Mail Tribune
Several of the highest-profile faces at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival will be gone by the end of the 2007 season in a major shake-up announced Friday.
Associate Artistic Directors Timothy Bond and Penny Metropulos, Resident Scenic Designer William Bloodgood, Producing Director David A. Dreyfoos and Artistic Director of the Green Show David Hochoy will leave the festival as a result of changes revealed by incoming OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch.
Rauch was chosen in August to succeed Libby Appel, who has been at the OSF's artistic helm since 1995 and will retire at the end of the 2007 season.
Rauch on Friday described the changes as part of a restructuring aimed at bringing new work and new voices to the award-winning festival. The plan involves the elimination of some top jobs and the addition or combination of others.
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Bond is in his 11th season at the festival, Metropulos in her 17th and Bloodgood in his 31st. Dreyfoos is beginning his 10th season, and Hochoy his ninth.
"It's a big, big deal," Rauch said. "Something I weighed carefully. It weighed on my heart. I have huge respect for them as artists and human beings.
"It was difficult. But my responsibility is to think creatively about what structure is going to serve the festival."
In a Friday talk to OSF officials, Rauch outlined several objectives, including an ambitious expansion of OSF's new play development efforts to include a cycle of plays based on U.S. history.
Other objectives he listed included increasing the variety of directors at the festival, placing a designer in a top artistic job, spreading producing responsibilities more widely and diversifying the free, pre-play Green Show by inviting both professional and community-based groups to perform on a rotating bill.
One longtime theater patron who said he's open to such changes at the festival is Robert Miller of Ashland.
"I think Bill Rauch should be given his head," Miller said. "I think he'll get high-quality, New York-type theater.
"When we had the last big shift, a number of people were let go, too," Miller added.
When Libby Appel took over artistic leadership from Henry Woronicz, she made several controversial moves, including letting popular, longtime director Pat Patton go.
Metropulos said she's not sure exactly what she will do next — it's not as if artists can just move to the big regional theater in the next town — but that she understood and respected Rauch's decision.
"I'm sad, but I'm not doleful," she said. "As much change as I've seen, we weather it. There's a bump, and then off we go.
"He talked to us as individuals Thursday night and handled it with grace. I feel he has respect for me and my work."
Rauch said he hopes to commission a cycle of new plays about American history that would parallel the Shakespeare history cycle, which the festival has produced several times over the years.
"It's a great fit," he said. "We're in a good position here to look at our own history."
To direct that effort, Rauch tapped California playwright and dramaturg Alison Carey, a co-founder along with Rauch of the Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles.
A guest director at OSF himself for the last five years, Rauch said he hopes to have more new guest directors as well as others who may return again and again.
He acknowledged that placing a designer in a top leadership position was rare, but he said OSF, with its three stages and high production values, was "the perfect place" for such a move. The new position would replace Bond's and Metropulos' jobs.
As part of the change, Bloodgood's job will be eliminated in favor of bringing in more guest designers.
Dreyfoos' job will be split into two associate producer jobs, one focused on external matters such as education outreach and the Green Show, the other on internal production details.
"It's a huge task," Rauch said.
He praised Hochoy's work but said he wanted the Green Show to reflect more artistic diversity.
"I want to strike a good balance between new people and those who have been here," he said. "There are good people all over this country who are eager to come here."
Rauch said he has relationships around the country with upcoming playwrights, some of whom he hopes to bring to OSF.
"I'm loathe to name names," he added, "for obvious reasons."
He said he's prepared for a public outcry, if it comes, over the departure of some of the festival's most popular artists.
"I'm prepared to keep the dialogue going," he said.
Scenic, costume and graphics designer Christopher Acebo, also a Cornerstone member, will be the new associate artistic director. Acebo has worked at Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, the La Jolla Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum and other theaters. Acebo designed "Two Gentlemen of Verona" at OSF last summer.
Directors Luis Alfaro and Polly Carl will consult with OSF in 2007 in the design of a new play development center.
Alfaro is a playwright, poet and performer who was awarded the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays twice. Carl is the producing artistic director of the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis and produces the annual PlayLabs Festival.
Appel remains in charge of the 2007 season, at the end of which Rauch will become just the fifth person to take the artistic helm of the festival since 1937, following founder Angus Bowmer, Jerry Turner, Woronicz and Appel. Rauch will select and cast plays for the largest repertory theater in the nation, which annually sells more than 300,000 tickets to 11 plays in an eight-month season in three theaters.
Metropulos, who will direct the premiere of "Tracy's Tiger" this year, said she has several months to think about what she'll do next.
"I started as an actress, then I was an itinerant director," she said. "It's part of the business.
"I believe in change being good. The company is bigger than any individual. I believe it's in very good hands with Bill.
"I'll be OK. It's more difficult for the people who love you and believe in your work."
Rauch said he hopes the changes are transitions and not endings.
"I hope," he said, "they'll come back to work as guest artists."
Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail bvarble@mailtribune.com.
Those who will leave OSF at the end of the 2007 season include:
Associate Artistic Director Penny Metropulos
In 16 seasons at OSF, she directed "The Philanderer," "Humble Boy," "Lorca in a Green Dress," "Antony and Cleopatra" and many others. She is now at work on "Tracy's Tiger," a new musical based on the work of William Saroyan.
Associate Artistic Director Timothy Bond
A veteran of 10 seasons at OSF, Bond directed an acclaimed production of "Intimate Apparel" in 2006. A graduate of Howard University and the University of Washington, he directed "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "Topdog/Underdog," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and many other plays at the festival and is known for his interpretations of the plays of August Wilson.
Resident Scenic Designer William Bloodgood
In 30 seasons at the festival, he designed the sets for more than 130 plays. He worked at Berkeley Rep, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and other theaters.
Producing Director David A. Dreyfoos
He is in his 10th year of assisting OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel with season planning, casting and the production details of OSF's 11 annual shows after working as stage or production manager at other theaters.
Green Show Artistic Director David Hochoy
After working with the Martha Graham Dance Company and other troupes, he has for eight seasons run the OSF's free dance show before such plays as "The Winter's Tale," "The Three Musketeers," "Pericles" and many others.
