Body Politic in Bad Shape
The future looms gloomy at the Body Politic, one of the oldest of the off-Loop theater companies. Strapped for cash, the company last week found itself rushing to mount a season-ending production to replace the world premiere of Clever Dick, which was canceled when producer Malcolm Rosenfeld failed to raise the necessary money to open the show as planned in April. Now, the theater will substitute two plays running in repertory: Athol Fugard’s Hello and Goodbye and John Godber’s September in the Rain. The Body Politic also has accepted the resignation of artistic director Pauline Brailsford, under whose leadership for the past four years the theater failed to offer a strong artistic product. The Body Politic board of directors hopes to find Brailsford’s replacement by the end of the company’s fiscal year, July 31. For the moment anyway, the Body Politic rests in the hands of Nan Charbonneau, named producing director last fall. By cutting the deal with Rosenfeld to present Clever Dick, Charbonneau in effect was buying time to secure badly needed operating funds for the theater’s next season. Now she may have to scramble.
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The Body Politic can ill afford to make the wrong choice on any of the various issues confronting the organization. If the company is to survive, it must display more savvy in both administrative and artistic decisions. With funding and audiences growing harder to come by throughout the industry, there no longer is room for the marginal theater company that seems to make nothing but mistakes while squandering tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
A Think Tank for the Arts
Tom Tresser, managing director of Pegasus Players, is moving on to form Arts Partners, a new project that he calls the culmination of ten years’ work in the local arts community. Tresser firmly believes the arts are underrepresented in local public policy projects. “Arts Partners,” he says, “is going to serve as a coalition builder and a think tank for the arts.” He also wants to look at new ways to fund the arts and develop audiences. One of the first projects he hopes to undertake is developing the framework for a summer performing-arts festival at a suburban college. Tresser is helping in the task of finding his successor at Pegasus.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bruce Powell.
