(00:00:00) Today's broadcast of midday is made possible by the six Twin Cities offices of citicorp Citibank providing Financial Services to the world since 1812 Beth friend. Welcome. It's always nice to have you come into the studios over the noon hour here welcome and tell us about your guest for the day. Bester. Yes. Yeah. Oh, there you are. Okay. Hi. How are you? I'm fine. I don't know it sounds better when since we got your mic turned on. Okay. All right. (00:00:30) I'd like to welcome to midday Garland right who on June first became the artistic director of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Mr. Wright served as associate artistic director of the Guthrie from 1980 to 1983 and was a guest director there as well during the last two seasons many of you. I'm sure will recall his staging of a number of plays including the award-winning candied Guys and Dolls The Importance of Being Earnest and the record-breaking anything goes his work has been seen on Broadway as well and in virtually every major regional Theatres across the United States if you have a question for Garland, right the number to call is two two seven six thousand and if you're calling from outside of the metro area, it's a toll-free number. That's one eight hundred six five to ninety. Seven hundred again. 1-800-662-2386, right you're considered one of a generation of young directors, who are Taking the reins as they've been saying of important Regional Theaters across the country and it's also been observed that you are given a contract at the Guthrie that could make you the most powerful director in the theaters history. You're the only person reporting directly to the board of directors at the Guthrie and just yesterday. It was announced that under your direction. The theater has chosen a new executive director Edward a Martinson who is replacing managing director Donald shown bomb. Mr. Martinson, of course will report directly to you to what end are these changes being made. What are your plans for the (00:01:53) Guthrie? I think I think perhaps a little more as being made of that and then then then might be and we may be talking here of ever very specific issue here at the Guthrie, but it's my opinion and and I think all artists would agree with me that theaters are places that make plays and if we're lucky make art and therefore if we were to make a logical institution based on that idea would be headed by an artist and I think the situation is Not Unusual that the artist is that is that the head of the theater I think here at the Guthrie. There's been a different Arrangement based on a long history of a managing director who has functioned as really an example for managing directors all through this country for a whole generation of young managers across the United States and a history of shorter-term artistic directors. And so consequently, I think this was a wise way to have Run the theater, I believe as my generation if I made call as my generation take over the reins of these theaters II believe that we will be re stating the original goals of this movement, which is an alternative theater movement to the commercial theater and that it is is one created by artists and is made by artists and therefore it's probably best that it be run by artists and since we've been trained in this movement and probably are the first generation in history who've actually been trained by a network of nonprofit theaters. It seems logical to me that we would make that choice as we step into these positions of responsibility and delighted to do so and and I'm also delighted that. And mines and is going to join me in this task. (00:04:03) We have a caller on the line. Go ahead please and 123 order. Number one the most moving experiences I've ever had at the Guthrie was the house of atreus wondering whether that might possibly return number two, when you read reviews like the current Joan of Arc. How do you interpret them? Number three any possibility of restoring the architectural Integrity of the facade of the Guthrie? That's three for you. Take it (00:04:40) away. Well, that's a full hours worth of talk here. Let me respond first to the house of atreus. I do hope and the theater is approaching its 25th anniversary in the next year or so. I do hope that we can look back to the Greek plays and their extraordinary pieces of theater and and I think we will look to that. I think it would be hubris to use a Greek word or pretension to use another kind of weird to try to recreate doctor Guthrie's from what I understand extraordinary production. And I don't know whether the historic archives exist that would allow us to do that or if anyone has gifted enough to be able to do that. But I do hope that we can return to that area of literature and explored in relation to our own times. Your question about reviews. I don't know whether you're asking how I read them or how you should read and it may be a corrupt answer if I answer the second I tend to look at reviews as a manifestation of someone's response to an evening in a theater and I don't think we can hold critics responsible for being faultless and So I tend to take reviews as hearing someone respond to what they saw in the theater and I take it as no more nor less than that. It's good to know what people think when they came to to see work at the theater. It's good to keep hearing it and to to learn when certain things keep repeating in people's responses. I think in the best of all possible Worlds the area of criticism Could be elevated to an art in itself that could help us not only know what happened in the theater on a given night, but to understand more fully the literature itself and where it stands in our culture and where it stands in relation to us as a community as we watch a certain play the implications of performance and interpretation. I'm afraid that given the current state of the print media arts are really not given a lot of space in order to do in-depth work like that and we have to really rely upon journals and more specialized Publications to find what I would really call criticism. I don't know whether that's the answer to your question about reviews, but let me go on you also asked about restoring the architecture of the facade of the theater. I presume you're speaking of the Interior. Not the exterior. and indeed we are looking into that I think to restore it would not be it would be a cynical gesture and I think we need to re-examine the problems of the present space but simply to go back and by doing that it eliminates six years worth of extraordinary work at the theater and when architectural gesture would would be not only unkind but also untrue to what I hope the theater continues to offer in terms of It's presentations, but certainly I do believe that the current configuration offers problems, which sometimes are insurmountable and we're looking to that if you have a question for (00:08:47) Garland, right, you can call a two two seven six thousandths. That's two two seven six thousand and the toll free number if you're calling us from outside of the metro area is 1-800-695-1418 have another caller on the line. Go ahead pits. No, they're not. They're no longer there. I'm curious to know what exactly you plan to do within these three years. Do you have a very specific sense artistically of reaching certain goals and presenting certain kinds of material at the (00:09:15) Guthrie. So defeat Chandler's gave advice to artistic director. She said make sure you know exactly what you're going to do before you say it and if you don't shut up, I am in the midst of examining all of the possibilities at this moment. Certainly Chief among the things that will be true about my artistic directorship will be a continuation of the classical repertoire and I think that's I think that's an act of responsibility as an artist to keep the literature and the archaeology of our past as a people and as a world alive so that we can continue to learn ourselves through ART and to relearn ourselves and to see ourselves in relationship to our past. And so I don't consider the classical Repertory to be objects for museums or dead objects or relics. I think of them as necessary components to our growth as a present tense human beings apart from the continuation of that Repertory if you're asking programmatic questions, I think I'll take Zelda's advice and shut up about that until probably come October I can announce to you. And for the next three years, I think maintaining an elevating the stature of the Guthrie is an artistic institution is my chief priority and it's it's a great pleasure and honor to have been asked to do that. So certainly I take that as my my fundamental priority as I think of individual programs. (00:11:12) Okay, let's go on to our next questioner. Go ahead, please. I'm somewhat puzzled as to why your speaker assumed that a previous caller meant one thing when he said another the previous caller asked about the architectural Integrity of the exterior and your guests assume that that question or meant interior. So I would like to put the question again. Do you have any plans to restore the architectural Integrity of the exterior as the previous questioner asked (00:11:45) I do. Of that in terms of the exterior. We are presently looking at a plan in relation to the Walker Art Center to unify the two buildings as an architectural hole and the Walker Art Center is undertaking a to me really exciting project in the sculpture garden that's going to happen across the street from the Guthrie and the Walker and it also includes I believe. I haven't seen the plans yet. I've only been here for four days, but I hear it also includes walkways over to Loring Park. And I do know that Ed Barnes is currently being talked to as an architect to unify the facades of the Guthrie with with a walker which we will be doing in concert to (00:12:51) that. Take our next question now. Go ahead, please I would like to know if you have any plans to use more local artists both actors and design people in the Guthrie. It seems that whenever I read a bio in your program if they're either from the East Coast or Europe and I just like to know what your plans are for those local artists. I (00:13:15) I think that's different now. I think if you read the present program you would be you would be very surprised at the makeup the percentage makeup of the company at the present moment. It's always it's always a difficult question. You know, there used to be a very cynical point of view that you had to move to New York from Minneapolis in order to come back and work at the Guthrie that I hope we can definitely obliterate as a as a reality or certainly as a perception the makeup of a company. However, I don't think should be limited in any way to anything except the very best talent available in that will be the criteria for this artistic directorship. (00:14:04) Garland right is taking calls at 2276 thousand or if you are outside of the metro area at one eight hundred six five to ninety seven hundred. Let's go on. Go ahead please. Hello. I'm wondering if you have any plans to start a second stage at the Guthrie. It seems for years. Now their various administrations have been talking about that. And I wonder if this really ever going to happen. (00:14:29) Yes. I'm demanding it. As a matter of fact, it's one of my first priorities the nature of the second space and and what it would be like physically As well as what its artistic function will be are presently being being looked at. There are all kinds of problems that I'm sure all of us understand about running a Repertory company and about the difficulty of scheduling a company into theaters. But certainly I believe not end. I insist that this is true that no organism can operate without some wing of its of itself being involved in research and development. And I believe that opportunities have to be made for young actors for young directors for young designers for budding playwrights as well as and and we should be clear about this very experienced playwrights can't even get their work done in the United. Dates anymore on a relay ongoing basis. So these things are critical to any growth potential that an artistic Institute Institution has we will have one and it will be in place within my first season which which will begin next June what the output of that unit will be in the first season. I don't know yet and that will depend as largely on Logistics as anything else, but I do want to make it clear that the second space will no longer be a theory with me in town. It has to be reality. (00:16:32) You also have mentioned that you have plans for a playwright swing at the Guthrie. What would that consist of and how would that (00:16:37) work? I've been talking to some writers. I think the issue of writing, you know, the problem of writing is that you do it privately and but it's but fear itself is a public are and writers rarely have a chance to interact with with each other as artists and the playwright's wing would allow Riders not only to work with the company and have their work red and staged and possibly produced but also they would have the ability to interact with each other and it's very important in growth that you have a chance to talk with your peers and I think painters have the same problem. It's one reason that I Realized I can never be a painter even though I studied to be one as that. I couldn't stand the Solitude of the studio and so I think writers have the right to influence one another and to talk with one another and examine what it is. They're doing how they're growing how they're not growing and they're the only professionals that can really talk to each other in a way that they can hear and learn. So I'd like to do that. There's a wonderful organization here in the city the playwright's center, which I hope also that I can begin to Interest them in some sort of connection. I hope that doesn't come as a scoop. I haven't talked to the playwright's center about that yet. But I think in a Congregation of Rogers can only be good for other writers and to associate writers with with a producing organization that has the raw materials of theater meaning directors and actors is a useful activity and I hope to pursue it. (00:18:54) Let's take our next questioner. Go ahead please. Yes, somebody asked earlier about local artists, but I'm interested in what mr. Wright's plans are. For National and international artists it seems to me that one of the finest things that the mr. Chu Li did was to bring in really outstanding directors from around the country and around the world and I'd like to ask. Mr. Right if he hopes to continue that practice. (00:19:32) It is a policy. I will continue certainly leave you leave you was a brave and daring man to man to bring in such extraordinary talents and and to remain totally unthreatened by them. And I think it was a wonderful Growing Experience, but for the theater in the audience and certainly for the artists within the theater and it is a policy that will definitely be continued. I would also like to pursue as well highly esteemed and valued American artists who are also on The Cutting Edge of the theater art, which sometimes Who sometimes have to go to Europe in order to work and and hopefully that can be remedied here as well? Yes. I think it benefits the growth not only of this theater. But if the National Theater to have people of that stature working in our country and certainly in our theater. (00:20:42) Go ahead, please you're on the air. Yes. I was wondering if you could explain some of the obstacles you have to overcome in order to realize your plan of opening a second space for the (00:20:53) Guthrie. I'm sorry. The pose is only because they're so infinite Chief among those wouldn't it would be a funding. The first order of business is to find out how within the present budget and I have promised the board that the second space will not tax the budget to any degree that it would endanger the main stage apart from that without getting really specific. This scheduling problems are incredibly difficult. I don't know the audience always has a wonderfully it's very theatrical what happens when an audience comes into a theater because it all seems so orderly but in point of fact the Of theater is a deeply chaotic thing and people are between one and two in the afternoon and rehearsal in one room for Merry wives of Windsor in between two and between three and four there at a costume fitting and between five and six their scarfing down dinner and the next day they're in rehearsal for Saint Joan and auditioning for a visiting director and consequently performing at night and during intermission of the evening performance. They're learning their lines for the play that's coming up and just as they've prepared that they come to the theater the next day and they're performing a complete completely different play. It's not an easy world where organizing there and if you can imagine that schedule x a staff of about a hundred including the actors That's the kind of organizational problem I faced as to how to add to that already given problem the problems that will arise when I say to the shop. I yes, you don't have to only do these plays but you have to do some place over here that are 14 miles away and and transporting actors back and forth between the rehearsal rooms in the main stage and the rehearsal rooms at the second space. These are the problems that are dizzying and daunting and I insist I insist that we not think of them as we begin to dream but that we dream first and then we'll deal with the problems. But certainly those are obstacles and things that we will have to face. I think there's interest certainly on the part of the artists to explore new kinds of work and developmental work and new writing. And I do believe that that within our audience within the Guthrie audience. There's also an interest in that and that I don't see as an obstacle. (00:24:00) Let's go on to our next caller. Hello. You're on the air Productions under. Mr. Chu Lai is time at the Guthrie seem to rather antagonize the audience and a number of the questions today like the restoration of the stage and the exterior seem to indicate that there's a very strong desire for the Guthrie to return to quote normal unquote and I'm wondering how do you feel about that? And you feel that there's a need to to mollify a kind of rebuild some bridges that you know that may have burned in the time between (00:24:40) I have deep problems with determining. What is normal so returning to normal is? Highly subjective goal. I don't want to be I don't want to be flippant about answering this question because the first thing we have to consider is that the theater is a public art and it's a social art form. There's a famous old saying and the theater the best thing to upholster a theater seat with is a paying customers bottom and that's true. And so that requires us to accommodate. The paying customer because we want you to be there on the other hand. art is Art and will always be a subjective issue and Given any evenings performance I'll bet you could find at least 25 opinions about what's going on on the stage. I think it is not the business of artists to try to second-guess. What someone wants an advance and I'm not sure that's what any of us had in mind who decided to become artists rather than and I would like to specify difference between mere professionalism and Artistry and Artistry is a dangerous is a dangerous area. And that's what it's that's what's exciting about it. And that's why it's fun and sometimes upsetting to encounter it depending on one's point of view. I definitely know because I was here with leave you that leave you did not set out to antagonize anyone and that he was a man of great principles in terms of his Artistry and the Artistry he wanted his theater to represent. I'm a different artist and my presentations at the Guthrie will Select my talent and the talent of the people I bring here, but I don't think anyone ever sits down to say. Oh gosh. What can we do to make sure the house is full every night. And I think that's unwise and I don't think I don't think that's the business of art art. I will do everything I can to make sure that the work on the stage is great. And I don't mean just I mean great in the sense of that it has stature and that is my responsibility to myself into the theater and we will attract that audience that is attracted to that won't we (00:27:49) Let's go on to our next caller. Go ahead, please well when this theater was organized Tyrone Guthrie seemed to have an idea of producing an ensemble where maybe one night you would be hamlet in the next night. You'd have a extremely minor role in these were played in Repertory and in most recent Seasons, it seems that they go to the east or west coast to put together a cast and then they go on to other things. What are your plans in that area? (00:28:26) I shall continue the dream. Dr. Guthrie found it difficult to have it's a here we're dealing with the intersection of Art and life aren't we artists have lives and they choose to govern their lives according to their needs and so I don't think it would be fair or very interesting to say to someone. I want you to be a member of my Ensemble and also you have to be here for the rest of your life. I think that would be a deadening beginning to a relationship. I think the thing to do is to create an institution that attracts artists and where artists want to stay and need to stay and feel that by staying they are growing and that is an intention of mine as for playing Hamlet One Night in a spear carrier the next I think even dr. Guthrie. The found that to be difficult when you find that actor who can finally place play Hamlet, I think you would choose to spend the next night off rather than carry a spear and perhaps because of the amount of work he put into that growth. Maybe he deserves that. But certainly I think what Repertory offers is a is a wonderful chance for actors not to go dead by playing the same part night after night after night, but to be able to explore different sides of their of their Artistry and their Natures as as human beings. (00:30:08) If you have a question for Garland, right you can call us at two to seven six thousand and if you're outside of the metro area, you can call us at a toll-free number one 865 to 9700. You've been talking in the course of answering the last couple of phone calls about those kinds of problems that come into competition or as a potential obstacles to Girls, how is an artistic director. Do you balance the life of the theater with the life of an institution? How do you protect it as a theater? When at the same time you do have all these considerations that are very very real in the real world of money and filling houses and administering. Hmm. (00:30:50) Well, it's difficult, isn't it? I think if we looked at what we do, we will determine what's required to do it. I think it's the same in raising a child when the child is hungry. You have to go and feed in you have to do the cooking and you have to wash the dishes but when the child wants to play you can walk out into the Sun and enjoy it. And so I think you have to you have to allow yourself the right to mix those things and not to demand that it be all play and certainly not to demand that it be all work. I can't answer that question. The person who could should be very rich today. I will learn the answer that by doing. Okay, let's take our next call. Go ahead, please. (00:31:47) Yes, I'm calling from st. Paul and I would just like to throw out a suggestion and that is to do something about the parking situation. We're going to the Guthrie and I'd like to suggest that maybe some of somebody work with the downtown Council or whatever to have buses from a satellite area in the downtown area to bring theater goers to the Guthrie. I think it would make a lot of us from the other side of the river much more willing to drive over and attend more performances. I'll hang up and listen for your That's (00:32:23) I thank you for that suggestion. I thank you. We'll look into that. (00:32:31) Okay, let's go on to our next caller. You're on the air. Hello, two things one is the need for handicapped parking area in front. But the other thing I want to ask about is the Guthrie is never done the play the deputy by ho who seems to me that would be a real important play for our time. Have you ever considered doing that in this rain? Nicola wants to know if you would have considered the play the deputy by Ralph Haku. (00:33:02) Actually, we when I was here before yes, the title the title did come up. It's an enormous undertaking. But yeah, certainly I'd be I'd be willing to look at that again as (00:33:19) for (00:33:20) I'm trying to ask a question. I'm new in town here as for handicapped parking. There is I understand. I'm trying to read someone's lips at this moment handicraft handicapped parking at the front of the theater if indeed there needs to be more we should look at that as (00:33:38) well. Well going on to other kinds of questions. (00:33:43) I have a question back in terms of (00:33:44) administration again with martinson's assuming the role of executive director. That's one major administrative change at the Guthrie. Will you be with structuring the theater the theaters Administration and other ways would you consider other major changes at the (00:33:59) Guthrie? I think when we determine our full program, we will have to design an organization that can accomplish that program. And yes it certainly the answers to the question what what and if such a restructuring what that restructuring would be and if it would happen is certainly something that I would be doing in concert with Ed Martinson who will be arriving later this year. I'm taking this time now to really learn the institution in depth though. I worked here for three years. The organization has changed considerably since I was in Residence here, and I need to relearn it's an end not to make choices that are ill-judged and and ill-thought-out but certainly We will determine what our task is for ourselves and then we will have to design an organization that will accomplish that and should we already be the proud owners of that organization. That would be a happy surprise. (00:35:13) Are you considering any moves such as making the season a little (00:35:15) bit shorter so that you can then yes, I am. I'll be back in a year. Don't tell me that the whole make this yet. As I said, these are theoretical excuse me. Choices at the moment. I hope that we can condense the season back into a shorter span of time certainly, but also I think purely on a psychological level to give it to a festival atmosphere again that it once had in terms of being a flurry of activity and then you know, that's very important for someone to Value you that they also experienced your absence and I think now there's virtually not a night of the year that you can't go down to the Guthrie Theater and I'd like to reintroduce what it's like when we're not not around and perhaps the excitement of being able to come back because the place has been Not performing would engender a new excitement within the within the building itself and excitement in the building can only help the theater. If you had a shorter season, could you then play to less (00:36:40) capacity for that's short season and not have the pressure of feeling the 1400 seed house (00:36:45) the way I do math. I think the reverse is true. (00:36:50) Okay, let's go on to our next caller. Go ahead, please I'm calling from I see a great need to incorporate a develop the hearts in our Minnesota schools through by we would develop a clientele and appreciation for these youngsters some years ago. We had a Guthrie group that gave an outstanding performance of fables for elementary age children in our community you foresee any such traveling group in the future of the country again? (00:37:19) I hope I do as a matter of fact, we're having a meeting on Friday about the Outreach Department of our theater and I think that's an important deeply important issue that we have to examine. I know My first professional job was at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Connecticut. And we played almost four months before the season opens opened to schoolchildren driven in from all over the United States. I think that was a title three program this of course was during the Punic Wars as I was crying out and such programs don't exist. But I do know that a whole generation of theatregoers was created each year by those performances and I think our connection with students is very important not only to develop our audience but to develop the artists that we will depend upon in our future and I'm very serious about that issue and I'm looking to it (00:38:36) If you have any questions for Garland, right give us a call at 2:00 to 7:00 6,000 if you're outside of the metro area, that's toll-free one 800 600 297 hundred. We do have a caller on the line. Hello, you're on the air. Good afternoon. I just a couple of points if I could and please directed to mr. Rice understanding that this is probably considered the most of the major theater in this area. Maybe there is more responsibilities for other areas as well. IE. We mentioned you mentioned before the the necessity to open up to maybe more National and international themes whether it be directors or writers, I am aware personally of a situation where a local writer / director is performing or is involved in a one woman one woman show that is now been redirected to Denver because of the life that lack of acceptance at the Guthrie for holding that type of performance being a local Local director and writer. What is your feeling about opening up something like that, even though probably as far as the true Repertory sense, it's not going to be exhibited in this kind of performance. What is your feeling about that type of performance? Could you repeat that question and make a little bit more succinctly clear. There was a situation where a local artist who is now living in California our local director as well as writer who is who wrote a play a one-woman play which is now being performed by a very well-known actress was offered to the offer that to the Guthrie the Guthrie turned down strictly because of the fact that it was a one-woman show and not using any local Personnel dollars were maybe a little bit more expensive than they wanted to commit but this was a local person as regardless in the writer / directorship of display and I was wondering what his what mr. Rice's feeling is about that going on the sense that he had before made it statement. Opening this up nationally internationally. (00:40:38) Mmm. I'm not I'm not sure I understand the nature of the question, but certainly as we talked of earlier the local artist is exist equally in the landscape of people we would be inviting to share our work with Stephen. Do you have any opposition to that? I think is what it may be. No, certainly not no certainly not and I'm not aware of this particular one person show you describe though, perhaps in nature of the space itself would not have been appropriate for that and perhaps with the second space. We would have a home for works like that and I am unaware of the detail so I don't know what the reasons were. (00:41:35) Good afternoon. You're on the air. Hello, you're on the air. I have a question about a Christmas carol, which seems to be done almost odd nauseam here. We moved here from New York a few years ago. And I guess it surprises me. I suppose it's great moneymaker, but I wondered if they've ever considered doing a say a repertoire of maybe four or five plays with maybe even preferably musicals which you do so well on a Christmas-themed Subways are sleeping Annie something that would have some Christmas Motif in it and recycling those instead of doing what sometimes seem to be very strained interpretations of Christmas Carol. Hmm. (00:42:18) Let me be a little enigmatic in my answer. But yes, we are. We are looking at Christmas with with interest. We are examining the issue of Christmas Carol. (00:42:35) Go ahead, please you're on the air. Thank you. I'm calling from Brainerd and want to welcome you thank you. Right. I hope you have a terrific 10 years. At least I remember the opening of the Guthrie and I was so excited and have loved the theater ever since and I've got several times about some of those original early companies that included Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn and Ed Flanders and number of people. I wondered if you might consider having them back in some capacity for your 20th might take from now till then to get it arranged around your wonderful journey. And artistically I'm sure it would be satisfying (00:43:23) absolutely. Absolutely we were talking about only this morning as a matter of fact, and I and I and I hope that that can be brought about (00:43:34) Garland, right? Calls it two two seven six thousand and if you're outside of the metro area, that's a toll-free call at 1-800-695-1418 the air, thank you. I'm calling to Minneapolis and I was wondering whether the Guthrie company had considered using the newly restored World theater in downtown st. Paul or the studio theater in the orbit Music Theater as an additional or alternate space for Productions the Ordway that I was recently in the OR great theater, and it's absolutely beautiful theater, and it's a real theater. Would you consider it (00:44:22) if I could get out of my office and get in a car and drive around town? Yes, I'd love to I'd love to look at all these spaces. Absolutely. (00:44:32) I'd like to ask you some questions about what you think the role of the Guthrie is for example in the context of American Theater today. How would you characterize the Guthrie's roll? (00:44:47) Of late. I think it has it has become the theater in the country that most of the field looks to as being on The Cutting Edge of what the theater artist is is doing in our country and it has always been since its founding deeply respected theater and and 122 which most Young Artists aspired to finally be able to enjoy to be invited here. And I know that my first offer to come to the Guthrie was one of the most thrilling moments of my life and it wasn't to direct it was actually too. Play two small parts in Michael. Langham's first season here. Unfortunately, I was deciding to become a director at that moment. And so I chose to keep my assistant director job. But certainly I think this is this theater is viewed as the litmus test for for not only directors. But but also for actors the skills required to perform on the Guthrie stage or immense and this your technical skills and actor needs to be able to speak in that house require years and years of training and so I this this is really a the Valhalla I think as its perceived around the country (00:46:28) if you have a question for Garland, right give us a call at 2:00 to 7:00 6,000 or if you are outside of the metropolitan area, that's one eight hundred six five to ninety seven hundred what about the role of this theater in the local community in the ways that it should be interacting or so almost servicing other theater is of a small nature, (00:46:48) I think. I think and I don't want to make the second space and like a Panacea of some kind that would just solve every problem on Earth, but I think a lot of things we've been unable to do as a community service in the past relate to the empirical nature of that main stage and that those 1,400 seats and the nature of our scheduling. I hope given New Alternatives of of space and scheduling that the very real relationship could be worked out among the Arts institutions in this city and one that's not patronising that the grandfather saying oh, please come over and play in our house, but one that actually is beneficial to both parties and finding a way that the Guthrie can grow by being exposed to the different. Ideologies of these theater groups I'm speaking very generally because I don't at this moment have a specific plan in mind and until such time as these programs can be verbalized. I will remain rather General, but I look to specific ways and I look to the artistic Community here in the city to help me learn the needs of these organizations so that I can find useful ways that we can interact together. (00:48:22) Let's take another caller. Go ahead, please. Yes, you may have already answered this I've tuned in late but I'm a playwright and fairly unknown and how does one get your ear or time to read a manuscript or is that almost impossible send it to me? Will it lay on your desk for four months four months. I (00:48:45) promise you at least four days, (00:48:47) but you really actually pick it up and look through it. (00:48:50) Send it to me. (00:48:51) Yes and and care of the Guthrie. Yes. All right. Thanks. Bye. Okay, let's take our next caller. Good afternoon. You're on the air. Let's try our next line where someone is waiting. Hello. You're on the air. Hello, you're on the air. Hello. I have a really two questions one is the question is that at the Guthrie over the years you don't get much of a gut-wrenching experience where the audience is so immersed in the play that they're not even considering that they're watching acting and that has been a problem that I've had with Augusta almost since it started. I'm wondering what what can be done to change that. It's almost like an intellectual experience when you go there. The other thing is the difficulty in hearing live Shuli. He might put Mike's on some of the people and that made it a lot easier to hear and I hope I'm wondering if that will continue. Thank you. (00:50:04) I would like to. I would like not to make the actors. I would like to train the actors and I would I would really regret and it would make me very sad. If you see by making that gesture you really eliminate the last reason to learn to speak for an actor in their training because the Guthrie Theater as I've said offers great challenges and ours is an antique art and we do need to train people in antique waves and they must learn to speak and to project and also to I think which is a verbal activity and we live in a not very verbal world and I realized the Antiquity of some of those activities but As a caretaker of theatrical art, I would be very disturbed to be the person who might the Guthrie Theater merely because it couldn't we couldn't cut it in terms of talent and skill. There are certain times. I know in the musical's we did where the space was simply never designed for that much sound and so we had to use microphones but I'd like not to do that as for your first comment, I would I'm sorry that that's been your experience. I know it is not been mine. And so I can't can't promise you that will will we will change the programming to accommodate that because I've had some really devastating emotional field experiences in that theater. And I know many other people have as well, but I hope you will come and and and and maybe we'll maybe we'll catch you yet with with one. Let's go on. Hello. You're on the air. (00:52:23) Hello? Hello? Yes, you're on the air. All right. May I ask what your policies and mixing actors of different races? I've noticed that a great number or almost all of your actors are white and I don't only mean black. I mean orientals you only use orientals when they roll calls for an oriental character, but I mean treating an oriental. To act as if she were not Oriental. I'm mixing them. Mmm. (00:52:57) Yes that that will be the policy of my directorship that we have mixed company and and hopefully colorblind casting. (00:53:11) Let's go on to our next question. Hello. You're on the air. Yes. Mr. Right. I've been a fan of the Guthrie for for many years and I've just noticed. Well not just knows but over the years noticed that the audience is predominantly white. It's predominantly middle-class and I see very few younger people in the theater. I'm sure that during the school year a lot of kids come to the matinees at your theater has but I'm wondering if this is Theater if you believe that theater in general is has become geared more towards an elite audience and if that is necessarily white upper middle class. That's my question. (00:54:00) I hope that's not true. I hope that's not true and by that, I mean, I hope that it's not true that that's simply the way it's going to go. there there are certainly things that the theater all over the country is facing and most severely the commercial theaters facing which is that the cost of going to the theater is fast accelerating out of past the willingness of an audience to pay that price and if that relegates the paying audience to a certain type of person, I think that's bad and I think as an artistic institution, it's our responsibility to make sure that programs are in order that people who can't afford to come to the theater can the theater has and has always had a policy of student rush and discounted tickets and The policy of giving tickets to certain groups who would be unable unable to attend the theater otherwise and that certainly we will continue to do. The issue of the younger audience member not being there is one that's I talked about earlier. I think that's very disturbing as well. And I'm hoping to open up at least on informational level though. The practice is already in place of discounted student tickets. But to in some way make it clear to all these University students in high school students all over the city that they can come every night and go to the theater for actually less than they're paying for a movie or virtually less. So II I share these problems and and hope I hope to overcome them. (00:56:16) Well, thank you for being our guest today (00:56:17) Garland, right? We look forward to your being here (00:56:20) permanently and to the 1987-88 season, which will be the first to fully direct fully reflect your input as a (00:56:27) director. Thank you.