June 24, 2011
Daily file photo
Seen here in 2009′s “Arcadia,” Chautauqua Theater Company Artistic Director Vivienne Benesch (second from right) will appear onstage this year in “Three Sisters.”
Suzi Starheim | Staff Writer
Chautauqua Theater Company is hard at work preparing for its performances for the 2011 Season. This season’s list includes Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” the New Play Festival and William Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
The first play, “Three Sisters,” runs July 6-17, and while audience members may be entering the 2011 Season expecting an ordinary Chekhov play, Artistic Director Vivienne Benesch said this is not the case.
“The ‘Three Sisters’ that we’re doing will not look, sound or feel like any Chekhov play that most of our audience is used to,” she said. “It promises to be bold, musical, funny and heartbreaking all at once.”
Audiences can expect the same heart of a Chekhov play, but with a more modern twist, Benesch added.
“Some things are literal; some things are completely metaphoric. Some things that are spoken become sung. There are dances,” she said. “But above and beyond everything, it is entertaining.”
This modern twist is due in part to the director of the play, Brian Mertes, known for his Chekhov on Lake Lucille each summer, Benesch added.
CTC will then move into its next major undertaking for the season: the New Play Festival. This year the Festival is composed of three play workshops, the first-ever Chautauqua Play Commission and a new one-person show platform. The Festival begins July 21 and ends July 31.
“We’ve spent six years really working at putting new play development front and center here, so this feels like a great milestone in that it has now become an actual centerpiece to the season programming,” Benesch said.
This year, CTC will have three play workshops instead of two, and the last day of the workshop is a marathon day showing all three plays.
The three plays being performed at the Festival are “Elijah” by Michael Mitnick, “build” by Michael Golamco and “Carve” by Molly Smith Metzler.
Each play is followed by a talkback between audience members and the playwrights, which the playwrights can then take feedback from to further adapt the plays.
Another part of the Festival is the Chautauqua Play Commission, which is given in conjunction with the Writers’ Center and with the support of the John C. Court Family Foundation. Kate Fodor was selected as the first recipient of the Commission and will be in residence for the New Play Festival with the three playwrights presenting their new works.
Also encompassed in the Festival is the new series “Chau-talk-one,” a new series of one-person shows.
“That is something that I’m really excited about, and it’s a one-person show platform that I hope we can really give priority to our alumni,” Benesch said.
To finish the season, CTC will put on a Shakespeare production, which will run from Aug. 10-19. Benesch said she feels this will be a good contrast to the untraditional nature of “Three Sisters.”
This year’s choice, “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” will be directed by CTC Artistic Director Ethan McSweeny. While McSweeny is certainly not new to CTC, this is his first time directing the all-conservatory Shakespeare production.
This tradition of ending the season with Shakespeare is due in part to the fact that it demonstrates the conservatory’s progress as a group throughout the summer, Benesch said.
“It remains to me both the best pedagogy and the best reflection of the ensemble they have become by the end of the summer,” she said.
Benesch said one of her biggest hopes from the season is that the conservatory members get the experience of working with professionals and actors from other programs. This season, nine different programs are represented in the conservatory.
“They are in the middle or end of their training, and we always like to say that the Chautauqua experience is the bridge between their training and their professional career,” she said.
More than 400 people auditioned to be on the company of 14, and Benesch said this is their opportunity to apply everything they have been learning in school while being treated as professionals.
“You’re always looking for a balance where people are returning and you are fostering a sense of company, which allows people’s work to continue to grow and mature, and with that you are bringing in new blood every year,” she said. “To me, great art can only start from that point where you have history, present and future meshing together, and I think we have that this season.”
Overall, Benesch said this season should give audience members “entertainment for body, soul and mind” and will take them on a whole new journey with CTC.
“We have a really edgy season,” she said. “It’s on the forefront, not just in terms of content, but in form and style as well, and I’m really proud of that. Our audience has been so supportive in these past six years and really has entrusted us with taking them places and challenging them, and I really feel like 2011 is going to challenge our audiences and bring them to places they haven’t been with us.”
In addition to the two large productions and the festival, CTC will also host its weekly Brown Bag lunches Thursdays at 12:15 p.m. and will also have a Late Night Mask Show on July 9. The Mask Show will focus on the Week Three theme “American Intelligence: Technology, Espionage and Alliances.”
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