The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Roommate’ kicks off season
Silverman comedy opens Wednesday at Long Wharf
As Long Wharf Theatre fast approaches the opening of Jen Silverman’s comedy “The Roommate” and a new season, theatergoers may well wonder just how the Tonywinning regional theater selected its six-play slate in the absence of an artistic director.
A triumvirate of the theater’s artistic staff — Literary Manager Christine Scarfuto; Associate Producer Drew Gray; and Artistic and Management Associate Emily Goeler — found itself charged with this mission since Long Wharf fired Gordon Edelstein Jan. 22 for sexual misconduct.
“It’s always a collaborative process,” said Scarfuto, who, along with Gray and Goeler, composed the following slate for the 2018-19 season: “The Roommate (Wednesday throug h Nov. 4); Dominique Morisseau’s “Paradise Blue” (Nov. 21 – Dec. 16); Boo Killebrew’s “Miller, Mississippi” (Jan. 9 — Feb. 3); Nia Vardalos’ “Tiny Beautiful Things” (Feb. 13 – March 10); Homer’s “T he Iliad” (March 20 -April 14); Lucas Hnath’s “A Doll’s House, Part 2” (May 1-26).
“We had already committed to four of the season plays,” said Josh Borenstein, now in his eighth season as Long Wharf ’s managing director. “‘The Roommate’ is one of them. Gordon was slated as the director, so we had to find a new director.
“I asked Drew and Christine is they’d be willing to step up during this period.”
Borenstein said all department heads weigh in on possible season selections, so that most of the wheels that haul the process around from season to season are in place — excepting the artistic director, of course.
Scarfuto said it was easy to accept Borenstein’s invitation to spearhead the play selection process personally.
“Unlike and other theater I’ve ever worked for, Long Wharf has always had a collaborative process,” said Scarfuto, who has worked at The Goodman Theatre and Williamstown Theatre Festival among others since earning her MFA from the University of Iowa. “A lot of times it happens behind closed doors and no one really knows what the conversation is.
“With our season planning conversation,” she said, “we invite someone from every department. We’re able to examine a play from many different angles.
Gray, in his eighth season at Long Wharf, agreed: “We talk with the education people. We have a group of people we bounce ideas off.”
The staff ’s first day of ownership for this season was immediate on the heels of Edelstein’s departure. All scripts passing through Long Wharf cross Scarfuto, who reads all the scripts under consideration and deals out the ones worth consideration to Goeler and Gray. When all three agree that a script deserves serious consideration, they engage Josh Borenstein, Long Wharf ’s managing director who has absorbed many of the artistic director’s responsibilities.
“The four of us meet once a week as an artistic department,” said Goeler. “Then we meet also once a week as the season planning group with plays we’ve discussed and pass
on (to the larger group).”
Of the myriad factors to explore in the play selection process, budget is boss. Still, all three agreed, where there’s a will there’s a play.
“Well, this happens actually all the time,” said Scarfuto. “I think we’re artistically trying to move the organization along, and a lot of times (select) these plays that could be challenging in a good way for our audience. They might not be as commercially popular as something less challenging.”
Gray said that commercially popular shows, often with large ensemble casts in classic musicals, tend to spike production cost.
“I think you always want to advocate for the best art the theater can do with its resources, Gray said. “One thing we’ve gotten better at is taking on ambitious ideas and not immediately articulating all the reasons we can’t do them. We say, if we’re going to this, what we need to do is additional fundraising.
“The more we do this, most of us can read a play and kind of sense what your production budget’s going to be within a few thousand dollars or so,” he said.
“Just because something’s expensive doesn’t mean we can’t produce it,” said Scarfuto. “We just balance it with another show that’s not going to cost us a lot of money.
‘The Roommate’ setup
Long Wharf leads with Jen Silverman’s comedy “The Roommate,” which Scarfuto said, “seems like a realistic, traditional play. Sharon, recently divorced and an empty nester with a big Iowa farmhouse, decides to split cost with Robyn, a Bronx transplant who couldn’t be any more different in temperament from Sharon.
“Each inspires this great transformation in the other,” said Scarfuto.
“Jen has a great sense of comedy and playfulness,” said Scarfuto, who went to grad school with Silverman and dramaturged each of her plays there. “She has a real sense of theatricality. And there’s always something that’s a little dangerous, or dark.
“It was kind of a coincidence that as I was interviewing here,” she continued, “they were thinking about ‘The Roommate’ and didn’t know that I had worked on it for about a year.
“These woman are usually portrayed on stage and in movies as being like kind of safe and set in their ways and not necessarily going on a great adventure or transformation,” she said. “Jen portrays them as really struggling with who they are, who they want to be, and really embracing this great change in their lives.”
Though Long Wharf regularly commissions playwrights to develop new projects, none are due for production this season. Still, all three said, Long Wharf first pursues plays and accomplished, young playwrights whose best work may be yet to come.
“We’ll start with a play,” said Gray, “then we’ll think directors, the most exciting directors out there right now. And Christine has a broad knowledge of all the stuff going on in New York. We’re thinking, ‘how can we bring the best artists we possibly can right now?’”
“I think we focus more on bringing playwrights we really want to introduce our audience to,” said Scarfuto.
“Miller, Mississippi,” directed by Mike Donahue, comes indirectly from Long Wharf’s annual New Play Festival, where Killebrew worked on her play during its workshop process. “Paradise Blue,” directed by Awoye Timpo, is the second installment of Morisseau’s “Detroit Projects,” a Motor Town trilogy inspired by August Wilson’s century cycle.
Scarfuto, Gray, and Goeler may ease off of the pedal once “The Roommate” officially opens on Wednesday, but this is no time for choreographed celebrations or end zone dances. Long Wharf has yet to hire a new artistic director, and the 2019-20 season will be upon Scarfuto, Goeler, and Gray before long. The play selection process waits for no one.
“The show must go on,” said Scarfuto.