Sneed: Certainly “Our Town” is a play that did not work for us (in 2010). And I say that absent of any judgment about the quality of the production, because it was clear to us that we were in trouble before the production opened. You can tell how the title is affecting sales by looking at where sales are at before any given play opens. “Our Town” never had traction before it opened.
Moore: Whereas “To Kill a Mockingbird” sold out nearly every performance the year before, but that was a play that had never before been staged in this region. And yet, for as many times as “Our Town” has been staged, I had never seen one not do well before.
Sneed: The production got mixed reviews. If it had been a production that everyone liked, there is no question it would have done better. But it still would not have done as well as we had thought.
Moore: You have significantly reduced the number of performances of each production in the outdoor amphitheater (capacity 1,004) to encourage larger audiences to attend fewer shows.
Sneed: Yes. “Mockingbird” had seven performances and “Our Town” was more like nine.
Moore: So there seems to be less of an opportunity now for audiences to respond to word-of-mouth for the outdoor shows.
Sneed: Yes, but here’s the other thing I have been thinking about more in the last year, and that is that nobody is building 1,000-seat theaters anymore. When companies build new spaces, they are building 200-, 300-, 400-seat spaces. So we’ve really been struggling with the question, “What play will fill a thousand seats, short of ‘The Book of Mormon’ or another big, Broadway tour?” And there just aren’t that many. There just aren’t.
Moore: I think of “The Book of Mormon” is a modern classic, like “Our Town” and “Mockingbird,” so if your successor gets a chance to schedule “The Book of Mormon,” I think he should take it.
Sneed: Sure.
Moore: Tell me about your decision to pull your company out of consideration for future Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Awards after being shut out again last summer.
Sneed: I looked at the history of nominations we had gotten from the Henry Awards, which was not many, and the awards we have gotten, which is zero. And I looked at our work and … it just doesn’t make sense to me. There is work that we have done since the Henry Awards started (in 2006) that was deserving of awards. OK, so everyone thinks their work is deserving of awards. But as a producer, you have to be able to step back and say … “Over six years and 30 plays, was there nothing? Not a single performance, not a single direction, not a single design?” I don’t think anyone believes that is true. You look at Jamie Ann Romero as Juliet. The fact that she was not nominated said to me that something structural is wrong with the awards that may not be able to be fixed. Not because the Colorado Theatre Guild is not willing, because I think they have done a really good job of trying to fix this situation. But I just don’t know if it’s solvable. Even the Denver Center, with a budget six to eight times the size of what the CSF has — their annual Shakespeare offering was barely getting mentioned in the awards. And no Boulder work at all, except Boulder’s Dinner Theatre, was getting much in the way of nominations or awards. So it appeared to me that there is — not intentionally — an anti-classic and an anti-Boulder bias in the structure of it. Not that any individuals were biased, but it didn’t make sense to me. When Jamie did not get any notice from them as Juliet, I just thought, “I have never been more sure of anything in my life than that performance was worth recognition.”
Moore: But when you take the drastic step of pulling out entirely, when the the next round of nominations comes out in June, the theater community is not necessarily going to know that you voluntarily pulled yourself out of consideration. They are just going to think you got shut out again, which will perpetuate, however falsely, the notion that this is not award-worthy work. So how does pulling out, ensuring that no one gets recognized in the future, solve anything?
Sneed: My successor (interim producing artistic director Timothy Orr) may decide to put us back into it next year. I just thought, rather than continually trying to explain to donors and board members why we weren’t getting nominated, much less winning any awards, the safest thing to do seemed to be to pull out, because I just feel there is not an equal playing field. I don’t want to say they are not fair, because what is fair? We use the same artists that other theaters use, and they are getting nominated all the time, so I could never quite understand it.
Moore: I understand your frustration, but I think those same donors are going to be asking those same questions of Tim in June. The answer is going to change: — “We pulled ourselves out” — but the bottom line is, it’s just going to look like another year when your company is not being respected. But they can’t honor you if you are not playing the game.
Sneed: I think it’s easier to explain that to people than it is to explain the other.
Moore: So it’s obvious by the outpouring you have received since making your announcement to leave that many, many people have a great affection for you as a person, and for the work that you have done at Colorado Shakes. But you have vocal detractors. So did I as the theater critic for The Denver Post. It comes with the territory. You can’t run a major arts institution without hurting people’s feelings. But as you walk away from Colorado Shakes, what would you say to those people who might be glad to see you go?
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