Tony Simotes Part Two

Charles Giuliano There was the initial shock of your abrupt departure from Shakespeare & Company. That was followed by the hasty escape of Rick Dildine who briefly replaced you. While we were absorbing that news there was another surprising development. With one foot out the door to an academic appointment you were nabbed at the last second to join Kate Maguire at Berkshire Theatre Group. This almost plays like one of those five door, quick change farces that you love to produce. In biting irony S&Co. is producing "Comedy of Errors" this season. Talk about art and life upstaging each other.

 

Your decision to stay in the Berkshires says a lot about the region and its strong audience for arts and theatre. Your decision to work with Kate sends a loud and clear message. Can you walk us through these surprising developments?

 

Tony Simotes It feels like script writers in Hollywood sat down and said "Let's write an improbable story." I came here from a position at the University of Wisconsin. I was director of the theatre. I was a tenured full professor. When the opportunity arose at S&Co. it was the chance not just to head a theatre company but one that I had helped to create. One I  helped not just to develop the aesthetic but the methodology of teaching over almost 40 years.

 

I felt a deep commitment, not just for the Berkshires where I first came in 1978, but also a great theatre that I had helped to create back in the late 1970s. I met Tina when I was still at NYU. Kevin Coleman and Dennis Krausnick were my classmates. So many of the people who created S&Co. in that first decade were all my friends. Most of us were out of NYU. There were so many of us that were bred out of the NYU experience. Tina came there as a guest artist.

 

When that offer came through I thought this was my last big job and opportunity. I had no idea the journey that would take me on over the next five years.

 

Then things started to change. They are always changing and the leadership on the board changed. There was a push to create a new administrative structure. It really felt like, OK, now things are going in a different direction. In the past, in the academic world when things went in a different direction I was able to say, OK, now it's time to exit stage right. It felt to me that I had achieved my major goals and with all the things going on at the company this was a time to release myself from where the company was now moving.

 

Could I have survived within that structure? Yes. I could have. I was doing that. When Rick Dildine came on and there was an obvious push to go in another direction. Then it was important to me to step away from the company completely. I cannot comment on what happened at S&Co. internally because that's up to them. Rick left. Leadership changed again on the board. I hope for their sakes that they have grounded themselves again and will move forward. I felt that the only thing for me was to find another job. Leave the area. Say thank you to everybody for the many years we spent creating here and go back to academia.

 

The job at Millikin University (Decatur, Illinois) was exciting because they were creating a new performing arts center. I grew up in Illinois and had always heard of their program which was a really solid training program for actors.

 

CG You would have enjoyed that position.

TS I would have been fine. In a sense I would be going back home.

 

CG Would you be a tenured professor.

 

TS Yes. They were hiring me with the idea that within a year or two I would be given tenure.

 

CG So what's not to like?

 

TS So what's not to like?

 

Recently we were doing a reading at Berkshire Theatre Group. We rented the space as a part of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. I was doing a new play "When the Sky Falls" by Yvette Sirker. A wonderful piece of theatre. I've known Yvette for a few years here in the Berkshires. I read her play and found it fascinating. It's about Hurricane Katrina and the characters that are around it. I loved her take on it particularly as it had a New Orleans flavor. I was just coming out of doing my New Orleans "Midsummer Night's Dream" and I thought it would be an extension of those ideas as I was in that milieu. Living as I had for many years in Tallahassee, Florida I had experienced hurricanes. So I was fascinated by the play and we rented Berkshire Theatre Group and its Unicorn Theatre. That meant I had some dealings with Kate more recently.

 

She reached out to me and said "Tony I would like for you to do the fights for 'Deathtrap.' " I said OK I would love to. Then they asked me to teach in their apprentice program over the summer and I said absolutely. Then she said "Can you do 'Homecoming' for us in the fall?"

I had known Kate from all those years ago at S&Co. She was an administrator doing development and business management for the company. She was the person I was always talking to in terms of contracts. I had grown to know and like her, and felt very comfortable working with her over the years. When I came back in the 1990s she hired me any number of times to do fights for Berkshire Theatre Festival. It was nice to have her reach out to me again.

 

The night before I did the reading I said to Rocco Sisto "Wouldn't it be great if Kate offered me a job?" And I was able to stay here because she has these two campuses and could probably use some help. That would be so cool. Rocco said "So why don't you call her?"  I said "Oh no. I'm not going to call her. I've already got a job. We're leaving. We're going to Millikin. I'm not into begging for a job."

 

Sure enough she sent me an e mail and said "Tony I'm in New York. Can you send me your C.V.?" She said "I'm talking to some people." I thought she was talking to another theatre. She had expressed interest in me as a fight guy. She knew my work as a director and actor. That Monday she wrote to me and said "Can we have breakfast?"

 

That Monday my contract for Millikin was supposed to show up. It didn't.

 

That night she called me and said "This is what I'm thinking."

Lucy and I were so excited. Realistically we were set to move to Illinois. If we had the opportunity to remain here and continue our relationships in the Berkshires and work on the level of professional theatre that BTG offered, as opposed to going to a college situation, I felt that this would be so much better.

The next morning we met and I told her I had this other job. I told her I'm waiting for the contracts to come and I can only delay them so long. She said "Let me continue to make phone calls and talk to people." Literally the next day she said "It's a go."  I said "Are you sure? Because I'm calling Millikin." (laughing) She said "We're going to do this." The contract had still not shown up.

It's like "Romeo and Juliet" where they send a letter to Romeo and it doesn't get there.

 

CG Did the contract finally come?

 

TS A week late.

 

CG (laughing) It was fate.

TS (emphasis) It was. It was in the stars.

 

I called the dean and said I have this tremendous opportunity. She said "Take it. I apologize on my end I kept telling them to get this done."

 

CG May I ask about the finances? You turned down a tenure track position with a good salary, benefits and security. Instead you took not a top position but signed on  as second in command in the risky realm of theatre. We know all too well that you could be canned tomorrow.

TS Let's hope not Charles.

 
CG That's a real roll of the dice. I assume there is less money on the table. But it's a different kind of life.

 

TS The offer was solid and the money is decent. We had to look at our finances including our mortgage and life here. We own a house in Pittsfield. When we moved here it was a matter of losing a bit of money when we sold our house in Wisconsin and getting a good deal here. We love our house and Lucy loves working at Berkshire Organics. She's a manager there. We have friends outside the theatre.

CG You have a life here.

TS We had a life that we did not want to give up. If you look at that vs a tenured position and moving into a community where you also don't know that many people this looked like the possibility to continue the work we were doing. Lucy is very engaged in what she's doing with the market and for me there are all the relations I have from Smitty Pignatelle to Ben Downing and Deval Patrick on the political level. to the representatives, and the business leaders here.

 

CG This will be an obvious asset to Berkshire Theatre Group.

 

TS And MCC.

 

CG You're a likeable guy. You're very approachable. That clearly worked for S&Co. in terms of  pulling them out of the hole and back on track. I'm sure a lot of that was your personal credibility and charisma. All of that now moved over to the benefit of  BTG.

 

TS I've  always believed in being as straight forward with people as I can be. As I told the bank on behalf of S&Co. "You gave us the money in good faith and we're going to pay back every dollar we owe you." The president of the bank said "That's the first time we've heard that." At that time everyone was looking for the bank to take a haircut; get rid of part of the debt and restructure it. I told the bank "Look, you gave it to us and we're going to pay you back." We went from being an adversary to being a client. That's the way I've always tried to deal with people.

 

I don't have an MBA but there's one thing about business, if you're up front with people, if you come at them from the point of view that I'm not giving you any BS. I'll give it to you straight. Then people are willing to work with you. They understand that we're all in the position of trying to do the best we can.

 

CG How does that morph into the synergy of the Berkshire Theatre Group? From what I understand Barrington Stage had turned down an offer to acquire the Colonial Theatre. If you look at the books and the debt of the Colonial and Berkshire Theatre Festival that was a tough decision.

 

TS I was.

CG It hasn't really worked. I don't have the information that you do but the Colonial has yet to match its potential. It is an under used facility particularly for theatre. Right now there is a musical that launches the summer season, a children's theatre production, and a Christmas show. There are one nighters and competition for the best acts from theaters in Northampton and Albany. It is a very competitive business. The season opening musical opens after the Fourth of July and doesn't seem to run long enough. "Tommy" with Randy Harrison, the first such show, was building an audience when it ended. That left money on the table. Barrington Stage, by comparison, will run "Man of La Mancha" from June 10 to July 11. That's a month with the risk taking of meeting payroll for an expensive show. BTG's "Bells Are Ringing" opens after the important holiday weekend on July 9 and runs through July 26. Press night on July 11 has a conflict with the press opening of S&Co.'s "Comedy of Errors." Critics will choose one or another. That guarantees that half of the reviews will be late. By then Williamstown Theatre Festival, Tanglewood and Jacob's Pillow are also in full swing.

TS How do you make all that work? Then what happens when MGM a casino comes into Springfield. That's a few years down the road.

 

This first week (on the job) has been about looking at the whole big picture. It's a unique organization because it's a presenter in terms of the one nighters as well as being a theatre community. The Berkshire Theatre Festival is established as a part of the American theatre experience. It's a quintessential summer theater along with Williamstown. This is the 87th season.

CG It's a Stanford White building that was moved to that Stockbridge location.

TS Kate kept saying "Tony we want a fresh set of eyes on these problems." That's what excited me about this opportunity.

 

I have struggled all of my life on the artistic side of myself and the business side of myself. My family was in business. I grew up in a grocery store in Joliet, Illinois. My father had apartment buildings. Pittsfield always reminded me of Joliet. This industrial, factory town where once they built the mall everything evaporated. In Illinois it was the steel mills that went away. Crazy enough it felt like home. In 1978 when I came up here everything was still on North Street. All the movie theaters and everything. There was the balance between the desire to be a musician and artist as well as this idea of whenever I walk into a place thinking about the signage or how it is being run. I always look at the business aspects of any place I go into.

 

So I'm just getting a sense of what the Colonial is. And what the campus in Stockbridge could be. As well as how to bring these two organizations together in terms of revenue and more profitability. You've got two great brands and amazing theatre spaces. As you asked earlier are there enough people in  the Berkshires to support all these stages? When I was a part of the Berkshire Visitor's Bureau, and I hope to work with them again, it's not just that your theatre survives. It's how does the region survive and how do we bring in more people; another 5,000 or 10,000 people. That keeps generating this as a mecca for great entertainment.

 

We have four great theatres. When I first got here there was the idea of how can we connect. The idea of the art and all the four theatres together. WTF like BTF has been going pretty well for a long time. The difference for them is that they don't have to worry about maintaining the facility. The college does a pretty good job of that. We have an opportunity to continue to grow the brand of theatre in the Berkshires.