Long Wharf Theater responds to an artistic director's departure.

BY JULIE O'CONNOR

SARAH ENGLAND/YH

For many on staff, these events were a complete surprise. But for those on the theater's board of directors or otherwise "in the know," Hughes' resignation was an inevitable finale to his long-time, heated battle with board chairwoman Barbara Pearce. Both Hughes and Pearce were power players at Long Wharf—Hughes comes from a strong theater family (his parents are actors Bernard Hughes and Helen Stenborg); Pearce is a big name in local real estate. Oddly enough, she also was a factor in Long Wharf's decision to hire Hughes. The two were Harvard classmates, and Pearce happened to be heading the theater's search committee for an artistic director when Hughes was hired. In turn, Hughes backed the decision to make Pearce chairwoman of the board.

So how did such a forceful alliance plunge into contention? According to an article in The New York Times, Hughes had come to regard Pearce as a "meddlesome micromanager" whom he could not tolerate. Hughes wrote a letter to the board of trustees demanding that Pearce step down from her position. The board backed Pearce, and Hughes subsequently submitted his resignation.

It is certainly a blow to Long Wharf Theater, where Hughes was widely regarded as a gifted artistic director. It is possible that subscriptions will suffer after his departure. Before his reign at Long Wharf, where he had been artistic director since 1997, Hughes served as associate artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theater. He was also affiliated with the Manhattan Theatre Club, where from 1980-83 he was associate artistic director. Board members agree that Hughes' artistic judgment brought the Long Wharf great financial success.

However, Hughes' big-city connections may have led him a bit too far away from New Haven. He was known to direct plays in New York at the same time as he was directing at Long Wharf. "I saw one show that was very poor. He shouldn't be doing that—people are paying $35 for a ticket. And he shouldn't be there directing," one Long Wharf staff member said. It is unclear whether this division of commitments was a factor in Hughes' clash with the board.

"I [saw] Doug in a struggle with the board, and the board making what I consider[ed] to be a wrong decision," Yale School of Drama Professor David Chambers said. "Doug [was] doing some extremely interesting things here—he understands the nature of risk. We can either do boring, guaranteed plays or try to develop new work, which is riskier, but takes us to higher ground. Which is what Doug tried to do."

Leaving with Hughes were Director David Esbjornson and Kathleen Chalfant, star of Wit, the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play that was co-produced by Hughes and partner Michael Ross at Long Wharf. Both Esbjornson and Chalfant were involved in Hughes' conceived production of Chekhov's Cherry Orchard, which was originally scheduled to start during this year's season. Instead, the season will begin with Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, a dramatic staple selected by stand-in artistic director Greg Leaming.

But this most recent scandal isn't the first "revolution" in Long Wharf management. The last clash was in 1996, involving Artistic Director Arvin Brown and Executive Director Edgar Rosenbloom. Brown resigned after a similarly heated power struggle with the board, and much of the staff left along with him. As a result, there was almost a complete turnover—few long-term staff members were left at the theater. After Brown resigned, Rosenbloom at first intended to remain at Long Wharf. But just a few months later, "Edgar walked off in a huff because one of the committees of the board said, `We will support you for three years, then it's up to the new artistic director, whether he wants you to be here.'," James Luse, a Yale professor of Theater Studies and member of the Long Wharf staff at the time, said. "Edgar thought that was ridiculous, because he'd been there for thirty years." But, "theaters are like kingdoms," he added. "The Artistic Director is king. When another artistic director comes, they bring in all their people."

If the theater truly is a kingdom, then Long Wharf royalty has entered a turbulent era. As is common for theaters which survive beyond their original founders, Long Wharf has become a major civic institution. During such a transformation, ownership of a theater passes to its board of directors, who are most concerned about finances. This, in turn, changes the dynamic of the institution and makes the artistic leadership less stable. Instead of wielding authority as self-selected founders of a theater, second and third generations of artistic directors are now hired by boards.

"It's harder to stay on the tightrope," Chambers said. "But it was never a pure child—theater has always had a heavy taint of corruption." Unlike smaller regional production spaces, theaters like Long Wharf are accountable to their boards, which are usually made up of influential people in the community and the corporate world. Board members have often contributed a good deal of money to the theater themselves.

Regional theater is a constant juggling act between maintaining a steady flow of income, testing artistic boundaries, and enhancing the overall quality of productions. "There's always infighting and maneuvering, but the board's job is to appoint an artistic director and decide his salary," Luse said. "From there, they have to trust the artistic director to make decisions. [The board is] not there to make decisions [about the season]."

Zelda Fichandler, co-founder and producing director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and head of the graduate acting program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, is considered a matriarch of American regional theater. She believes that Long Wharf has lost a very good artistic director in Hughes. "I've had my difficulties with the chairman of the board, but I was in a different position because I founded the theater," Fichandler said. "We were in a primary position, and it was the artistic director who was in charge of both educating the board about the theater's mission, and active in raising money. The board being on top is not a good idea. I think it's best if at least one-third of the board are artists."

The mission statement of the Long Wharf under Hughes was somewhat vague. It read, "Long Wharf Theatre's purpose is to create and present the best theatrical productions. It strives to be a cultural resource, role model and leader in not-for-profit theater within its community, region, and by extension, the nation." An effective mission statement, one would think, is intended to unify the artistic director and the board of directors in a common artistic philosophy and to keep the two arms of management in sync. Some charge that a potential weakness of Long Wharf management may be its mission statement, which has perhaps lost focus since the days of Arvin Brown.

Hughes' salary at Long Wharf was a hefty $110,000, but his position will not be easily filled if there is concern about the artistic freedom of the job. Before a new artistic director is chosen, Long Wharf's board has formed a committee to address these management issues. Called "Agenda 2002," the committee intends to examine the role of the artistic director and the board of directors in managing Long Wharf. As regional theaters continue to juggle artistic and financial concerns, this recent revolution at Long Wharf Theater has brought to light a serious need for administrative reform. "People should have open conversations on this," Fichandler said. The theater community surely agrees.

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