Glass doors radiate a warm glow out into the icy night air that lures passersby into the streamlined, stylized lobby that is the entrance to the newly renovated Studio Theatre. A curved wall and a track of iridescent lights guide the visitor through the narrow space to the glass-faced box office straight ahead. Spot fixtures shine concentrated glowing circles of yellow light onto the ground, emulating floor-set panel lights. A red staircase disappears up one side into the ceiling, opening up to a wide lobby complete with grand piano and bar. The red staircase continues up to the third floor into the gaping, glass-roofed atrium space, which, though quiet now, becomes the bustling center of this theater and conservatory by day.
The Studio Theatre is thriving in its updated space, completed in November 2004. The theater, founded in 1978 by Artistic Director Joy Zinoman, Resident Set Designer Russell Metheny, and Virginia Crawford, has moved around through D.C. from found space to found space until it settled into its current home at 14th and P streets in 1987. The $13 million expansion more than doubled the theater’s size, adding two buildings to the original one.
“Joy Zinoman is a fabulous fundraiser. Her skills allowed enough money to come in to create a beautiful renovation of the theater,” Karen Berman, theater professor at Georgetown University, explained.
She added that the new large, open space promotes creativity. This renovation should help draw new viewers to the theater, an art form that must be revitalized even in D.C., a major theater capital of the country.
“The renovation was motivated primarily by the idea of institutional longevity-providing a secure base for an ongoing institution,” explained Associate Producing Artistic Director, Serge Seiden.
Involved with the theater since 1986 as a student of the conservatory, Seiden has been a stage manager, literary manager and, since 1990, a director. With two new performance spaces added to the original two, Studio has become an entrepreneurial model of theater.
“There are two venues, the Mead and the Metheny, that subscribers can go to and have similar seats,” Seiden continued, describing why Studio stands out among theaters in D.C.
With five seasonal subscription shows that alternate between the two spaces, if a show is successful, it can extend its run to accommodate more audiences. In traditional theater models, which have one large and one small venue, shows are forced to close to open space for the next show regardless of their success. In New York City, a small hit show could pack up and move into a larger venue, but D.C. lacks these empty theater spaces, according to Seiden. This problem was formerly solved by the renting of warehouses and other found spaces in D.C. which could be molded into performance spaces. The renovation has alleviated the need to improvise by fulfilling Studio’s needs, including creating a home for their Second Stage theater group, called Stage 4.
Set in a black-box space on the fourth floor, Stage 4 of Second Stage retains the spirit of the automobile showroom that was originally there. Structural brick piers, unpainted and chipped around the edges, hold up the ceiling of the space. The floor, also unpainted, has a gritty, industrial stain to it, and the walls reveal the rough brick and mortar of the building’s original structure.
“It’s not going to be prettied up,” Communications Director Liane Jacobs said of the exposure of raw surfaces in the four spaces.
Second Stage fits into this new Stage 4 space, as if it has been there all along. This unique branch of Studio was born in 1988 as a forum for risk-taking, cutting-edge theater led by Studio staff and insiders.
“It began as a way for staff members to put on shows,” Seiden explained.
A creative side project of some Studio artists, it only had to break even. This relieved pressures to produce revenue through successful runs, and enabled staff to work for the sake of art, not money. What started as an internal activity, according to Seiden, has grown, and now has some responsibilities to the organization. The gritty, unfinished look of the space complements the pure creative energy invested in the plays performed there, adaptable to whatever time period or setting necessary. The current play there, The Death of Meyerhold, is innovative in its approach to history and the very methods on which modern drama is based.
As Studio Theatre grows larger and while it accumulates more awards and revenue, its actual performance spaces do not grow. While the other theaters in D.C. including the Source Theater and Woolly Mammoth are renovating with larger venues, Seiden stressed Studio’s mission to maintain the intimacy between actors and the audience.
“There’s really not a bad seat,” D.C. actress Holly Twyford, lead in Studio’s current Black Milk, said of the spaces. “That’s what some of the bigger theaters miss???-the faces of the actors.”
In the four spaces in Studio, there are never more than eight rows, and sitting in the fifth row in the Mead space during Black Milk, the rural Russian train station seemed to envelop the audience. Similarly, the experience between the actors and audience in The Death of Meyerhold is so intimate that the wind caused by actors running by can be felt in the first few rows.
The renovation was imperative for the accommodation of the growing theater conservatory. This program, now in its 30th year, is an intensive three-year sequential study of acting. Roma Rogers, Director of Education of the Conservatory, explained that the rigorous program was as close to the reality of professional acting as possible. The program had outgrown its home on the original Studio Theatre’s third floor and now has six classrooms and the atrium space as its student lounge. Passing from the spacious public atrium into the corridor of the conservatory, the area becomes smaller and conducive to the work that goes on there. At the end of the long hallway, lined with industrial-style light fixtures, there is a room filled with couches, lamps, other furniture and accessories used exclusively in the acting classes, a testimony to the many resources available to students.
“It felt like the acting school was the real heart of the program,” Dicky Murphy (CAS, ‘04) explained, discussing his experience as an intern at Studio during the spring of 2004.
Sharing a space with working professionals allows conservatory students of all ages to feel closer to the action. Some are aspiring actors, some are lawyers taking voice classes and others are just interested in enjoying the art of acting.
“One of the hardest things for an aspiring actor is getting their foot in the door,” Rogers said.
Enrolled students are one step ahead of the game, working closely with a professional theater early on. In the final scenes that each acting class presents at the end of the semester, each student performs in front of Studio Theatre directors, including Joy Zinoman, as well as family and friends. This presentation creates a unique opportunity for standout students to be seen.
One of the most beneficial programs of Studio is the Young People’s Program for students ages 10 to 17. These after-school and summer classes provide young people in D.C. with the chance to act and perform. Fitting with Studio’s goal to make the performing arts accessible to the community, there is the Artists Motivating Youth Program, which reserves 54 free spaces each year for students who cannot afford the tuition. Rogers explained that as word spreads, the theater will continue to encourage schools in D.C. to recommend eligible and interested students. The Atlas Program, an off-site program of Studio Theatre, plans to open a studio in Southeast D.C. in the fall. Studio will provide the teachers and the curriculum for the program. None of the other theaters in D.C. have outreach programs to this extent. If live theater hopes to thrive in the District, programs like these may be its best hope.
Murphy stressed the fact that the Studio wants to make their performances available to all interested. He described times when he would talk to the box office just before shows to get free tickets.
“They just wanted people to see the play, whether that means getting the word out or filling seats,” he added.
“It has the potential to be a great equalizer to the generations,” Twyford said. She explained that the audiences are mostly comprised of older people, aged 60 and above, and believes that it is the ticket prices that keep the young people away. “We can’t let it die-if young people stop coming and they don’t bring their kids, there will be no one left. It’s an important voice in our society.”
Student discounts and Pay-What-You-Can nights make the shows accessible to a greater audience, as does Murphy’s personal strategy of calling an hour before the show to try to get cheap or free tickets. Studio Theatre’s interest in keeping theater a personal, intimate experience, as well as its commitment to spreading the best in performance to the community, makes it well worth the money or the effort needed to get tickets.
Exploring the complex on a Friday afternoon, staff members seem to be going about their tasks contently, whether sitting at desks in the bright newsroom-styled administration office, working with tools in the shop, or organizing the new costume room. An energy buzzes through the four stories, infused with natural light streaming in through immense panel windows covering parts of the walls and roof. In just a few hours, guests will be arriving for two different plays, and the space will transform from a functional business space into the artistic venue Studio is famous for. This creative electricity is exactly what Georgetown students are missing.
