Artistry in a New Century

Welcome to the Guthrie

Joe Dowling, Artistic Director, The Guthrie Theatre

Teresa Eyring, Executive Director, TCG: At a conference where our discussion is centering on the future and what we’d like to build together as a field, the Guthrie is a shining example of what big vision combined with tenacity against all odds can accomplish. When Joe Dowling and the Guthrie board first started talking about building a whole new building in order to expand opportunities for this community to see classic and contemporary work in what is a fairly sophisticated theatregoing community with 60 plus theatres, many of us were sort of standing in awe, thinking “how can they possibly do this,” a whole new facility at that time. And we knew that it wouldn’t come easily. And, indeed, there were land issues, money issues, former wrestler-governors who vetoed funding after years and years and years of lobbying for it, but here we are now, standing on what was a piece of land not too many years ago, in this amazing realization of that vision.

I heard a story which supposedly came from some of the construction workers on this project that before the building was finished but when the structure was up and the walls weren’t quite in yet, that it became a place that animals would come and feel at home. And I’m not just telling you this story because I used to work at the Children’s Theatre Company… There were deer and there were bunny rabbits and doves and apparently there was an eagle that came and landed on the end of the endless bridge, so it really meant that this place was magical, and blessed in a way. And after opening, there were other things, there were spiders on the outside of the building, and there were mayflies, and now I think there are swallows that come here. Anyway, so I was talking to Joe Dowling the other day and I started talking to him about these wild animal stories, and he said, “Well, I knew about the spiders, but I didn’t know anything about wild animals in the building – I guess I was too busy dealing with other wild animals, like actors and stage managers and architects and zoning people and former wrestler-governors…” so Joe had a great sense of humor about it.

Anyway, Joe Dowling is here with us today to speak. And I just want to say a few words about him. He’s an artist, an artistic leader and really a visionary who hails from Ireland. He is probably most known for his time at the Abbey Theatre where he was the artistic director for a number of years. He founded the Young Abbey, Ireland’s first theatre in education program. He’s directed many, many productions, too numerous to list here. He’s been the Guthrie’s leader since 1995 and has been a real beacon in this community for his vision, his accessibility, his community-mindedness and his drive to accomplish what he believes in. I’m really pleased to be able introduce you, right now, to this extraordinary individual, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Joe Dowling.

[applause]

Joe Dowling: Thank you very much indeed. It’s my very great pleasure to welcome you all here to the Twin Cities and specifically to the Guthrie. And may I say, and I know I speak for all of my colleagues here in Minnesota, when I say how proud we all are of Teresa Eyring and of her achievements and now of her new appointment. While we will greatly miss the work that she and Peter Brosius have done at the Children's Theatre we wish her tremendous success and thank her for all the work she's done here in this community.

I want to talk to you a little bit about this particular building, and how we came to create this facility, and to talk a little bit about the background to the Guthrie and its place in American theatre. It was some 47 years ago that three great men of the theatre Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Ray, and Peter Zeisler—a name indeed well known to TCG circles—met in Guthrie’s ancestral home at Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan in Ireland, the place to discuss the profound, and somewhat original then, notion of providing the best in world class theatre to an American audience far from the bright lights and the big budgets of Broadway. They announced their intentions through the good offices of the New York Times and they were somewhat delighted when they had seven cities express an interest in hosting a new repertory company around the country. And so it was in 1960 that managing director Oliver Ray and artistic director Tony Guthrie ventured forth to find a place to plant an artistic garden in the heart of the country. Peter Zeisler stayed back in NY because he was stage managing The Sound of Music. And a small plane brought the crew to Minneapolis/St. Paul. When they stepped on the tarmac, according to Guthrie, "The temperature was 30 degrees below zero and the wind was a bright sharp sword that pierced your bowels through and through." [laughter] So no wonder the people that Teresa met were under the illusion we had constant winter here! Here they met a steering committee headed by John Cowles Jr. and this committee was determined that they were going to win out over their 6 rivals. And later Guthrie wrote, "We wound up offering our rather runty apple of our artistic mission to the Twin Cities because we wanted to work there. Why? Was it the weather? The people? The river. It was the river, itself, that most charmed and amazed us. It had not yet frozen over and was flowing with a lively sparkle through winding forges that are still beautiful despite being exploited in the interest of trade. Eventually,” Guthrie wrote, "the Twin Cities will realize that their river can be and ought to be a wonderful and life giving amenity. It has taken London 2,000 years even to begin to appreciate this about the Thames. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to expect the Twin Cities will make the most out of the Mississippi in a mere 100." Well, ladies and gentlemen it has taken half of that mere hundred, but here we are. Thanks to the vision of our board of directors, the hard work and dedication of our staff, the munificent generosity of 4,200 donors, the commitment of both state and city, and the extraordinary imagination of Jean Nouvelle, I’m now in the privileged position of saying to so many of our colleagues from all around the country familiar words in a somewhat new setting: "Welcome to the Guthrie Theater."

While it’s widely regarded as one of the flagships of the not-for-profit theatre movement in America the foundation of the Guthrie Theater in 1963 was not, as many of you here know, the beginning of the resident theatre movement in the United States. For some years before our dramatic arrival on the scene, pioneers such as Margot Jones in Dallas and Zelda Fichandler at Arena Stage in Washington among others, had the vision to recognize that if theatre as an art form was to prosper and to thrive throughout the country, it was essential to establish resident organizations in different regions that would serve their own community with a balance between contemporary and classical work. However, the creation of the Guthrie was significantly different from other pioneer theatres, I would argue. Because while the founders of many resident theatres around the country were brave, brilliant and resilient artists, they were mostly young and untried outside their own areas. But Guthrie and his colleagues when they decided to decentralize American theatre and to create a new movement with a different theatrical energy, they were already major figures in New York, and indeed in Guthrie’s case, throughout the world. He was—at that time—the preeminent director in the English speaking world. So inevitably, the fame of Tyrone Guthrie and his original company that included Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Zoë Caldwell and George Grizzard was such that the new institution was seen immediately as the hope of the whole movement. Joseph Wesley Ziegler in his study of our movement Regional Theatre the Revolutionary Stage describes the expectation somewhat clearly. He says, “another more important possibility opened up with the emergence of the Guthrie Theater. The possibility that from the regional theatre might come a national theatre for America.” Before the Guthrie there’d been scant justification for such an idea. The Guthrie was the first regional theatre that looked as if it could conceivably develop into the realization of a long cherished dream. I believe that was a foolish hope and one that placed an impossible burden on this young "Minnesota miracle" as it was called.

While the Guthrie has continued to evolve into a major resident institution of vital importance to its own community, it’s clearly not and never could be a national theatre for America. Nor do we ever aspire to such a status. Given the vastness of this country, the geography, the diversity of its culture, a single American national theatre is not a realistic prospect—and in my view not a desirable objective. What the Guthrie Theater has aspired to do is what so many theatres around the country also do and that is reflect back to its own community an awareness of the continuity of human feeling and experience through great dramatic literature, whatever the culture, whatever the century. It’s also been responsible for creating a standard of excellence and of community involvement that has been emulated throughout the country. Quality of life in our community has been enriched beyond measure by the emergence of the Guthrie and the subsequent flowering of a rich theatrical tradition that has become the envy of many cities twice our size. When Teresa introduced the Twin City theatres you saw a sample of some of the extraordinary work that I hope you’ll have a chance to witness throughout this weekend. Many people throughout the years as all of you will know as well as me, have predicted that the demise of theatre was imminent, that as a significant art form, it was not likely to survive. Well I’m happy to tell you, that here in the Upper Midwest, as in so many other parts of the country, we not only survive but also, as you look around this magnificent building and the city, we thrive and we can look forward to the future with confidence and with conviction.

The founder of our theatre, Tyrone Guthrie, put it very well I believe 40 years ago when he said, “I believe that a theatre where live actors perform to an audience which is there in the flesh before them, will survive all threats from powerfully organized industries which pump pre-fabricated dramas out of cans and blowers and contraptions of one kind or another. [laughter] It will survive as long as mankind demands to be amused, terrified, instructed, shocked, corrupted and delighted by tales told in a manner that will always remain mankind’s most vivid and powerful manner of telling a story. I believe,” Guthrie said, “that the purpose of theatre is to show mankind to himself and thereby to show to man God’s image.” The coming together of a group of people in the theatre as we all know is to experience an act of artistic creation has indeed a spiritual dimension. An audience relates to one another and to performers both in a physical and a spiritual way and the influence of one on the other can be profound. What makes theatre special and indestructible is that bond that is created in the immediate time and space. No two performances can ever be the same and each separate audience sees and hears a unique event. The immediacy of human connection is such a part of what attracts people to theatre. The strength of theatre lies in that power of that interaction between actor and audience. But in the case of this theatre, and so many others, it also is about the importance of a broader relationship between the theatre and its community.

This theatre was always intended to serve a local community. Not previously noted for their devotion to theatre, Minneapolis community leaders persuaded that dynamic trio of Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Ray and Peter Zeisler to create their repertory theatre here in the land of 10,000 lakes. From the start, there was considerable local pride and the community had great affection for their miracle in Minnesota. Sense of engagement has remained solid to this day. On more than one occasion the Guthrie has been in dire financial straights, only to be saved by the generosity of individual board members. No matter how choppy the waters have become, the board of directors of this theatre have ensured that the economic and cultural life of the region would not suffer with the loss of this theatre. Each artistic director, since Tyrone Guthrie, has had the freedom to create his own program—there hasn’t yet been a woman but hopefully that will be rectified soon—his own program without fear or favor. In the seventies Michael Langham gave the theatre a series of brilliantly conceived classic productions. Liviu Ciulei who had recently arrived from Romania made the 80s a time of experiment and fresh thinking and Garland Wright a brilliant and caring director, laid the foundation for much of the expansion and growth that has been possible for this theatre in recent years.

I became artistic director of the Guthrie in 1995 and at that time the theatre was going through one of those cyclical periods of unease and doubt that I think we all recognize affect most artistic institutions from time to time. The then executive director Ed Martenson said at the time, “the audience is out of sorts with us. They seem angry for some reason.” Some of Garland’s choices had been badly received, the press had become venomous. Indeed one reviewer had described a particular production as, “shit.” [laughter] In print! [laughter] But most significantly the numbers of subscribers were falling from a record high of 26,000 in 1990 almost 50 % had withdrawn by early 1995. Examining the previous decade’s programming one thing became abundantly clear to me, the decline in public support was not as result of lack of ambition or artistic innovation. Garland Wright had widened the repertoire to include new work, he brought diversity into the acting company, he introduced very exciting and fresh directors, and he opened the Guthrie lab in an old downtown warehouse where young artists could grow without the soul destroying tyranny of press scrutiny. And side by side with these innovations Garland Wright had also produced and directed some legendary productions of the classics—the highlight being his epic version of Shakespeare’s history plays in 1990. But I began an exhaustive round of speaking engagements with any possible group that would listen to me, indeed and a newspaper recently said that at that time I would attend the opening of an envelope. [laughter] It was made clear to me by the theatre going community that despite this carefully balanced program that Garland had created, they felt alienated from the Guthrie. They saw us as a distant, elitist organization out of touch with their needs and tastes. And a meeting with some significant donors confirmed the view and reinforced a need for fresh thinking. And of course the press howled “populist crowd pleaser” when I announced my first season aimed at restoring the appeal of the repertoire to our traditional audience. But taking Guthrie’s own advice about the aim of the theatre being to do good plays and do them well, I presented a familiar list of writers including Shakespeare, Ibsen, Miller, Friel and Goldsmith and side by side with this audience friendly package we transformed the Guthrie lab into a second public space for new work by Sam Shepard, Femi Osofisan, and Manuel Puig, to play to smaller audiences. And over the years that raw space, the Guthrie lab became vital for new work and influenced much of our thinking about the necessary repertory for the Guthrie.

The success of the Guthrie lab proved to me that there was absolute need for a second auditorium here in the Guthrie. This signature thrust stage of the Guthrie seen here in the old theatre is a unique and dynamic theatrical space. Its weaknesses however are also as strong in some ways as its strengths. It was designed specifically to house classics written before the middle of 17th century. And while the energy and dynamism of the stage for the audience (as you do sit on three sides) is clear in epic productions from any era, it’s less satisfactory for staging more naturalistic plays from the end of the 19th and all of the 20th century. And as this includes most of the great American repertoire, the Guthrie could either change or become a theatre increasingly marginalized by its own architecture. Shakespeare has always been at the centre of the Guthrie repertoire. Since the opening production in 1963 of Tyrone Guthrie’s production of Hamlet starring George Grizzard and Jessica Tandy audiences have come to admire the flexibility of the thrust stage in telling Shakespeare’s great stories. Fluidity of movement and the immediacy and the intimacy of the staging and the direct address to the audience makes this stage I believe one of the best places in the world to see and perform Shakespeare. And as it was never our intention to change that part of the mission it was clear that any future development must include our signature thrust stage. But it seemed logical that a second theatre would have the more conventional proscenium arch stage. With both stages at our disposal it would then be possible to continue our artistic adventurous policy the way that Garland had tried while ensuring that the theatre could attract a wide audience for popular plays. And the idea of including studio space within the new complex was as a result of our commitment to training young actors. Shortly after I arrived here I invited Kenneth Washington, then a professor of drama at the University of Utah, to head up a new dept at the Guthrie. He became our director of company development and in a short time he transformed our training programs. Ken introduced a new summer program, a Guthrie experience for actors in training which to this day brings student actors from theatre programs around the country here to Minneapolis. Throughout the summer, along with regular classes and performances, they’ve a chance to experience the life of an active theatre. Many have returned as company members after graduation and all we hope have a deeper appreciation for the life of a resident theatre. It is our hope that many of them will find satisfaction in working in live theatre rather than decamping immediately to either coast awaiting the big break in movies or television. Also working with the dept of drama and dance at the University of Minnesota we began a BFA program in classical acting that continues to be a fertile recruiting ground for our productions and indeed for other theaters around the state and around the country. So we decided that in an ideal world a studio space would house the work of both these programs as well as introduce important local companies and new work.

So in contemplating the potential opportunities and weighing up the dangers of doing nothing, I concluded that a time had come for the Guthrie to take bold steps to ensure its future and to claim once again its place as a leader in American theatre. So we would have three theatres in a single complex: we’d bring our production and administration depts. then scattered all over the city back together under one roof. We would become a national center for theatre art and theatre education. The new theatre would include a thrust stage, a proscenium stage and a studio, or black box theatre. I wrote a paper for our board in 1998 outlining the comprehensive nature of our ambitions and then, our then managing director David Hawkanson – a brilliant managing director and a superb strategist—he and I began to lead our board and staff on the hazardous journey that has eventually led us to the creation of this new theatre complex on the banks of the Mississippi River.

First step on that journey was the appointment of an architect. A sub-committee of the board was set up to select a suitable candidate and it was quickly determined that as well as establishing a theatre that functioned well we wished to create an architectural icon that would draw national and international attention to our city and our state. We explored the work of five major world architects whose portfolios fitted our needs. All of them had experience in building performing arts facilities. The final selection of Jean Nouvelle, the French architect was unanimous and enthusiastic. What impressed us about Nouvelle’s work was that the combination of playfulness, of surprise and functionality that he showed in each of his buildings. His originality and artistic genius were proved by the Cartier museum in Paris with his enormous tree behind the glass structure, the array of camera irises combining into a carpet like wall on the exterior of the Institut du Monde Arabe and framing of the views of the concert hall at Lucerne. However, the building that sealed my deciding vote was the opera house in Lyon because there Nouvelle had taken a 19th century building whose exterior could not be altered and he had transformed it to create a wholly new theatre. The auditorium was beautifully understated, the lobby is magnificent and rich in color but the crowning glory was the backstage area where rehearsal rooms on the roof offered the artists a spectacular view of the city and a sense of beauty in which to prepare their work. This was clearly my man. [laughter] With Jean Nouvelle on board and a capital campaign on the way, our next task was to persuade the Minnesota legislature to back the project by including it in its biannual bonding session then working its way through a stormy session. The overall cost of the building that Nouvelle proposed was $125 million. And we hoped from experience that our philanthropic community would be enormously generous. Our hopes were indeed realized. Our capital campaign reached $93 million from a very broad based community of 4,200 people. The majority of donors were from this region. But for the theatre to be truly seen as a Minnesota theatre, we needed public funding to complement the private contributions. There was little precedent for capital state funding of an arts organization and most people gave us no chance of success. The recently erected—elected [laughter] sort of Freudian slip there, elected wrestler turned governor Jesse Ventura was loudly insistent that no arts project was worthy of state support. “If I give money to a theatre, why not support stock car racing?” he famously growled and we recognized that we had a fight in our hands. And we would need all the support we could muster from around the state and from the earliest years the Guthrie has established a very special bond with greater Minnesota. Throughout our education work we had links with every school district in the state. In any given year more than 125,000 students and teachers attend a Guthrie production coming from all corners of our state and beyond. In 2000 we revived a touring program with a highly popular production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and subsequent tours strengthened the relationship between the Guthrie and the region. So, when we needed advocacy for our project we called on the thousands of people who had seen our work in Mankato and Rochester and Duluth and many other cities and towns throughout the state. We began an extensive campaign to ensure that legislators of both parties knew of the wide support we had at grass roots level. Thousands of phone calls, letters flooded into the capital. On one occasion a beleaguered senator called me and begged to please call the email dogs off as his mail box was becoming clogged with Guthrie supporters. We sent out another email to tell them to keep it up. [laughter] People traveled from miles to give testimony at legislative sessions. The Guthrie was a hot topic of conversation throughout the media and following a monumental political battle lasting over 4 years, including 3 vetoes from governor Ventura we prevailed. And both the house and the senate voted $25 million in bonds for the creation of a new theatre. The new governor, Tim Palenti signed the bill in 2003 and in September of that year we broke ground for our new three theatre complex that includes three rehearsal rooms, four classrooms, extended scenery and costume shops, together with spectacular audience amenities. [applause]

The genius of Nouvelle’s design was his recognition that the theaters needed to be some 50 feet in the air. This was necessary, he believed, to take advantage of the site, with sweeping views of the Mississippi and of the powerful St Anthony Fall situated in the exact place where the city was founded. He also proposed, and you’ve seen it, our cantilevered lobby stretching a 175 feet from the building where audiences can experience a unique sensation of being above the flow of the river. These public spaces are used all day as meeting places to attract casual visitors as well as theatre goers. The theaters themselves, and here you see the thrust stage which you are in, are equipped with state of the art technology are a model of efficiency and traffic flow in our backstage areas—well they’re as efficient as any theater positioned 50 feet in the air can be.

The self designation—a national centre for theatre art and theatre education—helps us to articulate the extent of our ambition. We have no desire or indeed opportunity to become a national theatre. But we do see the potential of developing our work so that it continues to have wide local support as well as attracting national attention. We have defined a national center, here in the center of the country as a place to which work will come and from which work will go. I have long resented the notion that theatres like the Guthrie and many others around the country are deemed “regional” as though there were some center to which we all looked with awe. There’s a pejorative implication in the word regional that I reject and I believe currently there is no center for not- for profit theatre in the United States. Yes, New York is a great cultural capital and there are numerous brilliant companies there both for profit and not-for-profit. But essentially if you examine it, it is the center for commercial theatre. And the focus is on Broadway in the exact same way Guthrie, Zeisler and Ray believed a big change was needed. Almost 45 years later I believe it is essential that we begin to change the language by which we are designated. Many other theatres around the country could equally be designated as national centers and that is why we’ve always used the “a” rather than “the.” By changing our focus, by developing a comprehensive program that serves both our local community and influences the national movement we can fulfill the original intention of our founders and create a momentum that will help to define American theatre in the 21st century as we did in the second part of the 20th century. We will have a chance now with our proscenium stage through co-productions and visiting companies to extend our relationships with theatres around the country. Through our World Stages program we’ve already created relationships with important international artists and companies. Indeed, later this year, the Royal Shakespeare Company with their productions of King Lear and The Seagull with Sir Ian McClellan will play on this stage. And we plan to continue to develop that aspect of our work. We see the strength of the Guthrie as its seminal place in the history of the American 20th century theatre. Its focus on the reinterpretation of the classics and a highly committed audience and donor base and now with its proscenium arch in addition to the thrust stage, it’ll be possible for us to expand the repertoire to include more contemporary writing and new plays from major American writers. Already under the direction of Michael Bigelow Dixon our literary department has commissioned numerous plays and we have presented 10 world premiers in the last 5 years: including award winning plays from Arthur Miller, Lee Blessing and a world premier that you hopefully will get a chance to see playing currently in our studio by Julie Marie Myatt, Boats on a River. New writing is the life blood of a theatre and finally the Guthrie can join in that great movement and play an important part in creating a new body of American literature.

The people of Minnesota have made a huge investment in the future of the Guthrie Theater and in the vision that we have articulated. We have an ambitious program—[referring to a slide] this is our studio—inspired by the successes of the past but conscious of the need to grow so that the experiment created in the early 1960’s will thrive and prosper in this new millennium. Future generations of actors, directors and writers will work here in expanded and beautiful conditions. Spectacular audience facilities combined with the iconic architecture created by Jean Nouvelle will ensure that Minneapolis becomes a cultural destination to rival some of the major cities of the world.

The reinvention of the Guthrie has stretched our organization in ways we could never have imagined when we began that process over 8 years ago. However, it has also strengthened our determination to grow and to develop this art form that we all love this side of madness. The success of our campaign, to build a new theatre, confirms a belief I’ve held all my life, that theatre has the capacity not just to move the individual who sees that mirror held up to nature but also to transform a whole community in pursuit of a shared ideal. Those of us who’ve been lucky enough to be part of this remarkable enterprise are very conscious that we must not fail those hopes and those ambitions. I know you all—our colleagues our friends all of you in the American theatre - will wish us luck. Thank you very much. [applause]

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