Biggest complaint heard
“I don’t think I did enough for Latino artists when I was here,” Goldstein says. “We did a lot, but most of it was not on our main stage, because frankly we couldn’t sell it very well on our main stage, which is probably our fault. I mean, ‘La Esquinita, USA’ sold six tickets. It still ended up being the most profitable thing we did this year, because it only cost 10 cents to do.
“If there’s one thing I can be really proud of, we introduced all the important African-American playwrights of the last 20 years to Arizona, especially the women, Pearl Cleage and Anna Deavere Smith and Lynn Nottage. But we could have done more with the Latino community.”
Biggest complaint
thing I don’t feel we’ve been successful in the last several years. The whole staff in Phoenix sort of got fired and destroyed, and we haven’t built that back up.”
Even since before Goldstein arrived 25 years ago, Arizona Theatre has been perennially criticized for hiring out-of-town actors, whether from New York, Los Angeles, Milwaukee or Seattle, over local talent.
“I’m so glad I won’t have to answer that question anymore,” Goldstein says.
“People have to remember we’re an Equity theater. We have a union contract. We have to hire 11 union members on union contracts before we hire one non-union member. There are maybe 40 to 50 active union members in the state of Arizona, and, for instance, if we want to do an August Wilson play, there aren’t even enough African-American Equity actors here to do it. Your chances of getting hired as one of those 40 or 50 Equity actors is a lot better than your chance of being hired as one of the 30,000 in New York. …
“Your high-school basketball team, they all need to be students at that high school. If it’s ASU, it’s nice if they have a couple Arizona players, and everyone applauds that, but it’s mostly players they recruit from elsewhere because they’re having to compete at a different level. And with the Phoenix Suns, does anybody really care where those players are from? They just want them to win and be the best players.”
Best advice for his successor
“Hopefully he can take more risks,” Goldstein says. “(But) I think something that’s always distinguished Arizona Theatre Company from its first year is they’ve tried to be a meeting place for many different communities. Don’t narrowcast. There are plenty of theaters that do that brilliantly. Michael (Barnard at Phoenix Theatre) does what he does brilliantly, Childsplay does what they do brilliantly. But we’re trying to serve all those audiences. So I would urge him to keep the playing field broad and to know that there’s a place in any one season for both ‘La Esquinita’ and ‘Ring of Fire.’ That’s what has sustained Arizona Theatre Company through the years.”
Biggest lesson learned
“The art of being an artistic director is the art of saying no gracefully.”