Showcases Richmond Premiers
and fresh, cutting edge shows.
How has the Firehouse Theatre
Project evolved from when it first
opened in 1994 to now?
(Pamela Wilson)
The theatre has evolved a great
deal, we do full scale dramas and
musical productions, and we have a
very good patron base and have become well established. We have
continued to improve our technical capabilities a great deal. There is
a show that is opening March 2nd called Compromise, the play has
allot of technical aspects to it, there are some scenes where the
actors will be emailing each other live on stage. The email
correspondence will be projected on stage onto a Scrim, we just
ordered a new laptop computer in order to facilitate what the
audience will be seeing on stage.
(Mark Brandon)
The show that opens on the 2nd of March titled Compromise, is a
relatively new script by Israel Horovitz, who is a internationally
famous American playwright that will be here in attendance opening
weekend, March 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. So we're flattered and
honored, it’s quite a feather in the cap for Richmond to have Mr.
Horovitz in town seeing the productions of one of his new shows.
(Pamela Wilson)
This is not the first time that we have done one of Mr. Horovitz's
plays, this will be the fourth time he has graced us with his
appearance, it is very good that he has such an interest in us. We
have also had the likes of Edward Albee here for the weekend, when
we did The Death of Bessy Smith. We just closed his recent Pulitzer
Prize winning The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia? back in November. We
were extremely excited about doing the play here and it was very
well received.
(The Richmond Buzz)
Would you say there are plenty of
supporters in the community coming
out to support local theatre?
(Pamela Wilson)
No.
(The Richmond Buzz)
What would you like to say to any Richmonders that have not yet
visited the Firehouse Theatre Project?
(Pamela Wilson)
I would say -Where are you? You are missing quite a treat, the
Firehouse is not only unique space, because we are in a 100-year-old
firehouse that’s been turned into a theatre, but also because of what
the firehouse does. We are committed to presenting American
contemporary theatre and only those pieces that have not been done
in the Richmond metropolitan area before. So not only they going to
see excellent theatre, but also they are going to see stuff that they
have not had the opportunity to see before in Richmond. The talent
level here is as good as anything you will see in New York, Boston or
Chicago. Richmond is really an up and coming regional theatre. Our
actors are incredible, our designers are top notch.
(The Richmond Buzz)
Volunteer work is really needed, what would you like to say to
individuals interested in helping out?
(Pamela Wilson)
Because we are a non-profit organization we have opportunities for
volunteers. If you have ever wanted to be involved
in theatre, there is a place for everybody and everybody's talents.
People think- well I cant act, and maybe you can't but can you hold a
paintbrush or sewing needle? Can you Pass out a program or help an
elderly person to their seat? If you can do any of those things there
is a place for you at the Firehouse Theatre. One of the great things
about being a volunteer here is that you can see all of the shows for
free, how cool is that? At $20 a pop, not only are we the hottest
ticket in town we are the best ticket price in town.
(Mark Brandon)
It's interesting, I have just taken the
position here as Managing Director
and was talking to my friends in New
York who are still active in the
business. Our reputation in New York
may be stronger then our reputation
here in Richmond Virginia. What I hope
to do is to grow us in a couple of
capacities, I hope to grow us in
technical capacities, and we don't have
much of a technical staff here or ability so far and I want to improve
that. Our reputation is as a off off Broadway trial place is growing;
we are getting scripts like Pamela said from not only Edward Albee,
Israel Horovitz, but also people
like Brian Davies, people like this who is known through out the
country. Small theatres like this produced works like Rent, which
came from a small house like ours and became a Broadway hit and
now a movie. Allot of hot properties have passed through here.
(Pamela Wilson)
Right, well in January we just had the Virginia premier of the play
called Birth. There is an online website about it and it is picking up
momentum, its written on the same lines as the Vagina monologues.
The Firehouse Theatre was the first theatre here in Virginia, to do
the Vagina Monologues. Going back to what Mark said about our
reputation in New York, on march 25th the play Tiger by the Tail, by
Frawley Becker will be opening off Broadway. It was the 2005
winner of our Festival of New American Plays, so it had its
beginnings right here at the Firehouse Theatre with 2 nights of
staged readings and it will be opening in New York and were very
excited about that.
(The Richmond Buzz)
The Firehouse Theatre Project is currently accepting applications
for it's 2006 5th annual Festival of New American Plays (The
deadline is July 2006) Tell me what you hope to see in this years
submissions?
(Mark Brandon)
Yes, the theatre was pretty excited, last year we read over 200
scripts that were mailed to us from all over the country
and we read through them and narrowed it down to two scripts, we
have a staged reading on the last night of the festival. People are
allowed to comes see both shows, we charge $3 a ticket (which might
be going up) or $5 for two. The winner this year was Tiger by the tail,
which like Pamela says is getting a New York production. This is
theater in the most basic sense, the art form is about writing plays
and putting them on stage. We get these new playwrights to send
us scripts, we get a panel literary folks to read them and judge what
they think them to be the best or the worst, and this is how we find
new properties.
(Pamela Wilson)
Mr. Frawley is not exactly a young playwright but he is new. It was
so interesting to have him here he is from Los Angeles and he was the
first director to produce and direct an Edward Albee play in Paris
back in the late 50's.
(Mark Brandon)
The Play festival is definitely exciting, its like with an art gallery
the artist gets to paints a picture and it goes through a jury process
and if it passes that it get to go to a gallery somewhere. There is
nothing much like that for people to write scripts for playwrights,
and yet judging from the amount material that we get there is allot
of playwrights out there. And to be able to have them have a place
like here in Richmond they can send stuff to it, the stuff can get read,
hopefully we will be funded sometime in the future, hopefully a
company will step up to the plate to help us to fund the playwright
festival. So we can actually offer a production of the play, a full-
scale production rather than a staged reading. This is going to be
our goal eventually, but it's expensive. People have to realize the
one thing about running a theatre company is its like operas and
symphony's, when you produce a play, opera, or a symphony, you loose
money. The nature of the business is whenever you produce
something you loose money. Arts organizations tend to loose money.
Having said that, actually Firehouse does real well in terms of
having a very small budget and operating with in our budget. The
nature of what we do here, is to do a play and even if they sell a
number of tickets, we loose money. The only theatres in the world
that don't loose money are Broadway houses and they are charging
$100 a ticket, we charge only $20 a ticket here.
(The Richmond Buzz)
Do you have any genre that you are hoping to see more of that maybe
wasn't as prominent in the previous years?
(Mark Brandon)
The scripts are already coming in.
(Pamela Wilson)
Yes, I was very excited about one of the submissions being a musical; I’
m a singer so I would like to see more of those. Some of the new
musicals are very much cutting edge. We have had some wonderful
musicals in the past, such as The Last Five Years and Bat Boy, some
really wonderful shows and we had a great time.
(Mark Brandon)
Yes, Bat Boy was a big hit off Broadway. I think the future of the
New American Plays festival is bright we just need to find that
sponsorship.
(The Richmond Buzz)
How is your theatre different from the other
theatres in the area?
(Pamela Wilson)
I think we are very different.
(Mark Brandon)
Well we're professional and we do pay
actors and we have since the beginning,
we pay designers, we don't do what is
commercially viable. I think, it's
important to do what for example
what Barksdale theatre does, they do
great work, but they are doing The
Crucible and The Lark, great old stuff
like that, which is important for
younger people to see and for everyone
to see, but they do high quality work. It's like Pamela said, our
mission statement is contemporary American only, and Richmond
premiers only, so we are doing more new cutting edge material. We
are taking on stuff that does not have a commercial track record, its
very scary doing what we do. Our last show of this season, a play
called Dinner with Friends, is by Donald Margulies open up at the end
of April. Mr. Margulies is well known outside of Richmond, but not in
town. People in Richmond are not going to come see Dinner with
Friends because they have heard of Donald Margulies. So there is
allot of trust going on, the patrons have got to trust what we are
doing at Firehouse, that we have selected good shows. Carol Piersol
our Artistic Director, has a strong track record and if you look at
what we have produced its very impressive.
(Pamela Wilson)
Carol has such a good eye for an incredible script. I think another
interesting thing that we do here is we offer talk backs to allot of
our shows. Talk backs allow the audience get the opportunity to
speak directly to the director and the actors. We are having
talkbacks with the show Compromise, and the audience can speak
directly with Israel Horovitz. Audience members can ask those
questions like why did he do that or how did that come in with that?
On Sunday March 5th at 1PM, we are doing a special stage reading of
his new script, Madame Bonnard's Bath. You will actually get to
critique it, he wants to hear what you liked or didn't like.
(Mark Brandon)
The admission to see the reading for Madame Bonnard's Bath is free.
(The Richmond Buzz)
Do you think that Richmonders desire to see more edgy productions
than what is currently available in this market?
(Pamela Wilson)
I definitely think there is a market for it, and I am constantly
surprised at the people that have never heard of us. We are always
out there trying to get peoples attention, we are in the Times
Dispatch and in Style. We do have people that travel from out of
state to come see our shows.
(The Richmond Buzz)
Tell me about your acting classes that are available, are there any
going on now?
(Pamela Wilson)
Yes, we are in the middle of an acting class right now, they are eight
week sessions taught by Carol Piersol and occasionally her husband
Maury Piersol joins her with that. They are both students of the
Sanford Miser method, they both studied in New York, Maury actually
acted on Broadway, and they both are highly qualified. Maury will
be directing Dinner With Friends and he direct The Goat. The acting
classes are a great, the price for a brand new student is $160 for
eight weeks, that’s incredible to get the level of acting lessons you
will get.
(Pamela Wilson)
The Firehouse has offered allot of opportunities to local young
people to get their feet wet here. We have an agreement with
Henrico and Hanover county juvenile probation people and they have
young people who are not violent offenders that need to do
community service, and they send them to us.
(The Richmond Buzz)
How has the response been for your Sunday shows that are pay what
you will?
(Pamela Wilson)
That has been a wonderful idea that Carol Piersol came up with the
1st matinee you can come in the door for a penny.
(Mark Brandon)
Two pennies would be better (laughs).
(Pamela Wilson)
We try to give students or people on fixed incomes an opportunity to
see our shows, it’s a nice way to give something back to the
community that gives so much to us.
(The Richmond Buzz)
What would you like to see happen for the Firehouse in the year 2006?
(Mark Brandon)
Going forward as Managing Director, we need a capital campaign, we
need a shop, and I would like to expand the seats to 125 from the
current 112. I would like to see us have an instructor of technical
theatre to help with technical operations and help us develop a
program to get interns here from the universities. Were going to
start with our capital campaign and put our wish list together and
see what it is. We are an educational institution, were an open house
for people to bring stuff, we've got the play festival, we are easy
thing to promote, I am not shy to say -we got a hot property.
