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On December 6, 2006, I spent a pleasant hour with John Basil, Artistic Director of American Globe Theatre (AGT), which has the distinction of being a very long-lived (going on 18 years) off-Broadway theatre that is, quite literally, just off Broadway, at 145 West 46th Street.
John established AGT in 1989 with a core group of actors drawn from the Riverside Shakespeare Company's summer tours. "We wanted to find a new way to invigorate the performances of Shakespeare, so the human themes of his plays would be accessible and entertaining for audiences of all ages." To that end, John employs an innovative, historically-based approach to language and staging called the Rough and Ready Technique, developed by John Barton and Patrick Tucker at the Royal Shakespeare Company using Shakespeare's "First Folio" edition of 1623.
AGT also does other classical plays by such playwrights as Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, and Molière, to name a few, and sponsors the annual 15-Minute Play Festival, now going into its 13th year, where 32 plays compete over a week of performances for prizes and recognition.
At the core of AGT's enterprise is its well-received Shakespeare for Schools program, where artists from AGT's extensive roster expose young audiences to classical theatre that is accessible, timely, and pertinent to their life experiences. The program gets kids "on their feet" to experience the rudimentary elements of theatre arts such as production, process, and performance first-hand, and the goal is not only to encourage them to think like artists but also to be informed audience members in order to keep the appreciation of classical theatre alive for the future.
Since 9/11, John feels the challenges to keeping a small theatre going have shifted in ways that force an artistic director like himself to both innovate and renovate. For the last 5 years, AGT has been losing audience, and thus money (often a great deal), on its mainstage productions. Many of AGT's audience dependables, what John calls the "culture vultures" of New York and New Jersey, have decided to put their money into other entertainment options, which John believes have more to do with "nesting" and thus a less adventuresome spirit when it comes to making entertainment choices.
This has forced AGT to make important survival decisions. Shakespeare for Schools has become the bread-and-butter for the company, and John has plans in the pipeline for starting an after-school program in October of 2007 to capitalize on its school connections and to continue the theatre education started in the classroom. John will not let go of the mainstage productions because they have been, and will continue to be, launching pads for many artists. He noted how, over the years, the productions themselves have produced a cadre of actors, directors, and administrators who have gone on to their own careers, and this "seeding" is an important part of John's vision of AGT as a stepping stone and generator of new theatrical talent.
But the mainstage shows will, by necessity, have to be scaled back in number and size. The 15-Minute Play festival will continue because it generates both good audiences and good "buzz" and in its own way nurtures new generations of writers, actors, and directors—but it's also cost-effective to run since each play brings in its own production team.
This state of affairs, where the theatre will have to a lot of outside theatre-related work in the schools to generate enough revenue to support actual theatrical productions sits well with John—mostly. But if he had his druthers (and the money to support them, and the time to implement them—he is 56 years old at the moment), he would like to resurrect the success of his hero, Joseph Papp. If John's first love is Shakespeare, his second love, in close contention with the first, is the presentation and exploration of new work. In fact, he explains that in his transition to director from actor, he learned everything he needed to know from confronting new plays. "I love giving life to a new play, especially working with its language and how that language reflects the reality of its day."
But he also ruefully acknowledges that presenting untested and unknown work has its monetary pitfalls—AGT would always lose money on its Fall Festival of New Work and eventually had to discontinue it. And in the same breath he wonders if a Joe Papp is even possible today, and concludes "probably not" because the time and place don't allow for such breadth and daring. Now the niches are smaller and the scramble to find one that pays more intense, and a small resilient company like AGT can only swim with the tide while keeping a lookout for the main chance that will keep them going.
And to keep himself going as well. He sees himself as artistic director for only a few more years and is already thinking of the shape of his role as the "elder" of the theatre. "We need to continually look at the new," he says. "Years ago, I never would have thought of a website—now it's essential to us. YouTube, MySpace, DVDs of performances—these are things we need to explore to see if they can help us do our essential job of presenting theatre to new and old audiences."
John, meanwhile, is not sitting still. He recently published a book, Will Power: How To Act Shakespeare in 21 Days, continues his Shakespeare coaching program "Playing Shakespeare," and will be directing AGT's upcoming production of The Tempest. All in a day's work of a small theatre trying to make it through the off-Broadway wilds in 2007.
American Globe Theatre: www.americanglobe.org
John Basil: www.johnbasil.com
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