Happy Holidays from Beyond Broadway!
This month, we’re speaking with Bonnie Monte, Artistic Director of Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (STNJ) in Madison, NJ. Under her leadership over more than two decades, STNJ has evolved into one of the largest and most respected classical theatres in the nation. Ms. Monte has garnered national recognition for her highly successful revitalization of the institution and for her commitment to arts education.
AKR: In your career, you’ve worked in both Regional Theatre and in the Off-Broadway scene with your work with the Manhattan Theatre Club. What, aside from location, do you feel is the primary difference between Regional Theatre and Broadway?
BM: In many cases, Broadway has become about large spectacles that are popular by virtue mostly only of their visual qualities. I’ve seen great plays be decimated by ill-conceived directorial concepts, that are, because they are on Broadway, applauded, and that is very angering to someone who runs a theatre where the raison d’être is to protect the great classic works. Now, I’m not saying that we can’t get inventive with them and can’t take risks and all sorts of wonderful things, if it honors the work. But, I have seen classics in New York on the Broadway stage that got there just because there was somebody famous in it. I don’t give a hoot whether someone is famous or not, I need them to be good. Now, that does not mean that there are not still gems that we can see on Broadway, on occasion, but they are getting way too few and far between. I’m very grateful to critics who even pay attention to the Regional Theatre scene, which is where, I think, most of the great theatre in America is happening. There’s great theatre happening in little tiny Off-Off Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres, too, but the bulk of the good, GOOD work is being done in the Regional Theatres.
We have a show on Broadway that cost $65 million. We could feed a third world country with that amount. Huge amounts of money are being spent on these big pop-Broadway [productions]. If that’s what people want and want to spend their money on, it’s a free country, that’s their thing, but I don’t want to hear them say that Broadway is where the great theatre in America is happening, because that’s the part that gets us all very upset. No. The theatres that are in your towns, the theatres in your cities, the theatres where artists have gravitated because there’s a great artistic community and they can do serious, good work: THAT’s where the great theatre in America is happening.
AKR: Obviously, you left New York because you found Regional Theatre to be more artistically satisfying.
BM: Well, I left New York because, from the time I was a little kid, I wanted to run my own theatre company, and the opportunity came along for me to take leadership of this particular company, even though it was rife with problems. That’s why I left New York, it wasn’t because I was disdaining what was happening there. I certainly wasn’t disdainful of the work Manhattan Theatre Club was doing. I left New York because the opportunity for which I had been waiting for a long time came along outside [of the city].
AKR: Was the fact that it was classical theatre, classical work, appealing or intimidating?
BM: It’s what I wanted. I have always been more interested in classical theatre than new works. I’ve done a lot of work with living playwrights and bringing new works to life, and I’ve always enjoyed that, but the plays that intrigue me the most and that I am most passionate about are the classics. So, for me, it was perfect.
AKR: So, what makes your audience in New Jersey unique?
BM: Well, I think what’s great is that they are essentially a large part of the New York audience, but what my audience is beginning to realize is that, ‘whoa, I’m seeing much better stuff out here, consistently.” So they have the same critical eye, they have the same level of savvy; they are sophisticated theatre-goers. They’re very smart and what they’ve found is that they can become passionate about our theatre here because they feel like it is a place that invests in them and that they can invest back in. They are thrilled that they are paying way less money to get brilliant theatre than they would in New York. So I think that what makes my audience a bit remarkable is that we’re not a number of states away, we’re very close [to NY], and it gives them the ability to make that comparison between their Regional Theatre home and the NY scene and what makes me very happy is that we’re winning out on that.
AKR: Shakespeare Theatre New Jersey has an absolutely huge dedication to training the next generation of theatre artists, both on and off-stage, with one of the most extensive education programs in the US. Why is this such a priority to you?
BM: It’s as important to train our theatre artists as impeccably and lengthily and as profoundly as we do doctors and our medical professionals because we would never walk into a hospital and let somebody who’s just gotten out of undergrad operate on us. Doctors operate on people’s bodies; we operate on people’s minds and hearts and souls. That is a profound responsibility. The fact that we would let just let any old person out there up on the stage or behind the scenes without what I would call impeccable credentials is wrong. It’s the reason people go to see Shakespeare and don’t like it. It’s because no one has taught those actors or directors how to deal with the first and foremost prime directive, which is to tell the story clearly. We can’t care about it if we don’t understand it, or can’t even hear it, so if these great works of literature are to survive and survive well, we must have actors and directors and designers all other collaborators who can do it beautifully, who can bring those work to life in new, vital, dynamic, and creditable ways.
I think that the thing that we’re most proud of, is that the kids who move up through the ranks here are so impeccably trained. A kid can start with us at age eleven and work up through the ranks until they achieve professional status. And, so often, my actors will send me emails saying, “Bonnie, thank you for all the training that you guys provide because I’ve been complimented so much on my skill as a performer, just in terms of the technical things, in terms of clear storytelling and my ability to manipulate language” and they outshine so many people who just want to be famous or something. [Training in] our craft takes years and years; it’s a never-ending process.
We did a reading the other night of The Madwoman of Chaillot and there’s a famous scene with the four mad women together in a room and I had four great, I mean really brilliant, veteran actresses up there and I listened to them talk and I thought, ‘My God, I’m watching something incredibly legendary.’ Their ability to make language palpably delicious is getting rarer and rarer, and we need institutions that are willing to commit to impeccable training where actors are made to understand the absolute necessity of specificity, of discipline, of the millions and millions of things that make us great artists. Anybody can be an actor, but to be a great artist is a very different thing.
AKR: Obviously, you’re a theatre dedicated to staging classical work, but you do, occasionally, venture into working with new adaptations, working with newer spins on classical pieces. Are there any new/emerging playwrights or adaptors for the stage you are excited about?
BM: Tony Kushner has had a tremendous impact on American theatre, but I also think that his adaptation of The Illusion was a brilliant adaptation of a classic work. Obviously, he’s not a brand new playwright.
AKR: But, relatively speaking, in your canon, he is!
BM: (Laughs) Yes, in my canon!
AKR: Just for fun, what’s your favorite play or musical?
BM: (laughs) I don’t know how I could possibly answer that! If I HAD to answer, I would have to say Camino Real by Tennessee Williams. That’s my favorite non-Shakespeare play.
AKR: Favorite Playwright?
BM: I have five favorite playwrights. My five favorite playwrights are Tennessee Williams, Anton Chekov, William Shakespeare, Harold Pinter and Molière. Those are my top five guys. I feel like they’re my SWAT team. I love them all so much and equally because they each do something very different for me. I feel like I know them very intimately, because I spent so much time with them. Actually, Tennessee Williams I actually spent time with, because I was very lucky to work with him on and off for a year. But I particularly feel like I know Shakespeare intimately. You begin to feel like you actually KNOW the man. I mean, its twenty-three, going on twenty-four years of spending everyday of my life with him in some way, you begin to understand his brain. It doesn’t take my awe of him away, but it does take away any trepidation that other people might have. It’s not intimidating to work on Shakespeare’s plays in any way.
AKR: Who is or was your greatest teacher?
BM: Nikos Psacharopoulos, who was my mentor for almost a decade at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
Thank you, Bonnie!
Live, Love, Learn,