Paula Tomei.
This month Paula Tomei packs up her desk at South Coast Repertory after greater than 4 many years on the Southern California regional powerhouse. She began out within the subscriptions division in 1979, not lengthy after the theatre made a momentous transfer to its present Costa Mesa location, and later turned its first managing director. In that put up she helped develop lots of SCR’s signature festivals, working alongside co-founders Martin Benson and David Emmes, whose distinctive artistic-producing partnership helped kind the theatre’s distinctive, new-play-focused model.
Emmes (who can be Tomei’s husband) and Benson formally stepped down from day-to-day management in 2011 however by no means totally left the constructing, at the same time as successive creative administrators—first Marc Masterson, now David Ivers—have joined the workers. With Tomei’s departure, and the latest hiring of the Winery Theatre’s Suzanne Appel as her alternative, is it lastly the top of an period at South Coast Rep?
I spoke to Tomei earlier this summer time about working at her hometown theatre, altering attitudes towards subscriptions, and the best way to preserve playwrights writing for the theatre.
ROB WEINERT-KENDT: I learn that your diploma was in economics. So what drew you to the theatre? Have been you all the time doing it on the facet?
PAULA TOMEI: It began in highschool. I had an exquisite English trainer and drama trainer who was a mentor and a pal until the top (she handed away a pair years in the past now), and actually she gave us the category—that means, she was the director, however we have been in control of promoting tickets, advertising and marketing the present, getting the phrase out, constructing costumes. We did all of it. That’s what an amazing arts program lets you do: expertise the whole lot.
I didn’t know the way a lot of the bug I had until I went to UC Irvine as a organic sciences main, considering I’d be a dentist. Two years in natural chemistry instructed me I wasn’t going to be a dentist. So I segued into economics, as a result of on the time, UCI I didn’t have a enterprise college, so I assumed, properly, it’s shut, and I can nonetheless spend quite a lot of time within the arts, which I like. So I used to be over on the high quality arts facet of the campus rather a lot; I took quite a lot of dance programs, I had lighting design, stage administration, all of the theatre issues that I beloved.
Was South Coast Rep in your radar then?
The primary play I noticed there was Mom Earth, I feel once I was in eighth grade. In highschool, I used to be very fortunate; there have been 30 subscriptions that the varsity purchased, so we acquired to go see performs. Our trainer was truly a member of the corporate when it was down in Newport Blvd. So we noticed the whole lot; we ushered. It was a improbable expertise. In school, I turned a scholar subscriber, and I began working right here within the subscriptions division in 1979.
That was an enormous 12 months for the corporate, proper after they moved to the placement they’ve been in ever since, in Costa Mesa, throughout from South Coast Plaza. Was the mall already there on the time?
Gosh, yeah—we grew up using our bikes to the mall, to Sears and Macy’s and Woolworths. It’s an entire different world now, however that was a hangout spot.
The Eighties can be when South Coast pivoted its focus to new performs, which has since turn out to be what it’s finest recognized for. What was it like in these days?
I used to be working in subscriptions and it was booming. That they had already outgrown the areas on this constructing. There have been storage rooms that turned places of work—they underestimated the increase in subscriptions after they moved from Newport Blvd. to right here. It simply took off, and so they couldn’t rent individuals quick sufficient to assist course of subscriptions. It was an amazing place to study. I principally grew up watching this theatre, in many alternative inside iterations, creating work alongside the best way, particularly the brand new performs, which is what stored me right here. It was too good of a possibility to depart. To satisfy with dwelling playwrights? Come on! It was the perfect.
What was behind the pivot to new performs?
New work was one thing that South Coast Repertory all the time did and was fascinated by, and it actually took off right here within the early Eighties. There was planning happening as a company round new performs and the best way to help them and take dangers, and the season planning mirrored newness often. There have been applications early on, just like the Hispanic Playwrights Venture, after which what ended up changing into the Pacific Playwrights Competition. All of them rolled out as a approach to help the brand new work—and as a response, in some methods, to David and Martin desirous to get performs forward of another theatres that have been in line. You’re in competitors for some performs in Southern California, and this was a approach to work round that. That was the impulse: to construct out these applications to help writers and preserve them writing for the theatre, not only for Hollywood. It’s tougher now than ever, proper? They get scattered away so quick with all of the streaming companies and the whole lot else. It was a technique to maintain playwrights writing for the theatre.
Somebody in a chunk I learn referred to as you “a fierce protector of the model” of South Coast Rep. How would you outline what that model was? And do you assume it provides the theatre a aggressive edge?
It’s such an fascinating query to speak about now. I feel the model is analogous, however the work has modified and the mannequin is altering, by way of how a lot work we’re truly doing versus what we have been doing pre-pandemic, for all the explanations. The model itself was in some methods simpler, as a result of we had two distinct seasons: the bigger Segerstrom Stage, the smaller Argyros Stage. Not that the classics couldn’t happen within the smaller house—they might, however predominantly they have been on the Segerstrom Stage, versus new work, which could you would possibly see extra on the Argyros Stage. I’d say that the model now is similar mixture of performs, however there’s a little bit extra stream in what that may appear to be by way of classics, or up to date classics, no matter you need to name them. I do assume on the core of it, what remains to be very sturdy and is a strategic benefit, is the give attention to new work. We name it our creative analysis and growth, R&D. That has not modified.
One factor I’ve heard theatre leaders speak about since theatres reopened is that the hits are a lot greater and the misses rather more devastating—the extremes are extra excessive. I fear about what meaning for brand new performs and the room they should take dangers and fail. Have you ever seen that very same development?
Completely. Innovation and threat and the event of the brand new is vital to the way forward for our artwork kind, and it’s crucial to South Coast Repertory and our mission. However the thought you could program one thing that individuals will come to—I nonetheless don’t know if that’s true or not. I imply, there are moments of serendipity the place you’re considering, “Oh, excellent timing, this play wants to come back again now,” or, “This musical must be achieved proper now—we’ve acquired the right group to come back collectively and the alchemy is there, and we’re going to do it,” and also you hope that may resonate. However we’ve by no means been in a position to choose performs that we knew would promote. I imply, that’s not likely what we’ve been attempting to do. It’s nice when it occurs. Proper now, the problem we speak about with the audiences we’re attempting to draw is: Do they even comprehend it’s a brand new play? Perhaps? I imply, we inform them it’s a brand new play. Okay. However do they know when one thing isn’t new? It’s a generational factor that everyone’s attempting to determine: What does convey them in? I feel that what brings individuals in is compelling tales that resonate in your life and the world, and are properly instructed, properly made.
I’ve heard this from different leaders—that this emphasis on the brand new, even simply placing a radical spin on a well-worn traditional, usually assumes that audiences are seasoned theatregoers who’ve all seen the classics dozens of occasions and are craving newness for its personal sake.
So as to add to that: The colleges, in some instances, aren’t actually in sync with us by way of our programming versus what they’re instructing. We discuss to educators and wrestle with the truth that they’re on the brink of retire, and so they’re not so certain their successors are going to step up and train the work in the best way that they did. It’s a generational shift for them too. So it’s on many ranges proper now.
A query I all the time ask people who’ve been round for some time is, what has modified probably the most because you began—not simply at your theatre however within the theatre discipline typically?
You’re asking the onerous ones! What’s modified? Clearly, the notion of subscribing. The era that I grew up in, that’s what you probably did: You simply purchased a collection of issues, you subscribed to a paper. It was an everyday incidence. Not a lot anymore. I’d say that’s one of the crucial difficult issues to wrestle with, and take into consideration what it means as you develop audiences and join together with your neighborhood. This neighborhood has grown. It was very entrepreneurial when it began, and now it’s a grown-up neighborhood. It’s new households, new individuals. It additionally was a given that you just had firms in your neighborhood and you’ll have company individuals serving in your board. We had automated relationships with these firms in Orange County that have been attracting workers, and one of many massive points of interest was the humanities.
The largest shift is that the whole lot’s obtainable in actual time on-line, streaming or in any other case, the leisure choices. So what does theatre turn out to be now? We used to assume, “Oh, talkbacks, aren’t they nice?” Audiences appreciated them as a approach to have interaction with artists, and a few nonetheless do. However there are others who need extra, and we’ve acquired to find what that extra is and the way they’ll have interaction with the artwork. This goes again to audiences once more, and what’s going to attract them in and preserve them coming again multiple time. These shifts in the best way we obtain artwork are important over the many years since I got here.
Final 12 months I talked to Alan Brown at Wolf Brown, an arts consulting agency, and he put a finer level on the competitors from streaming, which is that there’s a lot good drama to observe at residence, so it’s a more durable elevate to get individuals to come back out to sit down for a play. Musicals and spectacles and immersive experiences could have an edge, as a result of you may’t get these on Netflix. It looks as if that development would have an effect on a new-play theatre like South Coast Rep, proper?
You convey up a extremely good level: It’s performs. We grew up in a time after we understood what performs have been. You didn’t go in and get barraged by music and lights and lasers. A few of that stuff is de facto good, and a few of it for me simply doesn’t resonate. However that’s the problem with the era that’s going to these occasions, after which coming to see a play. What’s that have? How can we domesticate them so that they know what to anticipate, and may truly really feel one thing after they see it? Hopefully, it’s actually good theatre; it needs to be a extremely good play. Musicals are undoubtedly being cited as a approach to get individuals in, however you may’t do a gradual food regimen of musicals.
And so they’re costly. I do know you lately did a brand new musical, Prelude to a Kiss, which SCR initially produced as a play again in 1988.
That play was one of many first issues that was commissioned and produced out of the collaboration laboratory within the early ’80s, so it’s come full circle.
I additionally bear in mind having fun with the play Kimberly Akimbo at South Coast Rep again in 2001. Now that’s a musical too.
Oh, what an exquisite play that was. It’s a lot enjoyable to see it come full circle, like Prelude. I see that Kimberly Akimbo is gonna exit on tour, so I’m truly gonna be capable to see that throughout the road, when it comes right here as a part of the Segerstrom Heart’s Broadway collection.
Speak about full circle! Trying again at AT’s protection of SCR, it appears to be like like we by no means did an enormous sit-down interview with the creative leaders, as we frequently did with the likes of Adrian Corridor or Oskar Eustis. Most of our protection of SCR has been concerning the performs and the writers that began there, and the new-play festivals.
That’s nice of you to look at, and thanks—as a result of it has by no means been about us. It’s all the time concerning the work. That was instilled by way of David and Martin. We discuss often concerning the tradition of “we,” which meaning all of us get the work achieved collectively. That features the board. It’s that shared imaginative and prescient and pleasure round new performs, and the whole lot else we do, that lifts us, and has gotten us to the place we are actually, and can proceed to elevate us sooner or later.
Rob Weinert-Kendt (he/him) is the editor-in-chief of American Theatre.
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