THEATER - JANUARY 28, 2004

It’s ‘first things first’ with BoarsHead’s Geoffrey Sherman

By UTE VON DER HEYDEN

It’s been 38 days since BoarsHead Theater founder and artistic guru John Peakes and his wife, Judith, the theater’s managing director, packed their belongings into various vehicles and caravanned out of town toward a new future in Philadelphia.

Sherman

The buck for BoarsHead’s future now stops, as he himself expressed it, primarily with Geoffrey Sherman, the new artistic director of mid-Michigan’s only professional theater.

How does it feel to be in charge?

“That’s a very interesting question because in a way my feet haven’t touched the ground,” Sherman said. “But, on the other hand, I haven’t really gotten my arms around the company here.”

This seeming contradiction really isn’t one at all. Since taking over the artistic leadership of BoarsHead, Sherman has literally been in two places at once -- Lansing and Detroit. He is directing two plays simultaneously, “Dance Like No One’s Watching,” which opens Thursday, Jan. 29, and “Sarah, Ella & Pops,” opening March 25. The initial plan was to rehearse both plays in Detroit – working half a day on “Dance”; the other half a day on “Ella.” Complications arose, and Sherman has been shuttling back and fourth rehearsing a group of actors in Lansing and another group of actors in Detroit, with the help of Gary Anderson, the artistic director of Plowshares, Detroit’s professional African American theater company. “Ella” is a collaborative venture between BoarsHead and Plowshares.

“In terms of the day-to-day running of the company here in Lansing, I have not been as present as I perhaps would have been had I not been directing the first plays,” he said. “In other theaters I’ve taken over, in almost every instance, I ended up not directing the first play because I wanted to get my arms around the company first,” Sherman said. “In this instance it’s different, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I feel like I know the people who are working with me quite well. Having worked here as a free-lance director and having known Judy (Peakes) for most of the eight years I lived in Michigan meant that I had a handle on who the people here are.

“The most important thing for me has been to try to get a better sense of what has made the theater work in the past,” Sherman said. “One of the major tools you have, of course, is box office reports from past productions -- which shows did the best business -- but then you have to go about looking for other clues like what was the weather like when a particular show was playing -- did that play not do too well because of the snow -- did people cancel because of the weather -- so that’s really what I’ve been doing. I’ve trying to get a better sense of what has worked and why it’s worked as an artistic policy in the past. That’s always difficult because it’s always so objective.”

These are not the idle meanderings of an inquisitive mind. When Sherman speaks of BoarsHead’s past and possibility for the future, his somewhat reserved, urbane manner (he’s a Brit, after all) becomes more intense. It’s clear he has a purpose.

“BoarsHead needs a larger audience,” he said simply. “John and Judy had a very good audience and quite sizeable, but I think in the best of all possible worlds we need to increase our audience by about 50 percent. (Fifty percent is the ideal, but 20 percent is a must, he said).

“I believe the people are out there, and I also believe that many of them don’t know we exist or, if they do know we exist, don’t make the effort to come out and see us. It’s just not registering with a lot of theater goers that coming to BoarsHead is a more satisfying experience than going to Wharton because a lot of the material that’s coming to Wharton is the fifth time it’s come around and many productions are non-Equity (non-professional) tours. The secret is getting people to actually set foot in the BoarsHead door in the first instance -- and then they discover that it’s well worth coming.”

Speaking of getting more people to set foot in the door, one of the options being voiced is a move away from BoarsHead’s present downtown Lansing location at 425 S. Grand Avenue. In an open letter to BoarsHead supporters, Sherman and Kevin Kruse, BoarsHead’s new managing director, discussed this possibility thusly: “While BoarsHead has enjoyed a long history in downtown Lasing, we must pragmatically analyze the implications of our location and consider our options. Perhaps this means remaining downtown but relocating to a more viable location. Perhaps this means a move to Old Town. Or to another area city. Would East Lansing welcome BoarsHead? Would Okemos? DeWitt? Mason? Grand Ledge? Holt? Perhaps this means producing at Hannah Community Center or Wharton Center. In this competitive atmosphere. BoarsHead must be prepared to produce where audiences are comfortable attending and in an environment that makes BoarsHead visible and marketable.”

While cautioning that this letter is primarily intended “to stimulate discussion,” Sherman also emphasized that “we’re exploring any way that would enlarge our audience. I’ve been told that we have a geographical problem. I don’t know, but if that’s true, we have to solve that.” BoarsHead is also looking at the possibility of doing more touring to other cities and locations, he added.

Right now, however, Sherman is in the process of choosing the 2004-2005 season, spending his spare time constantly reading new plays. “I had promised I would get the season done by the end of January, but it looks like it will be mid-February now.”

Although Sherman wants input from the board of directors (he sent them a long list of possible plays to review), subscribers and others about his choice of plays, his experience at more than 40 different theaters has taught him that you can never keep all the people happy all of the time. “You can best struggle to keep most of the people happy most of the time,” he said, “but when it comes down to it, what you program as an artistic director has to be your own taste.

“That’s what I have been saying over all the years: When a board of directors hires someone to head up the artistic side of an organization, what they are essentially hiring is that person’s taste. If that person’s taste happens to jell or jive or coincide with the taste of the audience in the city in which the theater stands, great. If that taste happens to jell or jive or coincide and also stimulates and moves forward, then the greater the end result. And if that taste both stimulates and challenges slightly, then perhaps that is, to quote Shakespeare, ‘a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.’”

Born in East Acton, in West London, Sherman, 54, has been in the United States for 25 years. In Michigan, he has served as artistic director for Meadow Brook Theatre and has directed productions at Plowshares Theatre, the Jewish Ensemble Theatre and at BoarsHead, the 2001 award-winning production of “The Old Settler.”

He has also worked as a guest director at 40 other theaters including New York’s Roundabout and American Jewish theatres; England’s Redgrave and Crucible theatres; American regional theaters including Seattle Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Center Stage Baltimore, Utah’s Pioneer Theatre and Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, N.Y.

On the personal side, he and his wife, actress Diana Van Fossen, still own a home in Auburn Hills but plan to move to Lansing in March or April. Meanwhile, Sherman has rented an apartment that he can practically see from his BoarsHead office. He chose to live downtown “just to prove that you can live in this area” and to be close to the theater. His 18-year-old daughter attends Goucher College in Maryland, her mother’s alma mater.

Although the specific plays are not totally set, here is a preview of what Sherman has planned for the six 2004-2005 mainstage spots:

-- A classic. “I need to do the classics of Western literature. I need to expose the audience to the works of Shakespeare, Ibsen or Chekhov. I need, however, to do it in a highly entertaining way. That means looking at these classics and saying, ‘OK, how relevant are they to 2005 and therefore how do we approach this play in a different way.’”

-- An American classic. “I think there are many people who have never seen the work of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neil. I think it’s very important that we look at those playwrights and say which of these plays is still relevant to 2005, 2006, or to the 21st century. When the plays are truly great, then their relevance never ceases, and that’s what makes them really remarkable art. That’s why we should continue to look back and find those plays and reproduce them in a way that highlights their relevance to present day but also reminds us of the trials and tribulations of our forbears.”

-- A good, small musical. “I believe that music is an integral part of the act of theater and I use ‘the act of theater’ very advisedly. I feel the act of theater -- having live people in an auditorium sitting next to each other watching another group of live people endeavor to communicate ideas, hopes and fears, dreams and anguish and delight -- is in itself a celebration of the human condition -- is in itself a mystical experience. I am staying away from the rogue word religious, but in some way I probably believe it’s a religious experience – with a small ‘r’-- if it works properly. It’s not a substitute for worship by any stretch of the imagination, but it is in its way a community coming together and celebrating human life. So I think that music is a very strong and integral part of that act of theater.”

-- A Christmas play. “I want to celebrate Christmas in some way. “That may well be ‘A Christmas Carol’ or something similar.”

-- Two new plays. “There are two major types of new plays I want to do. There are new plays that have played the major cities of this country or the English-speaking world that have already proven to be really good work which I feel should be seen by the people of Lansing who can’t afford or choose not to get on a plane and go to New York just to see off-Broadway theater or who don’t get to Chicago or L.A. The other category of new play is written by local playwrights, playwrights who live and work here or may have have dedicated their lives to academia in this area. Just because they happen to be born and bred here or have spent their working life in Michigan doesn’t mean they’re bad. Working around the state, I’ve noticed that unless you’re part of the auto industry, there is a feeling of insignificance, a feeling on the part of many Michiganders of not being quite good enough in some way. That’s wrong.”

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