|
|
"I don’t mean the playwright is always right. And the process of working a text with a cast and crew inevitably affects the final product. But there are things that a play script wants, things it needs to do - and the director has to serve the play by seeing that those textual wants and needs are met."
Now in his third year as Western Stage Artistic Director, Jon is convinced that a major demand that job offers is to know and respect the local community. On the wall of his office near the Studio Theatre there’s a printout of one of the rules Jon Jory of Actors’ Theatre of Louisville believes every outgoing artistic director should leave in the top drawer for his incoming replacement. It reads: "Don’t do a Boston Season in Boise - and vice versa."
"People I know have come back to Salinas all excited about some play they’ve seen in London," says Jon Selover. "They say, ‘Jon you have got to do this play!’ I read it and usually it’s wonderful - but too often it just doesn’t speak to any of the realities of the place where I live and work.
"At Western Stage, more than ever, we’re having to work at reaching out . . . at understanding who our audiences really are. We’re having to rethink the way we do our publicity. . . to ask for more feedback from consumers about the effectiveness of our outreach. It’s important to build up personal relationships with the people who come to shows. . .
"There’s a new generation out there who doesn’t see financial support of a local theatre as a civic duty. For them, the Western Stage exists simply to supply live theatre for people who like that kind of thing. There’s no real awareness of how we enrich the life of the whole community. We’re facing a re-education challenge."
But meeting that challenge produces a Catch 22: fresh and expanded public relations programs demand training, personnel and cash - all of which are in short supply these days. But Jon detects some signs of improvement. Western Stage ticket sales are a little better this year than last. . . "We programmed for ‘dire’ - and we’ve been encouraged that things have stabilized and in some cases even improved."
Some shows, he explains, are projected as "sure fire," others as worthwhile "loss leaders" - but you sometimes get surprises. "Take THE CRIPPLE OF INNISHMAAN. Wonderful play, but we didn’t expect it to be any kind of a draw. But it built and built and built. Then came ALL MY SONS - which seemed to have the advantages of a world-famous playwright and an American setting, but it started slow, and only built slowly, though we did sell out the last two weekends.
"At Western Stage, we need to seed for plants that will pop up for new and different audiences. With TOMMY we aimed for forty-plus people who’d moved here to commute elsewhere. . . With RAIN OF GOLD we were obviously speaking to the majority ethnic group of the community.
"They came - but it becomes a question of how you get them to come back. If the quality of the work is good the first time, people will risk a second - and if that’s good, there’s a hope they’ll be back for a third and beyond."
Jon’s introduction to the Western Stage happened in 1984, and it happened accidentally. Scheduled to audition for another theatre company in Southern California, he ran into some classmates from his theatre course at CSU Chico. The friends were on their way to audition for the Western Stage. Jon crashed the audition and got hired. "I spent most of that season in the back row of things like FIDDLER ON THE ROOF or RICHARD III."
But even a bit-part actor can fight back-row boredom by dreams of doing That Big Death Scene. Jon Selover’s break came with the role of Scar Edwards in a Western Stage piece called BROADWAY. "When the curtain rose, there I was, center stage - and fifteen seconds later I got killed. It was nice while it lasted."
Like a whole bevy of school principals who miss the classroom, Jon Selover regrets that heading up a big production team at a place like Western Stage inevitably means you actually direct fewer plays. "Since I became artistic director here, I haven’t done anything at all in the Studio Theatre. . . Musicals - which I used to snobbishly despise - are the big money-earners, and they’re also the most difficult to do. I did two and a half shows on the main stage last year and it was way too much.
"But I’m currently in rehearsal for SWEENEY TODD. I’ve got Reg Huston, who was so wonderful as Tevye when I directed FIDDLER here in ‘99. He and I also shared in those early days of back row walkons. So I made a deal with him: ‘The chorus boy is now artistic director, Reg. Play Mileas Gloriosis in A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM - and the following season you can do any big role you’ve ever longed to play.’ . . Reg chose Sweeney. It’s a wonderful cast, top to bottom, and every rehearsal I feel more and more awed by the genius of Sondheim.
"Over my 20 years in theatre, I kept coming back to Salinas, but I don’t think I ever thought it was going to be more than a time or two. . . But you become part of a community, whether or not you recognize that’s what’s happening. When I took on this job three years ago, I took on the responsibility of providing the best theatre possible for my neighbors."