WOW! What a day! We were so excited as we walked into the offices of Arena Stage in Washignton, DC. Arena was one of the first 3 theaters in the regional theatre movement- the other 2 being the Alley Theatre in Houston, and Theatre '47 in Dallas (and did you know that all 3 were originated by women!). We chose to meet with Arena Stage because of the current Artistic Director, Molly Smith, and all she has accomplished and pioneered in her career.
We met Molly at her office and by the time we left we were completely inspired. Before coming to Arena Stage, Molly founded the Perseverance Theatre in Alaska and worked as it's Artistic Director for 19 years. We were enthralled by her story of how she built Perseverance from an idea into the success it became, and then how she brought her ideas and experience to Washington, DC. A warm and generous presence, she had some great insight into the challenges we'll face as an establishing company.
Our next stop was to the Folger's Library Theatre right behind the capitol building (check out the pic below!) in historic Washington DC to meet Joseph Haj (the Artistic Director of Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, North Carolina). We originally came across Joseph in this article in TCG's American Theatre Magazine, and immediately knew that he was someone we had to target for our project.
Joseph is in Washington DC directing a production of Hamlet at Folger's and met us after one of his rehearsals at the theatre. After he showed us the gorgeous classical theater at Folger's we walked over to his apartment and had a great talk.
In our time with Joseph he told us the great story of how he found his way to becoming an artistic director after all of his experiences as an actor. We were fascinated by the challenges he faced when he first arrived at Playmakers Rep, and all the ways he was able to turn the culture around and make it a community centered financially thriving theatre company. He has a brilliant mind for that place where the business and the art meet, we learned a whole lot from our conversation.
After our meeting we jumped back into the RVs (after walking Junior of course), and headed back to Baltimore for the night... excited to begin our travels back west in the morning!
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