Maria Ricossa, Audrey Dwyer and Joel Greenberg rehearsing Clybourne Park (photo credit: Robert Harding)
The Art of Avoiding Panic
Studio 180, and its Artistic Director Joel Greenberg, are everywhere this year. This season, however, they are cementing their already solid reputation in the city with revivals of two of their works. One is the insanely praised The Normal Heart, the other - as part of Mirvish's new season - Clybourne Park.
CHARPO: We understand there is a good story behind getting the rights for the Normal Heart. Care to share it?
GREENBERG: During the 2011 run of our production of The Normal Heart, which was exactly a year ago, we felt that there was more audience eager to see the play. As is so often the case in Toronto (and maybe everywhere?), we couldn’t extend the run because Buddies In Bad Times was already booked. We spoke to the Company about a re-mount for this Fall, and everyone was on board.
What I thought was a simple phone call to arrange for the performing rights became a five month conversation with the American producers who had successfully brought the play to Broadway in the Spring of 2011. Their production won the Tony award for Best Revival Of A Play, and they planned a National tour during the 2012-13 season. Toronto was on their list of preferred cities.
They were aware of the success we’d had with Larry Kramer’s masterpiece and they understood our desire to bring it back. The conversations with them were all entirely cordial and open but the producers weren’t prepared to release Toronto. Our company was kept up-to-date with the ongoing discussions and, at the same time, Studio 180 was looking for other projects as part of the 2012-13 season. I found it was very hard to get excited about replacement choices. Finally, in late March of this year, after I made a call to say that we were really at the point of having to give up any thought of a re-mount, the New York folks released the rights to us.
At the outset, when they withheld the rights, they said that they would know their own plans by the Spring. Hearing that in November felt a long, long time away. Happily for Studio 180, the entire company, save for one actor who was moving out West, was still ready and eager to proceed. As I write this, we have just finished the third day of rehearsals. We have our first audience on October 19 and we run until November 18.
