Gone is the barber chair from the executive office at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, a seat of power, prestige and playfulness that became synonymous with the theater’s longtime leader, Michael Price. So are the many posters, programs, scripts, tapes, tchotchkes and other accouterments of a musical theater hub.
Now there’s a look of Zen, with clean surfaces on the cherry wood desk, conference table and cabinets, and the room’s Deep River blue walls lit warmly and decorated with just a few significant pieces: a Hirschfeld illustration from “Annie,” a poster from the original “West Side Story,” a painting of a Formula One race car (a childhood passion; another as an adult is refereeing at roller derbies).
Things are different at Goodspeed Musicals.
Yet also the same.
Goodspeed Musicals, the 52-year-old organization that oversees the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, the Norma Terris Theatre in Chester and myriad other activities and sites devoted to the musical theater, changed leadership in February.
Longtime executive director Michael Price stepped down after close to a half century of growing the institution from one venue with a singular producing purpose to a multiplatform organization with a nearly $12 million annual budget, the largest for a producing theater in the state.
Succeeding him is Michael Gennaro, who had run the business end of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, and, most recently for eight years, Trinity Repertory Company in Providence.
“When I go back over the arc of my career, there was something unfinished for me,” says Gennaro from his office at the theater that overlooks the Connecticut River. “Coming to a place like Goodspeed, where it was all about musical theater is, as corny as it sounds, like coming home.”
Such statements might sound perfunctory from others, but in Gennaro’s case, he’s got the credentials.
Tying him personally to the world of American musical theater is an extensive family connection: His father, Tony Award-winner Peter Gennaro, choreographed Goodspeed’s most widely known and profitable show, 1976’s “Annie” — as well as “Fiorello!” in 1985 — and worked throughout Broadway’s Golden Age of Musical Theater, including being co-choreographer of the original “West Side Story.” His mother is dancer Jean Kinsella, and his sister, Lisa Gennaro, choreographed Goodspeed’s “The Most Happy Fella,” which later moved to Broadway. Before turning exec, Gennaro began as an actor, studied under legendary teacher Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and was a performer in the original off-Broadway production of “Godspeed.”
“This past year was about finding my place within how things operated in the past,” said Gennaro, 65, who began his job in February and oversaw a season that was already selected.
But soon after he arrived to begin his three-year contract, he was faced with an unexpected problem: The commercial producers of the new musical, “The Honeymooners,” which was to have its world premiere at Goodspeed in the fall of 2015 — and had already been announced and was the highlight of its subscription series — passed on the East Haddam run and planned instead to go straight to Broadway.
Gennaro scrambled for a solid but less glamorous substitution — the musical “A Wonderful Life.” In the end, everything worked out for the theater. Goodspeed received financial compensation (“We’re happy with the deal”), “A Wonderful Life” turned out to be a surprise hit and there is still no theater announcement for “The Honeymooners” on Broadway.
Finding His Own Spot
But up until the recent announcement of the 2016 season, Gennaro’s stamp on the theater had yet to emerge.
“People asked me if I would be at the bottom of the grand staircase after every show like Michael was,” says Gennaro, who has the smooth, soft-spoken demeanor and charm of an entertainment attorney, which he also was in an earlier career.
“I need to find what is comfortable for me, in my style,” he says. “Besides, that Michael’s spot.” (Indeed, the theater’s lobby staircase was named in honor of Price after he left.)
Gennaro’s first year was devoted to observing how the operation ran, examining the business model and seeing how Goodspeed could sustain itself into the future.
“My history has been going into organizations that have been financially troubled and turning them around. This is far different and more exciting to me because it’s not about that. A lot of things here don’t need fixing.”
But Gennaro sees the need for some changes.
Although the organization is financially stable (thanks in no small part to a $23 million endowment, one of the largest for a regional theater in America), the size of the main theater (398 seats) severely limits how much the theater can generate in ticket sales, even though it has the largest subscription base in the state at 15,000. So it has to depend on other revenue streams.
“In order to be sustainable, we have to raise more money from donors [it has more than 7,500]; we have to be smart in how we produce at the Chester theater — which has tremendous potential; and we have to look at ancillary revenue.”
Using Chester Theater
Although there are a few tiny streams of income from shows Goodspeed generated, it’s far from the “Annie” royalty spigot, which has gone from a multimillion gush in the ’70s to a trickle.
“Amazing Grace,” which was developed in Chester, had a short Broadway run, and last year’s world premiere of “Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn” will play next fall at Roundabout Theatre Company in New York, neither expected to result in much revenue — but that’s not where Gennaro is looking for the institution’s sustainability.
Gennaro sees the Goodspeed future with a more significant use of the Chester theater, in the development of East Haddam as a more attractive theater destination and through a larger educational component.
“[The Norma Terris Theatre] should not be seen as a second stage but rather where we do other types of work,” he says. “It’s important to find the bridge between the two theaters.”
One area that Gennaro is pursuing is in the expansion of relationships with artists and the commissioning of new works in which Goodspeed could nurture and share in rewards.
Beyond the fully produced shows that Goodspeed presents on its two stages, it presents an annual festival of new works in January, hosts the Mercer Colony in February for theater artists to work on projects in a “retreat” setting, as well as director intensives and private readings.
“We’re providing a safe harbor for a lot of young writers, and it’s healthy when there’s a continuation of that relationship.”
Relationships will be nurtured with producers, as well.
“There needs to be a stepping-stone for commercial producers to take things on and we provide that. You have to have a place where you can fail. And that’s what makes regional theater great for the commercial world.”
His First Season
For the 2016 season — and the first that he has chosen — Gennaro selected shows that reflect his varied programming approach: one classic (Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes,” which the theater has never produced), an older musical with a new vision (“Bye Bye Birdie,” although Goodspeed lost the director who had a new take on the show in order to do a Broadway gig) and a new work (“Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz”).
For Chester, he will produce in 2016 two shows that will have longer runs (five weeks, instead of three-and-a-half) during its most popular period — May to September — and market them with the Opera House shows as one five-show Goodspeed package. (The Chester shows are “developmental productions,” fully staged but not yet ready for critics.)
Gennaro selected “The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd,” a 1965 show with book, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley.
Gennaro doesn’t call the show a “revival” but rather characterizes it as a new show that deals with a problematic and dated book. Gennaro’s sister will choreograph and Don Stephenson (Goodspeed’s “Guys and Dolls” director) will stage the show.
The other show is “Sign of the Times,” staged by Gabriel Barre (Broadway’s “Amazing Grace”), a director with a long string of Goodspeed credits.
Destination Goodspeed
Thoughts of a new, larger theater -— often talked about through the years — are not in Gennaro’s short-range forecast, especially with the state’s financial problems and the access to bonding money now limited.
He also says the theater — built in 1876 and renovated to its familiar form in 1963 — has no specific designs on the land across the street from the theater and the Gelston House restaurant (which it also owns), after the town’s municipal buildings and storage facilities relocate elsewhere in the next few years.
But that’s not to say he is uninterested in the development there.
“The more vibrant the area is, the better it is for Goodspeed,” he says. “And the future for Goodspeed is for us to make this more of a campus. We have the largest musical theater library in the country that could be used and marketed in a different way.”
He also pointed to Goodspeed’s vast costume collection, rehearsal hall, scenic shop, new “actor village” housing and other spaces it owns around the center of the hamlet. Many of the buildings could be repurposed, he says, and collectively be an even greater attraction to visitors, in the same way that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has become a theater tourist destination with a museum, exhibits, cafes. “Everything is right here. It can all be part of the experience.”
Education A Key Component
Perhaps the most significant development is Gennaro’s plans to enhance Goodspeed’s educational profile.
“Of tremendous interest to me, and a lot of board members, is what we do educationally. In particular, I think there should be some kind of relationship [with a school] where we have a BFA or MFA program.”
Gennaro says he’s just beginning conversations with education partners. Goodspeed already has affiliations through its annual new musical festival with The Hartt School at the University of Hartford and NYU. Gennaro also worked with Brown University to form a strong affiliation with Providence’s Trinity Rep.
“I don’t know what that linkage is yet, but I think it’s possible,” he says.
Gennaro would like that educational emphasis to be on musical theater directors, music directors, orchestrators and arrangers, “an area where we do have an expertise and that is unique in the country.
“I’m a huge believer in emerging directors, and it would be nice to have a pipeline for directors to start to do new work, first at Chester and then come on to the Opera House stage. It’s all about creating a different model for the people who are making the broad-stroke changes in the industry. There needs to be a place where those people are trained.”
Gennaro characterizes his plans not so much as an expansion as a refocusing, of “bringing everything together into some whole. It’s a big thing for me for people to come right here and have a whole experience of a lot of different things. The amount of stuff this place does is mind-boggling.”
GOODSPEED SHOWS: “A Wonderful Life” ends its extended run Dec. 6. The Opera House season is “Anything Goes” (April 8 to June 16), “Bye Bye Birdie” (June 24 to Sept. 4) and “Chasing Rainbows: The Road to Oz” (Sept. 16 to Nov. 24). The Norma Terris Theatre will present “The Roar of the Greasepaint — The Smell of the Crowd” (May 20 to June 26) and “A Sign of the Times” (July 29 to Sept. 4). Tickets, subscriptions and information: 860-873-8668 and goodspeed.org.
