At the Ensemble Studio Theater, the Show Must Go On

By STUART MILLER
Published: May 30, 2007
The auditorium at John Jay College was packed, with 600 people gathered for a three-hour memorial service featuring three dozen speakers. Curt Dempster, the founder and artistic director of the Ensemble Studio Theater, was remembered as an idiosyncratic and prickly visionary, someone who not only kept the theater alive for 35 years in its ramshackle 74-seat home on West 52nd Street but also, at times, seemed indistinguishable from it.

Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times
Billy Carden, center, the new producing artistic director of the Ensemble Studio Theater, at a memorial service last month at John Jay College for Curt Dempster, the theaters founder and artistic director.

Related
Curt Dempster, 71, Artistic Director of Ensemble Studio Theater, Dies (January 20, 2007)
Times Topics: Ensemble Studio Theater

Ensemble Studio Theater Web site



Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Curt Dempster, the founder and artistic director of the Ensemble Studio Theater.
So the staff and board had never really imagined life after Mr. Dempster, a keen spotter of talent who provided a home for actors like Ellen Barkin, Rob Morrow, Peter Weller and Christine Lahti, and for playwrights like Horton Foote, Richard Greenberg and Christopher Durang.

Curt was eternal, a beachhead that never eroded, said Graeme Gillis, co-director of the Ensembles Youngblood project for playwrights under 30 and co-program director of its Sloan Project, which produces science-oriented plays.

Before his suicide in January, Mr. Dempster, 71, was fretting that his theater, perpetually on the brink of fiscal crisis, would have to cancel its pièce de résistance, the annual marathon of one-act plays. Piling his sudden death onto this precarious existence might have made it seem that the end was nigh for the theater.

But that has not happened. The marathon, featuring plays by Neil LaBute and Stephen Adly Guirgis, is to kick off on Thursday. And there are strong indications that the Ensemble will endure as a developmental theater, free of commercial pressures or risk-averse subscribers, a home where any of 500 members can get a play read.

E.S.T. embodies what I most believe in about theater, said the theaters new producing artistic director, Billy Carden. I have similar ideals to Curt about the need for work to have a chance to be patiently developed, even though this bucks the current trends in theater, if not society.

Mr. Carden said Mr. Dempster, like many founders, had difficulty sharing responsibility and power: He thought, Its mine, and no one can tell me what to do. That let him improvise quickly to sustain Ensemble, but it did not provide for a secure structure.

Thus the companys organization was highly dysfunctional, with everything devised to produce Mr. Dempsters desired outcome without open debate or confrontation. How the theater ran always mystified me, said the playwright Billy Aronson, a member of the company. The committees had all these active, smart people, and it was more complex than American democracy, but in the end Curt always got what he wanted.

Mr. Carden, by contrast, says he wants be held accountable to the board, knowing that a formalized structure is a first step in the theaters two-year plan toward stability and credibility.

Billy communicates well and willingly, and hes much more comfortable deliberating over issues, said Denny Denniston, the board chairman. In two years youre going to see a much more effective governance and a stronger financial situation, but also programming still consistent with Curts vision.

Other theaters have not found the transition so simple: the death or departure of a founder or longtime artistic director often produces aftershocks. At the Public Theater, Joseph Papp loomed so large that Joanne Akalitiss subsequent short-lived tenure was a natural magnet for negative buzz. On a smaller scale, Don Scardino faced unfavorable comparisons following André Bishop at Playwrights Horizons.

Gil Shiva, a longtime board member at the Public, said a charismatic leaders departure could, after the initial shock and struggle, be beneficial. Joe was so hands-on, he didnt leave much room for anybody, Mr. Shiva said of Mr. Papp. After he died, it took some time to get going, but the board became much more active, and we formed all kinds of committees and got people working.

Something similar has happened at the Ensemble Studio Theater. Weve added four new people to the board and weve met every two weeks, Mr. Denniston said.

Moving quickly, the board hired Mr. Carden 11 weeks after Mr. Dempsters death. Mr. Carden, who joined the theater in 1978 and once served on its board, had spent 11 years as artistic director of HB Playwrights Foundation and Theater. The year before Mr. Dempsters death, he had turned down an offer to share responsibility with him; he knew, he said, that sharing power would be a losing proposition.

Hiring Billy was the turning point, Mr. Denniston said.

Immediately after Mr. Dempsters death, foundations and other donors expressed serious concerns about the Ensembles future. But Mr. Carden spread the message that in his view, financial chaos breeds artistic chaos. When youre always grabbing for money, people start to lose faith in where its going and how its being spent, he said.

Within a month Mr. Carden and the board pieced together the $50,000 needed for the one-act marathon; Mr. Denniston says members and the board gave more in the last few months than they had in the previous several years. The $1.6 million grant for the Sloan Project was renewed, as was financing from the Shubert Foundation. Theyve stepped up because they see us addressing the issues, Mr. Denniston said.

Doron Weber, program director for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, said: We were heartened by the fact that theyve taken these steps, theyve made a lot of smart moves to quickly take control of the situation. Theres a tremendous energy there and people have really stepped up.

The acting board president, John McCormack, says he understands that the good will wont last long. The company, he said, must further strengthen its board and staff, with an empowered executive director overseeing the business side.

Were having frank discussions about reducing our deficit, Mr. McCormack said. We cannot be seat-of-our-pants anymore.

Meanwhile, the Ensemble must figure out whether it wishes and can afford to move into a planned new home or should instead refurbish its current one. Mr. Carden hopes that sorting out the financing and figuring out which programs are effective will lead to more main-stage productions, more full-length plays and more involvement from a wider array of members.

We need to let our members create new work, he said. The artistic life of our membership is an undervalued resource that got lost in the shuffle.

The theater has already made progress in winning back older, more established members. Andrew McCarthy, who started as an actor there, returns this year to direct in his third marathon.

Frankly, it seems to be a lot more organized, Mr. McCarthy said. Not just the Ill get the costumes, you get the barn, and well put on a show. Ive gotten e-mails about the play, and even an actual contract.