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Performing Miracles
The bedrock institutions of New Haven's performing-arts landscape have long understood that adaptation is the key to survival
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Business New Haven
6/9/2003
By: Priscilla Searles
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New Haven has a wealth of cultural and artistic resources unmatched in any other small American city (except, perhaps, Aspen). Offering numerous theater and musical offerings, the Elm City attracts some of the world's best talent to its stages and concert halls.
While individual cultural endeavors come and go, New Haven's most enduring arts attractions seem to go on and on - lucky for the rest of us.
Here's how the city's cultural pillars trace their beginnings - and what keeps them successful and vibrant even as times and tastes ever evolve.
New Haven Symphony Orchestra
Most people know that the New Haven Symphony Orchestra is the fourth-oldest symphony in the nation. But few today recall what tremendous odds the group was forced to overcome to get even as far as the starting gate.
In the late 19th century New Haven was considered too small to support a symphonic orchestra, but Morris Steinert, a recent immigrant and music merchant, felt differently. Teaming up with Horatio William Parker, who then headed Yale's newly founded Department of Music, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra began its first rehearsals in 1894.
The symphony's inaugural concert was in Yale's Steinert Hall on January 25, 1895 with Parker at the podium and Professor Isidore Troostwyk as concertmaster. The debut was actually a public rehearsal because the concertmaster had arrived in New Haven only ten days before, leaving insufficient time for rehearsal.
On March 14 of the same year the orchestra, numbering 40 instrumentalists, performed a concert at Alumni Hall featuring a Haydn symphony and a Bruch violin concerto. A admission fee of 25 cents was assessed "to cover necessary expenses."
In its second season NHSO concerts were performed at College Street Hall, site of the former College Street Church. Four concerts were performed that season, with a series price of $3 (single tickets were $1). By this time the orchestra had expanded to 60 musicians.
In its third season the concert venue once again changed, this time to the Hyperion Theatre, then located on College Street. The move was made to accommodate larger audiences due to increased concert popularity.
Survival of the orchestra, like all organizations then and now, was a function of financial security. In 1912 Joseph Pulitzer gave the orchestra $1 million for an endowment.
For many decades the NHSO has performed at Yale's Woolsey Hall. It has also toured throughout Connecticut and beyond (including performances at Carnegie Hall), has given numerous radio broadcasts, and produced a world-premiere recording of the complete five-movement version of Mahler's Symphony No. 1. Pops concerts are also performed throughout the state.
Today the NHSO's music director, Jung-Ho Pak, conducts the orchestra, which now numbers more than 70 players. "We're broadening our audience to meet the needs of a changing community," says Pak. "With that in mind, next season [2003-04] the concerts will involve audience participation in a variety of creative ways.
"We sell inspiration and beauty," says Pak. "But survival is based on much more. All arts organizations need to stop thinking as a non-profit and start thinking like a business. Since New Haven is multi-cultural, working with the entire community is key."
Shubert Performing Arts Center
"We open in New Haven."
Throughout the history of modern American stagecraft, that phrase has been uttered thousands of times. Even contemporary movies have been known to toss that line in.
Opened in 1914 before the advent of television or even "talkies," the Shubert was and is known as "The Birthplace of the Nation's Greatest Hits." It has hosted the premieres of over 200 plays - some of which have become Broadway hits, including The Sound of Music, The King and I and A Long Day's Journey into Night.
The Shubert brothers built the New Haven playhouse two years after opening their first Shubert Theater in New York. The playhouse was named the Sam S. Shubert Theater by Lee and J.J. Shubert for their brother, the founder of the Shubert organization. Designed by New York architect Albert Swazey, the theater was built by the H.E. Murdock construction company of New Haven.
The inaugural production was The Belle of Bond Street, which featured a "Beauty Chorus of 40." One of the highlights of the evening had comedian Sam Bernard, one of the most acclaimed stars of HIS time, singing, "Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip Van Winkle When Rip Van Winkle Was Away?" Seats for the opening engagement were priced from 25 cents to $1.50.
The Shubert brothers ran the playhouse from 1914 through the 1940-41 season, establishing the pattern of show tryouts. Of the 14 musicals presented during the first season, four were new shows playing the Shubert before New York openings.
The Shubert closed in 1976 and was destruction seemed inevitable. Spared the wrecking ball by an extraordinary mobilization of the city's business, cultural and political leadership, the theater re-opened in December 1983. The old Adams Hotel on College Street was leveled to provide an expansive new theatre lobby and plaza. The auditorium has now been beautifully refurbished in its original 1914 decor, with state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems.
Long Wharf Theatre
Dreams do come true. Or, at least, Jon Jory's and Harlan Kleinmen's dreams did.
The two Yale alumni dreamed of starting a resident professional theater company in New Haven. A group of community leaders and patrons of the arts got behind the idea, spending many late nights planning and strategizing.
The pay-off was Long Wharf Theatre.
Named for the Long Wharf that once extended far into New Haven Harbor, the theater was built in a vacant warehouse space in a busy food terminal, its main stage originally furnished with seats borrowed from a retired moviehouse. The playhouse looked to one of America's greatest playwrights and Connecticut resident Arthur Miller for its first production. In 1965 Miller's The Crucible opened for a two-week engagement.
Now in its 37th season, LWT has come a long way from the first year's budget of $294,000, when the theatre played to about 30,000 patrons. Recognized as a leader in American regional theater, Long Wharf has become an organization of international renown with a $6.5 million yearly budget and an annual audience exceeding 100,000.
Mounting productions on its main stage and Stage II, LWT seeks to stage fresh and imaginative revivals of classics and modern plays, rediscoveries of neglected works and a variety of world and American premieres. Part of the theater's recipe for success includes the intimate atmosphere created by the proximity of audience to the stage. Throw in internationally known stars and you have a recipe for success.
Long Wharf has received international recognition for producing Broadway-bound and Pulitzer Prize-winning plays.
More than 20 productions have transferred virtually intact to Broadway or off-Broadway, including Wit (which earned the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for drama), Down the Garden Paths, Red, Mystery School, Hughie, Broken Glass, American Buffalo, Requiem for a Heavyweight and Quartermaine's Terms.
Michael Christofer's The Shadow Box premiered at Long Wharf and earned its author a Pulitzer, and D.L. Coburn was awarded the same prize after his The Gin Game transferred from Long Wharf to Broadway and won multiple Tony Awards. The Changing Room, The Contractor and Streamers also received New York Drama Critics Awards after transferring. Long Wharf has received a Special Citation from the Outer Critics Circle.
Yale Repertory Theatre
Dean Robert Brustein, master teacher at the Yale School of Drama, founded the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1966, serving as its first artistic director. Yale Rep opened its doors on December 6, 1966 with a production of the comic opera Dynamite Tonight by Arnold Weinstein, with music by William Bolcom.
Brustein's objective in founding the Yale Rep was "to create ambitious, quality theater for New Haven-area audiences and to inspire new generations of American theater artists prepare to realize the potential of their talents and assume leadership roles in theater institutions across the country."
Housed in the former Calvary Baptist Church building on the corner of York and Chapel streets in downtown New Haven, Yale Rep created a laboratory for Yale Drama School students who could get practical experience while working alongside experienced Actors Equity artists.
With an emphasis on the production of new plays and inventive interpretations of the classics, Yale Rep has become known for its premieres of works by cutting-edge playwrights.
In its 37-year history Yale Rep has produced 89 world and American premieres, four of which have earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Rep has sent ten productions to Broadway, earning nine Tony Awards and a total of 37 Tony Award nominations.
Recognized as one of the leading regional theaters in the nation, Yale Rep itself received a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1991, and it was awarded the 1992 Jujamcyn Theatres Award for its outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent for the theatre.
In 2002, Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre received the Governor's Arts Award from Gov. John G. Rowland in recognition of its remarkable artistic achievement and contribution to the arts in Connecticut.
Orchestra New England
Orchestra New England was founded in 1975 as the Chamber Orchestra of New England. Under the direction of James Sinclair, who has been music director and principal conductor since its founding, it is now known as Orchestra New England.
ONE's success is due in large part to Sinclair's versatility in delivering performances in styles ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary (Sinclair is one of the world's leading scholars of the music of Charles Ives) and pops literature.
Orchestra New England developed an enthusiastic following across the U.S. with a CBS Masterworks album, two public television specials and an international Voice of America radio concert.
The first musical ensemble to perform live with the Pilobilus Dance Theatre, Pilobilus' What Grows in Huygen's Window was commissioned by Orchestra New England in 1981 and premiered by the two groups in the winter of 1982.
The popular Colonial Concert, with musicians and conductor dressed in period clothes, is performed annually at United Church on the Green on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It has become a popular way to slide into the holiday season. In addition, pops concerts and a family concert series add to the chamber orchestra's reputation for flexibility and diversity.
Surviving a Chapter 11 reorganization that few thought could be done, Orchestra New England is now orchestra in residence at the University of New Haven. The family concert series is performed on campus. Having made numerous recordings, performed as many as 50 concerts in one year, Orchestra New England has learned volumes about survival.
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