By Andrew Salomon The Ensemble Studio Theatre sits in a building of dubious repair on 52nd Street, west of 10th Avenue and slightly to the left of an abandoned railroad bed — a condition and position that place it squarely on the other side of the tracks from the New York theatre establishment. And that's exactly where Curt Dempster wanted it.
Dempster, who died of unknown causes at his Manhattan home on Jan. 19 at the age of 71, founded EST in 1972 and served as its artistic director until the day he died, all while resisting calls to become part of the commercial theatre mainstream. Nevertheless, because of his fierce commitment to the fundamentals of drama, he provided a place where some of the theatre's leading writers and actors either began their careers or rejuvenated them long after establishing their reputations elsewhere.
Over the course of three and a half decades, Dempster produced more than 6,000 new works — at least half of them coming in his annual spring Marathon of One-Act Plays, EST's signature event.
"I remember meeting Shel [Silverstein] there, meeting Richard Dreyfuss over there," said David Mamet, who first worked with Dempster in the 1970s. "Everybody wanted to have their play in the Marathon. It's a big, big deal."
To Mamet, Dempster was a kindred spirit, an artist who didn't cotton to academic froufrou but espoused a practical philosophy that carried with it an air of Old Testament rigor.
"The only way in the world you're going to learn something is to get up in front of a paying audience," said the playwright, who had a play produced in last year's Marathon. "Until you do that, nothing counts. That's what Curt was dedicated to: putting on plays, putting on a lot of new plays."
EST's Marathon has been important not only to writers, but to actors as well. Getting cast in a one-act at EST can signal that a career is on the rise.
"It was chaos, just crazy," Andrew McCarthy said of the 1985 Marathon. "I remember being on stage doing a Richard Greenberg play with Amanda Plummer, while Kevin Bacon and John Turturro were waiting to go on next."
McCarthy's appearance came right between the releases of Heaven Help Us and St. Elmo's Fire, movies that established his career. "As a kid actor, I was terrified," he said. "I actually became quite close to Curt after that."
It was Dempster who suggested that McCarthy try directing, and gave him his first chance with a Neil LaBute play several years ago. Now when he isn't acting, McCarthy is directing TV commercials in Los Angeles.
It was with writers, however, that Dempster had his greatest influence. In addition to Mamet and Greenberg, he gave early-career boosts to Wendy Wasserstein, John Patrick Shanley, and Christopher Durang, among countless others. He also staged new work by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.
In the 2000 Marathon, Dempster produced Amy Fox's one-act play "Heights." It was later made into a movie of the same title featuring Elizabeth Banks, Jesse Bradford, James Marsden, and Glenn Close.
"My film would never have been produced if 'Heights' hadn't been produced there. He just gave me what I think is really rare, and that is the first step for a writer," Fox said. "It was my first chance to get reviewed in The New York Times, a chance to have a production that lasts three weeks rather than two nights."
Dempster so cherished the development process that he founded a summer workshop in Lexington, N.Y., and Youngblood, a program for playwrights under 30. Fox came out of that program, as did Graeme Gillis, who is now a co-artistic director of Youngblood.
"No matter who you were — if you were an intern — you got the same treatment as if you were David Mamet," Gillis said. "That meant a lot starting out, getting that respect right away. If you got a good play, he'll give you a shot."
As an actor and a writer, Julie Fitzpatrick got to work with Dempster on a level that few theatre artists did. Her one-woman show RiddleLikeLove (with a side of ketchup) recently closed at EST; during its development, she got to see all sides of his personality. Dempster was never rude, but he could be much like his first name.
"[Curt] has extremely specific tastes and could be a controversial figure around EST," Fitzpatrick said. "He really protects his actors, not in a coddling way but in a respectful way. It is clear with Curt that this is a man who deeply cared about the work that happened on stage and the people that were making it happen.
"He was not a butter-upper," Fitzpatrick added. "He says things like, 'Wow. There's no action in that scene whatsoever.' "
Though some could find Dempster gruff, Gillis said, more often than not the opposite was true: "Here at the theatre, he'd come in and be joking with the interns, putting on characters and stuff like that. I always thought he was fun to be around."
Nevertheless, Dempster "could be a bulldog when he had to be," Gillis added. One year, during a presentation of a Gillis play at Lexington, the actors' performances were lagging. Dempster lost his patience and shouted, "Pick it up! Pick it up!" The actors did.
Dempster, Gillis said, "didn't have a lot of time for anything other than the truth of things."
