A look at the regional theaters fighting to save their historic art form

Amna Nawaz:

Regional theater has been a glory of the American cultural scene for decades, bringing plays and musicals to audiences in cities across the country.

But the pandemic and a host of other social shifts have led to cutbacks, cancellations, even closures of theaters.

What if, to tweak "Hamlet" a bit, the play is no longer the thing?

Jeffrey Brown has a look for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Jeffrey Brown:

Somehow, some way, the show must go on. It's the abiding mantra of theater. And for nearly 60 years, it's been true at New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre, a company renowned for championing leading American playwrights and showcasing a who's-who of actors.

Now the show will go on, but with a very different look.

Jacob Padron, Artistic Director, Long Wharf Theatre:

Welcome to the theater. No, exactly. Exactly. This will be transformed.

Jeffrey Brown:

Rather than in one traditional theater space, says artistic director Jacob Padron, it might be here at the Canal Dock Boathouse.

You're looking all around New Haven for what?

Jacob Padron:

I think about it as that our city and our region has many stages, and our model allows us to activate all these different stages across the city and region.

So, yes, maybe it's a library. Maybe it's a high school auditorium. Maybe it's a boathouse. It's about, what's the right container, what's the right space for the story that our artists want to tell?

Jeffrey Brown:

It's a bold experiment, but one born of dire need. Finding its audience dwindling, its budget in deficit, last year, Long Wharf announced it was leaving the theater it had rented for decades in an old warehouse district to try something new and hope others come along.

Jacob Padron:

The American theater across the country is challenged, right, that we need support from our corporations, from our foundations, from donors.

We need our communities to come together and support live theater.

Jeffrey Brown:

Postponements of productions at L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum and Chicago's Lookingglass, fewer shows at Seattle's ACT Contemporary and Philadelphia's Arden, layoffs at New York's Public Theater and elsewhere, closures of smaller theater companies, including Triad in North Carolina.

It's happening all over. According to a recent study, regional theaters programmed about 40 percent fewer shows last year than in the season just before COVID. And the term crisis is in the air, though Kit Ingui, Long Wharf's managing director, uses the word consciously. She and Padron spoke to us at another of the company's new pop-up spaces, New Haven's public Stetson Library.

Kit Ingui, Managing Director, Long Wharf Theatre:

I think there is crisis happening. I don't know that I would say the American theater is in crisis. Perhaps regional theater, the traditional model of subscriber-based, we're going to sell all of our tickets ahead of time to a large group of people who's going to support what we do…

Jeffrey Brown:

That doesn't work?

Kit Ingui:

It can work in certain communities. It can work in certain places. Each organization right now, if they're not looking at their communities and their relationship with their audience and what's been working and what's not been working, really taking your rose-colored glasses off and looking at where you have had success and where you're not, then your organization might find itself in crisis.

Jeffrey Brown:

In Long Wharf's case, that means relying more on contributions and philanthropy, while also working to connect more to its larger New Haven community, especially communities of color that Padron thinks haven't felt included in the past.

Jacob Padron:

For so many years, I think our theater companies were not paying attention. So it's not just about the programming. It's not just about the shows that you're doing on stage, but who's the makeup of the staff? Who's on your board? What's the organizational culture? Who are the partners across your city that are supporting that work?

Jeffrey Brown:

The pandemic was a major blow to theaters around the country, and many have yet to recover from the extended closures.

Government support helped, but has largely been spent. But it's also clear the pandemic only exacerbated longstanding trends. Less than an hour south, we visited another regional theater with a grand tradition, Westport Country Playhouse, and met Mark Shanahan, who's been involved here for years, and will take over as artistic director in 2024.

Mark Shanahan, Incoming Artistic Director, Westport Country Playhouse:

Listen, there are a variety of reasons. As we struggle to get audiences all around the country back into the theater, it's hard to compete with so much new media. It is hard to compete with a soft economy, where you're asking people to give money who might not be as comfortable doing it as they have in the past.

And it is also hard to ask people who are used to sitting at home during the pandemic to say, remember how great it was to come back to the theater, to make that a practice again. All of those things are challenges. The only thing we can do, the only path forward is to keep trying to make great work and getting word out there and then reminding people how much they love coming here.

Jeffrey Brown:

Here, the posters on the walls and photos in the halls attest to some serious theater history, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, James Earl Jones, a young Jane Fonda, contemporary stars, including Paul Rudd and Leslie Odom Jr.

Westport began in an old barn in 1931. The early 2000s saw an extensive renovation and expansion following a $30 million funding campaign under the leadership of famed actress and then artistic director Joanne Woodward, whose husband, Paul Newman, joined in to help raise money.

But, this year, Westport announced cuts in production and layoffs of 75 percent of staff, and issued an emergency $2 million public campaign to — quote — "Save your playhouse."

Beth Huisking is acting managing director.

Beth Huisking, Acting Managing Director, Westport Country Playhouse:

And it wasn't something we did lightly. There was a lot of thought that went into it.

But we believed that our community would rally, and it was a way to let them know that we were worse off than maybe we had let them know in the past. At the same time, I was confident that our community would come together and help us in our time of need and would show us how important we are to them.

Jeffrey Brown:

A major advantage, this is a very well-off town. The $2 million target has just about been reached, and philanthropy will remain a key to survival.

But theater leaders are counting on another strategy, using their space more days of the year, as with their Script in Hand series, a stage reading of a play, here Audrey Cefaly's "Maytag Virgin," which nearly filled the theater, bringing in people, dollars and a sense of excitement.

And Westport is also becoming a presenting theater with acts beyond its own productions, including just recently musical theater star Patti LuPone.

Beth Huisking:

We have realized that was really a wise model, and it allows us to do theater, which is at our heart who we are. And it allows us to bring in the community and to work with community partnerships.

And so I think with those added into the calendar, it's really going to help. Those will help new funders come in, and those will help new audiences come in.

Jeffrey Brown:

As to theater programming itself, Mark Shanahan points to a recent production of "Dial M For Murder,' an old classic given some new twists, as something that works well here.

Mark Shanahan:

The theater is all about problems and problem-solving. It always is. What play are we going to do? Who's going to be in it? Who's going to light it? Who's going to do the set? How are we going to tell people it's out there? Who's going to pay for it? What time of year are we doing it?

How are we going to make any of this happen? Why are we ever surprised that there are problems? We just have a new set of problems, and sometimes a growing set of problems, and we have to figure out how to solve them.

Jeffrey Brown:

That, of course, is the old can-do spirit of theater. The show must go on, even as the future of American regional theater hangs in the balance.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Westport and New Haven, Connecticut.