Internationally Acclaimed Vincent J. Cardinal's Shares His Bold Mission For Connecticut Repertory Theatre. Vincent shares secrets and success of being one of the top University – Resident Theatre Association Artistic Directors in the nation.
Former Chair of Theatre at the University of Miami and the Artistic Director of the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre, Vincient J. Cardinal shares his success with our local theatre lovers.
Vincent J. Cardinal quotes Walt Whitman "To have great poets, there must be great audiences too." The Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT) has just that as is evident by the recent season of robust attendance and critical praise. CRT is part of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut, the professional producing arm of the Department of Dramatic Arts. CRT stages an array of the best in theatre, from classic plays and musicals to premieres of the latest contemporary work featuring some of the nation's finest theatre professionals on stage with the department's most promising students. The synergy between professionals and advanced student artists creates extraordinary theatre and a unique learning environment.
“Vincent Cardinal is an exciting addition to the vigorous Connecticut theater scene,” says Mark Lamos, Artistic Director of Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse “His work is dynamic and bold, and his mission to discover exciting new writers and new theatrical contexts is going to take Connecticut Repertory Theater to new heights.
Two-time Tony Award winning Broadway producer, Barry Brown says, “Cardinal brings to Connecticut Repertory Theatre the highest of artistic standards, exciting professional connections, and a genuine love for great theatre."
Vincent J. Cardinal continues the tradition of excellence with an ambitious 2011 – 2012 season for CRT. The Main Stage Series includes Thornton Wilder's Our Town (Oct 6, through Octo 16, 2011); The world première of I’m Connecticut (Dec 1, through Dec 10, 2011) by Mike Reiss, a Peabody Award-winner, and four-time Emmy award-winning writer for The Simpsons; the regional premiere of Stephen Svoboda's Odysseus D.O.A (Feb 23, through March 4, 2012); the Broadway Rock Musical Spring Awakening (April 12, through April 15, 2012) and (April 25, through April 28, 2012). On the Studio stage will be The Miser (Oct 27 – Nov 6, 2011) and The Winter’s Tale (Mar 22 – Apr 1, 2012).
Vincent J. Cardinal sat down with Theatre Chat and shared success secrets for being an Artistic Director.
Your vision is for education; yet you have to run a Repertory Theatre. Is your choice of shows important for ticket sales or is the choice important for education of the community and students? How do you balance that?
In the long tradition of theatre, theatre artists, backstage and onstage, have learned through an informal apprenticeship process. In a University – Regional Theatre collaboration, we formalize that apprenticeship and marry it to the teaching of the craft in the classrooms and studios. What we do is part of the tradition and a natural extension of the University’s laboratory paradigm.
What we choose to put on stage impacts the University and the greater community. The arts are central to the mission of any great institution of higher education. The arts are how we examine what it means to be a human being, which should be central to all areas of academic investigation. We also have a community beyond that campus that expects the highest quality theatre and the most interesting selection of shows. So we select a season with its educational impact in mind and with its potential for attracting an audience. Let’s face it; it’s not theatre until the audience arrives. I think that is a central lesson in any professional theatre curriculum.
With that said, there are lessons of humanity and craft in most plays and musicals. To serve the arc of student learning, it is important to offer variety and depth. To attract an audience, it is important to offer variety and depth. To maintain the resources to offer a dynamic season and curriculum we must sell tickets. The lessons of My Fair Lady are not the same lessons as those in Odysseus D. O. A., but they are all legitimate lessons of craft, art, and humanity and the tickets we sell for one may help pay to produce the other for a smaller audience.
Artistic Directors spend endless hours finding new works and artists. Do you enjoy teaching the business of the biz or the art of doing it? What is your favorite aspect of producing? What is your first passion?
My favorite aspect of producing is creating a safe, fertile, collaborative, environment where theatre artists can rehearse, create, design and perform; and diverse audiences can participate, enjoy, and support. I also love bringing artists to projects that they might not traditionally have the opportunity to do. For example Bradford Scobie is a stalwart of downtown burlesque circuit and the off-off-Broadway world, but few would see him as The Cat In The Hat in Seussical: The Musical or Steve Hayes, the Tired Old Queen at the Movies from YouTube and God in The Big Gay Musical as Horton The Elephant. Casting these two in a children’s show launched a unique kind of mayhem that thrilled kids , their adults, and a fan base that never thought they’d see Seussical in Connecticut.
I also love to teach for many of the same reasons. It’s an honor to facilitate the situation where students are challenged enough and safe enough to learn. Although I entered theatre by acting as a kid, my greatest passion is directing. I love the challenge of envisioning the playwright’s script as a living event, organizing all of the components and leading the collaborators for the ultimate entertaining and edifying impact on the audience. My graduate degree is in playwriting and I still like to write, but what I know about how plays are constructed and what it is to face the empty page, serves best, at this point in my career, as a director of new works other than my own.
For students who may want to produce or become an Artistic Director, what are the most important elements?
The best Artistic Directors that I have observed love the theatre, have a passion to support artists in the process of making theatre, have a talent and desire for making theatre and have a practical sense of business that isn’t clouded by the romance of the industry or their own egos. They also enjoy the interaction with the various constancies such as the Board of Trustees, the community, the area government, granting agencies, audiences, staff, and artists. Although producing and fund development are crucial parts of a current Artist Director’s job, I encourage students who would like to be Artistic Directors in the future to focus more on their artistic work to develop a sense of artistic vision, sense of the large conversation of theatre, and a sense of their best contributions to the artistic process.
Production value depends not only on budget but also on your production team. What experience do you expect from your team?
I have been very, very lucky in that the production teams that I have been able to work with are among the best in the profession, many with credits from the most vibrant theatre centers in a variety of countries and others emerging from intensive study and ready to bring fresh vision to old problems. At Connecticut Repertory Theatre, we have seasoned pros and the wildly talented but inexperienced on our production teams. The results are some of those most electrifying sets, costumes, props, projections and lighting your likely to see anywhere with any range of budget. We also have a degree in Puppetry that influences all of us to be more inventive, more entertaining, and a lot less stuffy.
The best production teams are those who are eager to tell the story in the most exciting way with-in the unique constraints of that production’s situation: time, space, budget, personnel, talent, story. Usually the limitations are what move us to the most interesting elucidation and the least predictable solution. Finally, I look for those who are true collaborators. This is an art form that is best realized through cooperation.
What moment in your career, a show, a job, was life changing?
I studied at the Yale School of Drama during a time of incredible productivity and national attention. Classes with Milan Stitt, George Roy Hill, Arthur Miller, Ming Cho Lee, Earle Gister, and Leon Katz were particularly illuminating and regular conversations with Jason Robards, Coleen Dewhurst, José Quintero, Lloyd Richards, and August Wilson, among others, formed the way I think about theatre and life as an artist.
I knew I was having a privileged opportunity to study at the Yale School of Drama while it was happening and I am grateful for that rarified experience every day.
Bringing big-name artists and stars to your venue brings what important aspects to the students and fellow artists?
The big-name theatre artists and stars that we bring to Connecticut Repertory Theatre are people who have done the nitty-gritty work of design and production or performed eight shows a week for many months or even years. An actor such as Terrence Mann, who played Henry Higgins for us, brings to the rehearsal hall thousands of hours of stage time and a craft that has developed over many, many shows. As mentor to the younger performers, a generous person like Terrence Mann is invaluable. As the Artistic Director, I know his performance will be extraordinary and raise the performance caliber of the whole show, his name will draw audiences, and his presence will enhance our legitimacy as a professional operation. While performers such as Eileen Fulton, Andrea McArdle, and Charlotte d’Amboise have “name value,” their celebrity is coupled with craft, experience, and the talent that has made their names recognizable.
What three Broadway shows are on your top GO SEE LIST?
1. Billy Elliot – because it is so beautifully done and is like what one dreams of when one imagines a big Broadway show.
2. Master Class – because Tyne Daly is at the top of her craft and dazzling and playwright Terrence McNally is always insightful, funny, and surprising
3. Jerusalem – because Mark Rylance is one for the ages and the play is smart, riveting, and timely. It’s a shame it’s closing.
The show that ought to still be on Broadway is The Scottsboro Boys with its heart stopping performance by Joshua Henry. This musical is worth traveling to the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego to see between April and June 2012.
What off Broadway shows are on the top of your GO SEE LIST?
1. The Rap Guide to Evolution – because writer/performer Baba Brinkman and director Dodd Loomis have combined talents to make science robust, rap smart, and lecture theatrical
2. Avenue Q – because it’s still relevant, funny, and still feels like it’s pushing the envelope
3. Vampire Cowboys – they are off-off-Broadway and a Company rather than show, but see anything produced by this group for innovative, thought provoking, rule breaking artists. With titles like Living Dead In Denmark and Fight Girl Battle World how could you go wrong?
Theatre Chat is a not-for-profit that support the arts. What not-for-profit do you suggest the theatre community support?
Especially now with our global economy in tatters, we must support each other. Alliances between not-for-profits are crucial for our survival. Sometimes as resources diminish, the instinct is to compete and isolate. That’s not how we make our best theatre nor will it be how we survive this time.
Additionally, supporting not-for-profits that support artists in their health and living situations is close to me. We must continue to champion Broadway Cares – Equity Fights AIDS, as well as, organizations like The Actors Fund.
Vincent J. Cardinal also served as the Director of the School of Theater and Head of the MFA Playwriting Program at Ohio University. He was the Director of off-Broadway‘s Circle Repertory Company School of Theater. He was an Associate Producing Artist with the Circle Repertory Company and a member of its LAB. He graduated in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama where he was honored with the ASCAP-Cole Porter Award for Best-Collected Work. And now Vincent Cardinal is reinvigorating CRT, which has "quickly become a true contender in Connecticut's regional theater scene.” (The Hartford Courant, 2011)
Cardinal's play, The Colorado Catechism, premiered at Circle Repertory Company. The Los Angeles production of the play garnered actors Timothy Daly and Amy Van Nostrand, Dramalogue Awards for Best Performances. Cardinal’s play King Dusyanta: A Tale from Kalidasa premiered, under his direction at the Oasis Theater Company. It starred Broadway legend André DeShields. Cardinal directed Eileen Gallindo’s Multicultural Disorder for Next Stage -- off-Broadway showcase, Joe Fox’s new play Prism View at New Dramatists and Paul Corrigan’s Queens Blvd. in a commercial off-Broadway run. He helmed Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion for its New York and regional productions and directs Steve Hayes: Tired Old Queen at the Movies, popular YouTube series.. He has directed 80 productions from coast to coast.
For information on tickets, including subscriptions to the The Connecticut Repertory Theatre, please call the Box Office at 860-486-4226. You may also purchase single tickets through the box office or by visiting www.crt.uconn.edu.
Richard Cameron of Theatre Chat thanks Artistic Director Vincent J. Cardinal and The Connecticut Repertory Theatre. Cameron's articles have featured conversations with Tony Award winning Producer Stewart Lane, Emmy Award winning Casting Director Jeff Greenberg, multiple Broadway and TV stars and creative teams bringing arts lovers together around the world for the largest social media arts movement. Tag You're it! Share with your communities.
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