Kate Maguire is in her 17th season as artistic director of the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge. (See also “Theater That Matters” in this issue.) BTF is one of the oldest summer theaters in the country, established in 1928 in a jewel-box playhouse designed—originally as a casino—by beaux-arts architect Stanford White in the 19th century. So there’s a lot of history to uphold, a lot of tradition, and a lot of actors, directors, designers and staff to support: over 200 paid staff and paying apprentices are at the table this summer.
Maguire’s title says “artistic,” but as the person ultimately responsible for the company’s survival, she’s got her finger firmly on the financial pulse as well. Last year, in the face of the global financial emergency, she slashed the overall budget by 20 percent, and has level-funded operations for this year. Things are stable, she says, but “we’re still operating with some constraints.”
As for the long term, not just for BTF but for the arts in America, “I think the impact of the economic fallout is that the world has shifted for all time. And what we are all doing in order to protect ourselves is creating new ways of being. I think that’s positive, but I don’t think we’ve come out on the other side and figured it out yet. A lot of us are figuring it out.”
She cites a recent article in American Theatre magazine by director Gregory Mosher, in which he argues that “it’s time to rethink everything.” But, she quickly adds, “I don’t think we need to rethink if the theater is going to survive or not. The performance art itself is fine. The theater has been around since the Greeks. But how we do it—how we sell tickets, how we raise money, how we put the show on the stage, how we talk to our audiences—all of that is under discussion and under construction.”
For Maguire, this ties directly into the question of how and where communication itself is going. “Just look at ‘the millennial generation,’ the youngest generation coming up, and how they speak to each other. And they’re constantly speaking to each other, because they’re texting or they’re emailing or they’re online chatting. People say the art of communication is dying? Communication is really alive! But it’s quick and different, and so the challenge is, how do we train our young actors, and how do we put productions in front of the next generation? I think over the next five or 10 years, we’ll produce what is going to become theater for the next generation.”
In the end, Maguire is cautiously optimistic. “I don’t think that what we’re going through is a bad thing. It’s a time for renewal for all of us—which is what we’re always having to do in the theater anyway. So maybe those of us who are in the arts are better prepared than some other businesses— because we’re always having to recreate and rethink. We’re constantly scrimping and figuring things out.”
