ArtsEmerson, A Boston Version of the Festsival TransAmérique. Interview with Director Rob Orchard.

ArtsEmerson, A Boston Version of the Festsival TransAmérique. Interview with Director Rob Orchard.

            ArtsEmerson, the most exciting and creative theatre project Boston has seen in years, opened in the fall of 2010 under the leadership of executive director Robert Orchard.  Orchard met with me to discuss its development. Years in the making, the venture grew out of a partnership between Emerson College – a school of communication and the arts – and the city.  Emerson needed to expand;

Boston wanted to rehabilitate a decaying downtown area.  That the area included two run-down theatres – candidates for demolition, but architectural landmarks in their day – was a windfall for Emerson.  A deal was struck whereby Emerson would sell off its buildings, scattered through a high end residential section, and buy real estate in or near the infamous Combat Zone, Boston’s “adult entertainment” district. 

Emerson would gain two theatres and several surrounding buildings; Boston would see the neighborhood transformed.  Although eager to push the transformation forward, the city’s assistance depended on the college’s agreeing to renovate the theatres for mainly professional public use.  How best to exploit these extraordinary spaces was left an open question.  With Boston speeding up the process by fast-tracking variances, the school restored the 1,200 seat Majestic Theatre (renamed the Cutler Majestic) to its Beaux-Arts splendor, while updating its technology and facilities. In a dingy alley behind the Cutler Majestic, Emerson added the connecting new eleven story Tufte Performance and Production Center , with offices, television studios, a costume shop, and two theatres for student use.  And for the first time, the Cutler Majestic has dressing rooms. 

The Paramount’s total renovation followed.  A former movie palace turned pornographic cinema before its closure in 1976, the Paramount’s 590-seat theatre regained its Art Deco glamour.  New, modern spaces comprise a 125-seat black box theatre, a screening room, 9 rehearsal studios, and 10 practice rooms. 

ArtsEmerson’s aesthetic remained undefined until 2009 when Robert Orchard stepped down from the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge after almost thirty years, first as managing director, then as executive director.  Orchard’s retirement from the ART coincided with the arrival of a new artistic director with a new glitzy concept of theatre.  Emerson’s board snapped up the freshly available Orchard who provided ArtsEmerson’s vision, plus the skills and connections to implement it. 

Orchard’s ArtsEmerson is reminiscent of Montreal’s Festival Transamériques, but with a longer season and fewer productions.  Like the FTA, it brings in national and international troupes – both new and established – that local audiences would not otherwise have the opportunity to see.  Included in ArtsEmerson’s 2010-11 season are Canada’s Ex Machina with The Andersen Project and Les 7 doigts de la Main with PSY.  Much of the work is inventive, even innovatory.  It is theatre in its broadest sense.  Offerings encompass drama – legitimate and musical – dance, circus, and puppetry.

The productions are divided into two streams:  Pioneers and Legends.  According to Orchard, the Pioneers are “younger companies who are inventing and reinventing theatre for their own sensibilities and for their own generation.”  Ironically, the more experimental work is largely devised theatre, essentially the collective creation of the 1960s and 70s in new dress.  Similar to collective creations, devised productions are collaborative works whose starting point is an idea, a theme, or a social problem rather than a pre-existing script.  However, Orchard, whose own career began in the 60s, finds that these new companies are less dogmatic, more open, more welcoming to the public, an attitude which is reflected in their porous relationship with the audience. 

Most of the “pioneer” groups are performing in the smaller spaces, at least for the present.  But Orchard has committed to a long-term relationship with several in the form of residencies during which they can develop, rehearse, and ultimately perform their work.  Over time, it is hoped, audience interest will grow and these companies will graduate to the larger stages. 

The Legends series features among others Ireland’s Abbey Players and the Druid Theatre; Peter Brook’s productions of Fragments (five Samuel Beckett one-acts) and The Grand Inquisitor (adapted from Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov); and F. Murray Abraham as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.  Each series contains a few family-friendly shows in order to appeal to a broad public. 

ArtsEmerson has made it a point to connect the professional companies with the college’s students and faculty, although an integrated relationship is still in the early stages.  Performing artists give talks in various classes; invited students observe rehearsals of works-in-progress.  Theatre students have and will continue to function as assistants to the technical team, the music director, the play’s director, and the dramaturge during residencies. 

Orchard supports a closer affiliation between the students and the young companies with the aim of seeing student work emerge from their exposure to experimentation.  One potential project is a student devised theatre piece that would use the investigative techniques of the documentary collective, The Civilians.  If it happens, the project will link theatre, writing, and literature students in the development of the collective creation.  When the Civilians return the following semester, they will mentor the students in shaping the production. 

Although too early to predict the project’s evolution, it seems likely that ArtsEmerson will brighten Boston’s cultural scene for a long time to come.  In its short existence, it has changed the city’s theatrical landscape considerably by making eighteen more productions available to audiences this season; offering a variety of work heretofore unknown; giving the public opportunities to attend selected rehearsals and workshops through its membership program; and drawing more patrons of the arts to the newly beautified downtown.

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