BRATTLEBORO — Main Street Arts Artistic Director David Stern realizes that though his company presents great theater, it is hardly the only game in town.
Literally dozens of theater companies in Southern Vermont and the adjacent New Hampshire counties across the river - some longstanding and others new to the region, some professional and others performed by dedicated community members - are diligently working to put on quality performances and finding audiences to support them.
Yet with so much competition, how can a theater company in this rural area survive?
Stern believes that, rather than viewing each other as competition, the better option is for all the companies to work together to highlight theater excellence in this area.
“I realized that there were so many great theater companies around that I felt it would be a good idea to pool our resources,” Stern says. “My theory has been to highlight our commonality. We would be better working together than apart. And what better way to show our strength than show what we do side by side?”
And that's exactly what is happening next month in Putney.
Four days, seven companies
The Great River Theater Festival, set for July 6-9, promises to be one of the most exciting theater collaborations Southern Vermont has ever seen - four days, seven theater companies, 14 shows, and four venues, this will be a festival full of excitement and a celebration of the rich theatrical scene of southern Vermont and New Hampshire bordering the Connecticut River.
Showcasing a “Who's Who” of community and professional theater companies presenting a mix of comedy, drama, musicals, puppets and an outdoor performance, The Great River Theater Festival is being coordinated by Main Street Arts and was the brainchild of Stern.
“We have so many great companies putting on productions, each working away on its own,” Stern said. “Our idea for the festival is to highlight the combined talent and creativity we have around us. It's a treasure that needs to be shared.”
Joining Main Street Arts will be the Weston Playhouse, the Vermont Theatre Company, The Apron Theater Company, New England Youth Theatre, Sandglass Puppet Theater, and Actor's Theatre Playhouse.
Except for the free outdoor performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which will be presented on the Putney Green, performances take place at either the Greenhoe Theater at Landmark College, Next Stage Arts, or Sandglass Theater.
All stages are located within a short distance of each other.
The festival opens Thursday, July 6, at 7 p.m. in the Greenhoe Theater at Landmark College with a performance of Little Shop of Horrors by Main Street Arts. The show also runs Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
Array of performances
In addition to Main Street Arts, the companies and their productions are:
• Apron Theater: Mother Courage and Her Children, Friday at 7 p.m., and Saturday at 2 p.m.
• Actors Theatre Playhouse: 10-Minute Plays, Saturday at 1 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
• New England Youth Theatre: The Emperor's New Clothes, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
• Sandglass Theater: When I Put On Your Glove, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m.
• Vermont Theatre Company: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Saturday at 10 a.m.
• Weston Playhouse: Really Rosie, Sunday at 7 p.m.
Despite the jam-packed schedule, Stern says it's possible for a theater aficionado to catch each production.
“We'll be set up on the lawn in front of the Gleanery Restaurant to sell tickets and direct folks to the sites,” he said. “We want to create a festive atmosphere for locals and visitors alike for what we hope is the first of many festivals.”
Stern explains that The Great River Theater Festival is an outgrowth of the recent formation of the 4-County Theatre Collaborative.
Stern explains, “I felt a collaborative was a great way to have the theater companies in the area work together. We hope that by marketing ourselves as a collaborative we will begin to pull in an audience from a greater range than our local area. In the future, we want people from places as far distant as Boston or Montreal to consider this area as an exciting and vital place for theater.
“Our goals for the collaborative included such basic things as sharing a calendar of events, and learning how to keep other companies in mind when planning each's theater season.”
It all makes great sense, and working with each other turns out to be the wave of the future for nonprofits.
“More and more, the one thing grant funders want to see is collaboration,” Stern says. “And they're right to emphasize it, because collaboration is a great thing. When at MSA, we presented Sweeney Todd at the Opera House in Bellows Falls and some said we'd never be able to fill seats for that big theater for five performances. But we did.
“The show was a great success. However, Todd is a big show to put on and we could only do it with help from Sandglass. We also got tons of support from NEYT students working with us in all areas. Designers from NEYT also did our costumes.
“That was a logical trade off. Earlier I did the sets for NEYT's Mary Poppins, for which they needed outside help, and then NEYT did costumes for Todd, which MSA needed. With this kind of collaboration, everyone wins.”
'Deeper collaborations'
Stern adds, “All of us in the theater community need to think of deeper collaborations and, at the same time, find ways not to step on each other's toes.”
Nearly 20 theater companies so far have joined the 4-County Theatre Collaborative. “And there are more theater companies in the region that still need to be identified and invited to join,” Stern says.
The Collective has already successfully met numerous times. One of the outcomes of the meetings was the planning of Great River Theater Festival.
“We made a collective decision to situate the festival in Putney this year, but with the idea that location would change each time the festival is held,” Stern says.
Stern is well aware that, since this is the inaugural season for the festival, it is imperative to make a strong initial presentation.
“I tried to curate the festival pretty strongly, so we would come out of the gate solidly,” Stern says. “With the seven participating companies, we are attempting to provide a wide variety of theatrical presentations for many different kinds of audiences, but also of such a high quality that it would appeal to everyone.”
A major goal in curating, Stern said, was to create a balance in entertainment.
“We have two musicals: MSA's Little Shop and Weston's Really Rosie; an outdoor Shakespeare from VTC; an original comedy from NEYT, The Emperor's New Clothes; a classic drama from Brecht by Apron, Mother Courage; puppet theater from Sandglass; and a series of 10-minute plays from ATP, which will include Graceland, a 35 minute production by MSA.”
Every company that was asked to join The Great River Theater Festival agreed to help get it off the ground and flying.
The festival tried to be inclusive of the theater companies in the area. “At the same time, we did not want to present work willy nilly and produce wild chaos,” Stern says.
With so much theater being produced in the area, the work presented obviously is at many different levels of professionalism and quality.
“In the future, with a longer festival, more could better represent the striking diversity of our theatrical scene, but for our opening season we wanted at least to showcase the strongest theater companies in the area,” Stern adds.
“We want to bring our A team to this varsity event. Together we will work to help people get to know all our companies better. We want theatergoers to walk out impressed and not only eager to come back next year but to urge their friends to join them.
“Perhaps in the future, as the festival grows to last 10 days, we will be adding things that are even edgier and more interesting. But this year we are setting up a solid structure so that, we hope, The Great River Theater Festival will thrive for many years to come.”