Williamstown Theatre Festival

Behind the scenes! Our interview with Jenny Gersten about the coming season. Read it here.

Continuing its 57-year history under new Artistic Director Jenny Gersten who succeeds Nicholas Martin, Williamstown Theatre Festival hosts award-winning actors, directors and playwrights who join forces to entertain and delight the Berkshire community of year-round and seasonal patrons. In addition to its acclaimed productions, WTF has extensive training and professional development programs for the next generation of actors, writers, directors, designers, technicians and managers. In 2002, WTF received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

Tickets

Tickets for the 2010 Williamstown Theatre Festival season can be purchased online at www.wtfestival.org starting May 29 at Noon and by phone at (413) 597-3400 starting Tuesday, June 1 at 10:00 a.m.

WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL

2011 SEASON SUMMARY

MAIN STAGE

Three Hotels
By Jon Robin Baitz
Directed by Robert Falls
June 29 – July 24, 2011

She Stoops to Conquer
By Oliver Goldsmith
Directed by Nicholas Martin
Cast includes: Brooks Ashmanskas, Kristine Nielsen, Jon Patrick Walker, Paxton Whitehead
July 27 – August 7, 2011

Ten Cents a Dance
Conceived and Directed by John Doyle
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Cast includes: Malcolm Gets, Lauren Molina, Jane Pfitsch
August 11 – August 28, 2011

NIKOS STAGE

A Streetcar Named Desire
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by David Cromer
Cast includes: Jessica Hecht, Sam Rockwell
June 22 – July 3, 2011

One Slight Hitch
By Lewis Black
Directed by Joe Grifasi
Cast includes: Paige Howard, Mark Linn-Baker
July 6 – 17, 2011

A Doll’s House
By Henrik Ibsen
Translated by Paul Walsh
Directed by Sam Gold
Cast includes: Oscar Isaac, Hamish Linklater, Matthew Maher, Lily Rabe, Lili Taylor
July 20 – 31, 2011

Touch(ed)
By Bess Wohl
Directed by Trip Cullman
August 3 – 14, 2011

You Better Sit Down: tales from my parents’ divorce
Written by Anne Kauffman, Matthew Maher, Caitlin Miller, Jennifer R. Morris, Janice Paran, and Robbie Collier Sublett
Conceived by Jennifer R. Morris
Directed by Anne Kauffman
August 16 – 21, 2011 (one week only!)
ADDED PERFORMANCE: Sunday, August 21st at 7:30pm

www.wtfestival.org

New Leadership in Williamstown

At the end of summer 2010, Jenny Gersten stepped into the role of Artistic Director, replacing the much loved Nicholas Martin as the leader of the Williamstown Theatre Festival. She is an alumnus of WTF, having served as its Associate Producer from 1996 to 2004. She currently holds the position of Associate Producer of the The Public Theatre of New York City.

For more than a year now, those familiar with Williamstown Theatre Festival have been concerned with Nicholas Martin’s health, the A.D. having suffered a heart attack prior to the 2009 season.

Matt Harris, chairman of the WTF Board was clearly delighted that the search for a new leader was over. “In Jenny, we found someone not only with impeccible taste, but also with the ability to run and build an organization,” he enthused.

Before her Public Theatre stint Gersten was active at both the Williamstown and the Naked Angels theater companies. At the time she was known for bringing in new, unknown directors and playwrights, many of them women, including Elizabeth Meriwether and Melissa James Gibson, and helping put them on the map. At Williamstown she also started the Shakespeare Lab for young people.

It is likely that her earlier commitments to rising artists and young people will continue to be a focus of her leadership. The Williamstown Theatre Festival has a history of cutting edge productions with rising stars, and this tradition seems to be secure as the mantle of leadership passes from one generation to another.

Here is the announcement as made by Williamstown Theatre Festival:

Williamstown Theatre Festival (Nicholas Martin, Artistic Director; Joe Finnegan, General Manager) announced today that Jenny Gersten has been named the company’s new Artistic Director. Gersten will succeed current Artistic Director Nicholas Martin, who will depart after the upcoming 2010 summer season.

Gersten, an alumnus of Williamstown Theater Festival, where she served as Associate Producer from 1996 to 2004, is currently Associate Producer of The Public Theater.

About the appointment, Artistic Director Martin enthused, “Since our happy days at Williamstown, Jenny has risen through the ranks of the theater industry exercising her extraordinary theater savvy and singular vision at every step along the way. How ideal that she is coming home after all these years.” He added, “I have been proud to call her a collaborator and friend and now have the honor to welcome her back as Artistic Director.”

In a statement, Jenny Gersten said, “The opportunity to return to the Williamstown Theatre Festival as Artistic Director brings me immeasurable satisfaction and joy. Williamstown is one of my most favorite places on earth, and the combination of the memorable experiences I’ve had there, along with the future I envision for WTF, fills me with hope for what the next few years could bring. I’ve had an extraordinary six years away from the Berkshires, and brilliant mentors and collaborators at Naked Angels, The Public Theater and beyond, who have given me so many good gifts and insights. I can’t wait to come back and bring the fruits of that knowledge to bear on this new time.”

“When we set out to find our next leader, we wanted someone with not only impeccable taste, but also an ability to run and build an organization,” said Matt Harris, Williamstown Theatre Festival Board Chairman. “In Jenny, we found someone with that very rare combination.”

Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of The Public Theater, commented, “I am so proud of Jenny Gersten I could bust. Her appointment as Artistic Director of the Williamstown Theater Festival is a great thing for the American Theater. For the last three years her talent, diligence, brains and incredible good humor have graced the halls of The Public Theater, and we know she will bring joy to the Berkshires. Congratulations to her and to the Williamstown Theater Festival!”

Continuing its 56-year history, Williamstown Theatre Festival hosts award-winning actors, directors and playwrights who join forces to entertain and delight the Berkshire community of year-round and seasonal patrons. In addition to its acclaimed productions, WTF has extensive training and professional development programs for the next generation of actors, writers, directors, designers, technicians and managers. In 2002, WTF received the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

Biography

Jenny Gersten is currently the Associate Producer of The Public Theater in New York City. She has produced the following plays in the past year: Twelfth Night in Central Park (directed by Daniel Sullivan), The Idiot Savant (written and directed by Richard Foreman), The Brother/Sister Plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney (directed by Tina Landau and Robert O’Hara), The Book of Grace by Suzan-Lori Parks, and serves as the associate producer of HAIR on Broadway as well as in London. Prior to joining The Public Theater, she was the Artistic Director of Naked Angels, a theater company founded in 1986 by a company of actors, writers, directors, designers and producers. In that time, she produced the World Premieres of Elizabeth Meriwether’s The Mistakes Madeline Made, and Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, as well as three evenings of one-act plays by known and emerging playwrights, and countless readings and workshops of new work.

During her nine years at Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF), the company received a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, transferred six productions to Broadway (and others to Off-Broadway and to prominent regional theaters), and Ms. Gersten served as associate producer to 103 new and revived plays. In addition, she curated and produced a new play reading series, oversaw the training program for upcoming actors and directors, and helped create and oversee a long-range plan for the Festival as well as launch a campaign for an endowment fund. She independently produced My Renaissance Faire Lady, written and directed by Evan Cabnet, at the Ontological Hysteric Theater.

Prior to WTF, Ms. Gersten was Director of Marketing and Development at The 52nd Street Project, a mentoring theater organization which brings inner-city youth from the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood together with professional theater artists to create original plays. She has served as a casting director for Billy Elliot the Musical as well as for visual artist Gregory Crewdson. She has reviewed grants for the national theater service organization, TCG and for the Department of Cultural Affairs in New York City,, been a Special Events consultant for the Atlantic Theater Company, led workshops for the Off-Broadway service organization ART/NY, guest lectured at Yale and taught self-producing to young directors and actors at NYU. Ms Gersten was an archaeology and art history major at Oberlin College. While at Williamstown, she married playwright and lyricist Willie Reale and had two boys, Gus and Leo.

Commentary

Ever since it was announced that Jenny Gersten would be assuming the role of artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, following the departure of Nicholas Martin late last summer, theatre-goers have been curious what that would mean. For one thing it means three shows instead of four, but two of them will run longer so more people can see them. “We’re trying to run them a little bit longer and see if that gives them time to catch on,” Gersten said.

For the Main Stage at least, it means the good times will continue. Just announced are the three main attractions, with the Nikos Theatre events still to be determined. Being the smaller of the two stages, the Nikos is generally where the new works, the experiments and the innovation happens.

The ’62 Center may be surrounded by snow today, but in a few months, the flowers will bloom, and the stars will come out again.

Once again the Main Stage will light up with its share of blockbuster attractions. Anyone who was lucky enough to see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum last summer, and any of the half a dozen other hits knows that summer in Williamstown is special, and unlike almost anywhere else.

“The 2011 Main Stage Season consists of the kinds of shows I’ve loved doing and seeing at WTF — a big screwball comedy, a Restoration gem, and a new romantic musical with some of my favorite songs,” Gersten said in a statement.

“Each is challenging in its own way, and I believe they’ll show the best of what Williamstown can do on our main stage. To that end, we have added additional performances for the first and final shows to allow them to be seen by as many folks as possible in the Berkshires and beyond.”

Background on the 2011 Main Stage Productions

Three Hotels (replaces You Can’t Take it With You which was cancelled.)
By Jon Robin Baitz
Directed by Robert Falls
June 29 – July 24, 2011

Ken Hoyle is an ambitious hatchet man for a multinational company that sells defective baby formula in developing African countries.  His wife Barbara advises other young executive wives on life in the third world.  Their days as idealistic Peace Corps volunteers are far behind them – physically and metaphorically – and the succession of moral compromises has taken its toll. Jon Robin Baitz weaves a timely tale of corporate misdeeds, personal tragedy, and marital discord that takes us into the private thoughts of a man and a woman searching for answers and aching for redemption.

The production stars Maura Tierney (“ER”; Some Girl(s)) and Steven Weber (“Brothers and Sisters”; Design for Living at WTF) will star as Barbara and Kenneth Hoyle in Three Hotels, the first Main Stage production of the season (June 29 – July 24, 2011), directed by Robert Falls.

She Stoops to Conquer

Berkshire and Broadway favotite Nicholas Martin returns – as promised – to direct (what else) a rowdy comedy of mistaken identities.

She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th century to have an enduring appeal, and is still regularly performed today and for good reason – audiences love it.

The former artistic director (Our Town at WTF; Present Laughter; Hedda Gabler) undertakes She Stoops to Conquer from July 27 to August 7 with a cast that features Jonathan Patrick Walker (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at WTF; High Fidelity) as Charles Marlow, Tony Award-nominee Brooks Ashmanskas (Promises, Promises; The Producers; She Loves Me at WTF) as Tony Lumpkin, Tony Award-nominee Paxton Whitehead (The Importance of Being Earnest; Home at WTF) as Mr. Hardcastle, and Drama Desk Award-nominee Kristine Nielsen (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson; Les Liaisons Dangereuses) as Mrs. Hardcastle.

Pranks and hijinks abound in She Stoops to Conquer, a raucous 18th-century comedy of big costumes, big sets, big hair, and even bigger laughs.

Two well-bred young men arrive at the country estate of Mr. Hardcastle, intending to woo his daughter Kate and her cousin Constance, but when local mischief-maker Tony Lumpkin plays a practical joke on the city-slickers, the Hardcastle household is launched into a dizzying, deliciously preposterous romp of mistaken identity.

True to fashion, director Nicholas Martin assembles a fearless ensemble of comic all-stars who will cause locals in the know to line up at the box office.

Ten Cents a Dance

This is a first: a new musical that began its life eight years ago in the other Berkshires, in England. John Doyle created this revue of the music of Rogers and Hart in 2002 at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, Berkshires, UK. Doyle has since become a Tony winner and is well known for his actors-playing-musical-instruments versions of Sweeney Todd and Company.

The press release announcing the season advises you to “prepare to be bewitched and beguiled by Ten Cents a Dance, a new musical conceived by Doyle, who applies his signature style of engaging a company of actor-musicians to bring to life the extraordinary music of Rodgers and Hart. Crooner Johnny wistfully recalls his lifelong love affair of chorus girl Miss Jones, who is embodied by five women, each portraying a different stage of her life. As Johnny and Miss Jones take “Manhattan” under a “Blue Moon” while “Falling in Love with Love,” you can’t help but think “Isn’t it Romantic?” – even if sometimes “The Lady is a Tramp.” These and so many other unforgettable songs – filled with infatuation, longing, and enchantment – will sparkle like a glass of champagne on a sexy summer evening. “All you need is a ticket, come on big boy, ten cents a dance.”

It will run from August 11-28) and will close Williamstown’s Main Stage Season. Tony Award-nominee Malcolm Gets (Amour; Anything Goes at WTF; “Caroline in the City”) plays Johnny and Lauren Molina (Rock of Ages; Sweeney Todd) and Jane Pfitsch (Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Company) will also be featured in this American Premiere production.

Directors taking part in the 2011 Nikos Stage season include David Cromer, Trip Cullman, Sam Gold, Joe Grifasi and Anne Kauffman. Actors Jessica Hecht, Paige Howard, Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe, Sam Rockwell, Lili Taylor and many more will be featured this season on the Nikos Stage.

“These selections represent an ambitious experiment for the 173-seat Nikos Stage”, Ms. Gersten commented. “While new plays continue to be the focus of this venue, the inclusion of innovative revivals of classics gives our audience a fresh and more intimate relationship with these works. Simultaneously, artists will have the opportunity to explore more nuanced, introspective interpretations of these great plays.”

Regulars should also note the new curtain times for 2011: Saturday and Sunday Matinees at 2:00 and Tuesday through Saturday Evenings at 7:30.

The Nikos Stage season:

A Streetcar Named Desire

June 22– July 3, 2011

The Nikos Stage season begins June 22nd, 2011 with a revival of Tennessee Williams’ incendiary drama, directed by David Cromer (Our Town).

The cast will feature Jessica Hecht (A View From the Bridge; Our Town at WTF) as Blanche DuBois and Sam Rockwell (A Behanding in Spokane; The Hot L Baltimore at WTF) as Stanley Kowalski.

With 28 productions of his plays in the WTF history, Tennessee Williams and the Williamstown Theatre Festival have had a long and impressive relationship.

Williams 100th Birthday

To honor his 100th birthday, there’s no better gift than an intimate new production of his masterwork by one of today’s most inventive directors.

Presented in the close quarters of the Nikos Stage, the audience will take up temporary residence in the stifling Kowalski apartment to witness Williams’ turbulent tale of longing and delusion.

The hot and steamy New Orleans location and sensual undercurrents will be palpable to everyone lucky enough to see this classic. It may be one for the ages.

One Slight Hitch

July 6 – 17, 2011

Comedian and playwright Lewis Black comes home to WTF with a modern day farce that mocks the all-too-human desire to shape our own destiny.

The story: It’s Courtney’s wedding day, and her mom, Delia, is making sure that everything is perfect.

The groom is perfect, the dress is perfect, and the decorations (assuming they arrive) will be perfect.

Then, like in any good farce the doorbell rings.

And all hell breaks loose.

So much for perfect.

There’s a fabulous cast, too.

Joe Grifasi (Heaven Can Wait) directs a cast that includes Paige Howard (Adventureland) as Melanie and Mark Linn-Baker (As You Like It at WTF) as Doc Coleman.

A Doll’s House
July 20 – 31, 2011

Nora Helmer has everything an affluent housewife could want: beautiful children, an adoring husband, a bright future. When a carelessly buried secret rises to the surface, her well-calibrated, though artificial, domestic ideal begins to crumble.

Terrified by this new reality, Nora must choose between outward perfection and inner truth. Still bracingly relevant, Ibsen’s masterpiece, in a striking contemporary translation, offers no safer conclusions today than when it stormed stages of 19th-century Europe.

The play was the first of Ibsen’s to create a sensation and is now perhaps his most famous play, and required reading in many secondary schools and universities.

The play was controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th century marriage norms.

It is often called the first true feminist play.

The play is also an important work of the naturalist movement, in which real events and situations are depicted on stage in a departure from previous forms such as romanticism.

Some of New York’s finest actors will take the stage.

Sam Gold (Circle Mirror Transformation) directs a cast that includes Oscar Isaac (Shakespeare in the Park’s Romeo and Juliet) as Krogstad, Hamish Linklater (Shakespeare in the Park’s The Merchant of Venice; “The New Adventures of Old Christine”) as Torvald, Matthew Maher (Gone Baby Gone) as Doctor Rank, Lily Rabe (The Merchant of Venice; WTF’s Crimes of the Heart) as Nora, and Lili Taylor (“Six Feet Under”; Aunt Dan and Lemon, WTF’s The Landscape of the Body) as Kristine.

Touch(ed)

August 3 – 14, 2011

Kay loves her older sister Emma. Or is it Christina? Christine? Matilda? After spending eight years institutionalized and medicated, Emma has changed more than just her name. Determined to get back the brilliant sister she remembers, Kay rents a cabin in the woods and she and her boyfriend Billy hide the sharp objects, from butcher knife to cheese grater.

Perhaps quality time with loved ones, some home-cooked meals and games of Scrabble will succeed in restoring Emma to health where her psychiatrists have failed. Directed by Trip Cullman (Bachelorette) in its East Coast Premiere, Bess Wohl’s lively, bittersweet comedy explores the scope, limits, and sometimes dangerous side effects of familial love.

You Better Sit Down: tales from my parents’ divorce
August 16 – 21, 2011 (one week only!)

Directed by Anne Kauffman (WTF’s Six Degrees of Separation; This Wide Night) and crafted from interviews between the cast and their own parents, You Better Sit Down is an alternately heartbreaking and hilarious look at the stories behind the statistics of one of the most prominent social phenomena of our time. Shockingly candid, these delicate parent-child conversations, with the actors playing their own parents, yield unique insights into falling in love, falling out of love, and rebuilding a life after the complex experience of dividing a family.

The Civilians, a New York-based theater company, creates original work derived from investigations into the world beyond the theater.

These shows join the previously announced Main Stage productions, which include the Broadway-bound revival of You Can’t Take It With You, the riotous Restoration comedy She Stoops to Conquer, and the American Premiere of John Doyle’s dazzling new musical Ten Cents a Dance. The Main Stage Season begins July 1, 2011 and runs through August 28, 2011.

Announcements regarding additional cast and creative team information for both Nikos Stage and Main Stage productions, as well as additional Festival events, are forthcoming.

New Curtain Times and Ticketing

Special Main Stage and Nikos Stage Season Packages are available for purchase until March 18, 2011 at www.wtfestival.org. Single tickets for the 2011 Williamstown Theatre Festival season will go on sale June 1, 2011 and can be purchased online at www.wtfestival.org, by phone at (413) 597-3400 or in person at the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance, 1000 Main St. (Route 2), Williamstown, MA 02167. New curtain times for all Main Stage and Nikos Stage shows are as follows: Tuesday – Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Saturday & Sunday at 2:00 p.m. For more schedule details, visit www.wtfestival.org.

About the Williamstown Theatre Festival

The Williamstown Theatre Festival brings award-winning actors, directors, and playwrights to the Berkshires, engaging a loyal audience of both residents and summer visitors. A WTF season covers a broad range of theatrical endeavors, revisiting classic plays with exciting new productions on its Main Stage, developing and nurturing bold new works on the Nikos Stage, and offering audiences a rich array of cultural events including Free Theatre, Late-Night Cabarets, readings, workshops, and educational programs like the Greylock Theatre Project–a program for children in neighboring North Adams. While best known for its acclaimed productions, WTF is also home to unparalleled training and professional development programs serving new generations of aspiring theatre artists and managers. WTF was honored with the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 2002 and the Commonwealth Award for Achievement in 2011. The Festival welcomes Jenny Gersten as its new Artistic Director for the 2011 season.