“THE ROCHESTER PLAYS” LINK COLLEGE, COMMUNITY, AND THEATER [ FEATURE ] BY ERI C R E Z S N YA K
ochester has no shortage of live theater. The city is home to professional organizations like Geva; semi-professional theaters like Downstairs Cabaret, Blackfriars, and the JCC Centerstage; nearly two dozen community theater troupes; several children’s theaters and improv-comedy groups; and national Broadway tours courtesy of the Rochester Broadway Theatre League. But in a scene so crowded, some elements sometimes get lost. Consider our local college theater programs, as well as local playwrights, which rarely get significant community exposure. This month, a production by the University of Rochester’s International Theatre Program will bring those two elements of the local theater scene together, as the UR stages a full production of a local playwright’s work for the first time in anyone’s memory. Opening on Thursday, February 14, and continuing through February 24, the International Theatre Program will present “The Rochester Plays,” a two-part work by local writer Spencer Christiano. Although the plays are not necessarily set in Rochester, they allow the UR to tap into the pool of talent in its back yard. It also gives an upand-coming young playwright a larger and arguably higher-profile venue for his work.
he process that brought “The Rochester Plays” to UR started several years ago. John Borek, who has worked with Christiano at the Multi-Use Community Cultural Center on Atlantic Avenue since 2010, got some of Christiano’s plays to Nigel Maister, artistic director of the University of Rochester International Theatre Program. The plays sat on Maister’s desk for several months, but when he got around to picking them up, “I read them and thought they were quite interesting, and this guy has some real talent,” Maister says. The plays tackle complicated issues, telling the story of a young single mother and her relationships with two men: one an ex-con trying to turn his life around, the other a suspected sexoffender with a host of prejudices and tensions. “The play is very much about stereotypes and preconceptions and how we deal with 10 CITY FEBRUARY 6-12, 2013
them and how they evolve,” Christiano says. We’re conditioned by the media and society to identify with the struggling ex-con and root for his success, Christiano says, but also to despise and fear a known sex offender. “So what does that say about our preconceptions for one criminal? Why does the ex-con get our support while the sex offender gets demonized?” In April 2012, Maister invited Christiano to a meeting to discuss the International Theatre Spencer Christiano, an alum of Aquinas Institute and SUNY Brockport, is the author of “The Rochester Plays,” as well Program staging his works as an artist-in-residence at MuCCC. PHOTO BY MIKE HANLON as part of its New Voices Initiative. New Voices is something Maister started thought the plays were edgy and dark and lot of things that can be blamed for that, but as head of the International Theatre Program provocative and worth exploring.” I’m more interested in addressing the problem in 2002. Every four years the department rather than pointing the finger.” commissions a new work which is developed, Christiano — a 2005 graduate of the written, and staged over the course of an ypically plays involved in the New Aquinas Institute who studied at both academic year. Voices Initiative are created from scratch and Monroe Community College and in the “The idea is to use the advantages of developed at the college. But “The Rochester theater department at SUNY Brockport — being in an academic-university setting to Plays” already existed, albeit by another says that after those initial readings, he put develop new work for the American theater,” name. Christiano first wrote and presented the “Sidewalk” plays on the shelf. “Then I Maister says. Previous productions in the the first part of what was initially called “The got a call from Nigel,” he says. New Voices Initiative include “The Hairy While the plays previously existed, both Dutchman” by Andy Bragen and “The Puzzle Sidewalk That Could Not Be Plowed” as a staged, script-in-hand reading at MuCCC Maister and Christiano say that in going Locker” by two-time Obie Award-winner W. in late 2010, and did a tandem reading through the creative process at University of David Hancock. of both parts in late 2011. After that he Rochester, they have been significantly changed. But a local playwright has never been part shelved the plays and went to work on other Maister paired Christiano with Samuel Marks, of the New Voices Initiative. In fact, as far projects, including the supernatural play “To a playwriting teacher at Rochester Institute of as Maister or Christiano know, a RochesterMy Friends: The Life and Death of George Technology, to work on the works last summer, based playwright has not had a work fully Eastman” and “Midnight on the Front Lawn and additional tweaks have been made since produced by the University of Rochester’s of Good an Evil: A Hypothesis,” which was rehearsals started in October 2012. theater program. inspired by the Emily Good-Rochester Police “Whenever you produce a new play there’s Working with a local playwright became inevitable cuts, changes, and additions,” Department controversy. a big attraction for Maister with this project. Christiano says. “And when there’s a good “A lot of my plays are about how we think “I thought it was great to do something that chemistry in the rehearsal room, good and why we think it,” Christiano says. “I was community based, that was tied to the chemistry between director, playwright, have a particular interest in the way that we Rochester community since he’s a local guy,” actors, stage managers, it becomes a symbiotic take in information, in the way that we’re Maister says. “I thought it was great as he’s relationship. The production changes to conditioned to take in information. There’s a a young guy, just out of undergraduate. I