were underway, Ruggiero says he immediately thought of the Atheneum: “This was at the top of my list.”
Roaming the space, which has a deeper stage and a larger backstage area than TheaterWorks is used to at Pearl Street, plus spacious dressing rooms, Ruggiero says, laughing, that “in some ways, this is a step up for us.” He said he would need to upgrade the lighting and sound equipment and that a proscenium stage offers different challenges than the thrust stage at Pearl Street: “But I’ve already been thinking about how things will work here, and I’m excited.”
“I give it to Rob,” Loughman says about how the collaboration came to be. “The first real meeting we ever had, he asked for a full stem-to-stern tour of this joint.”
The Atheneum will still be able to hold its events in the theater while TheaterWorks’ sets occupy some of the stage. The museum largely uses the space for lectures, film screenings and small-scale performances. Loughman said proudly that the theater was “the first purpose-built dramatic theater in a museum space in the United States.”
TheaterWorks and the Atheneum already have a history together. In the 1980s, when it was known as The Theater Workshop, TheaterWorks produced some shows (including the Sam Shepard drama “True West”) in the museum space, then known as the Avery Theater.
“The seeds go way back,” Ruggiero says. “I was here directing for Chamber Music Plus.” He also just likes the museum in general. “The Wadsworth is an amazing institution. When I have guest artists in from other places, I always send them over to the Wadsworth.”
Loughman envisions the museum setting up special events around TheaterWorks performances and perhaps even expanding visiting hours so that theatergoers can look at exhibits before a show.
Malloy notes that “collaboration is a big buzzword now in any community, especially in the nonprofit community. In the arts, the first thing they say these days is ‘Who are you collaborating with?’ Having Tom and Rob collaborating on this seemed natural. It was a big priority to keep TheaterWorks in the city. We are constantly striving to bring more people into downtown Hartford.”
Malloy said that there is not as much of a crossover among the “donor bases” at TheaterWorks and the Atheneum as there should be.
“TheaterWorks subscribers are very passionate. We hope they’re going to come here and say ‘Wow! This is the Wadsworth!’ We need that kind of cross-pollinating.”
When announcing the alternate space, TheaterWorks also revealed the one previously unannounced show in the coming season: It will be the musical “Girlfriend,” based on the 1991 pop album by Matthew Sweet, and will run March 21 to April 21. “Girlfriend” premiered in 2010 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California. The script is by Todd Almond, whose musical “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” was staged at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2010. Songs include “I’ve Been Waiting,” “Looking at the Sun” and the title song, which was a major hit on radio and MTV. “Girlfriend” has a cast of just two young men, and is set in small-town Nebraska in 1993.
“Girlfriend” may be staged at the Wadsworth, but TheaterWorks is also considering at more intimate spaces for the musical, which will be directed by Ruggiero, because of its small cast and rock score.
The two shows that will definitely be done at the Wadsworth are the drama “Actually” by Anna Ziegler, May 23 through June 23; and the comedy “Fully Committed” by Becky Mode Aug. 1 through Sept. 1.
The performance schedule has changed since TheaterWorks first announced its 2018-19 slate The first three shows of the 2018-19 season – the romantic mystery “The River” by Jez Butterworth (Oct. 4 through Nov. 11), the return of the holiday show “Christmas on the Rocks” (Nov. 27 through Dec. 23) and the popular modern drama “A Doll’s House Part 2” by Lucas Hnath (Jan. 18 through Feb. 24) will all be at TheaterWorks’ 233 Pearl St. home.
