SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The South Orange Performing Arts Center has entered into a partnership with American Theater Group, a New Jersey-based company that specializes in producing new and overlooked American plays, establishing the group as SOPAC’s official theater-in-residence.
As part of the agreement, American Theater Group will present four readings in the SOPAC Loft in 2017 before producing at least two fully-staged plays on the main stage in 2018. SOPAC Executive Director Mark Packer said the venue will co-present these offerings, sharing all expenses and income with the group.
Packer said he is thrilled to work with American Theater Group, pointing out that the company’s producing artistic director, James Vagias, has been behind such shows as the long-running off-Broadway hit “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” To have someone with such talent doing plays for SOPAC is a huge opportunity for the venue, he said.
“It adds a depth to our programming, diversity to our programming,” Packer told the News-Record in a Dec. 2 phone interview. “It’s a way in which we better serve the community by providing richer offerings for them.”
American Theater Group is also excited to make SOPAC its new home, Vagias said. Though the company was successful at the Union County Performing Arts Center’s Hamilton Stage in Rahway, where it resided since launching four years ago, he said it is eager to be part of a vibrant arts community like South Orange. In fact, he said the group is planning to ask the many talented performers of stage and screen who live in the area to join its own shows.
And while Packer said the initial agreement between the center and the company spans only two years, Vagias said he is looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship of providing quality professional productions to South Orange.
“We want to very much be an asset to the community surrounding SOPAC,” Vagias told the News-Record in a Dec. 2 phone interview.
Michele Pawk believes that will be the case. The Tony Award-winning chairwoman of the group’s board of trustees is also a South Orange resident, and she said she knows her community is “hungry” for a variety of art forms. Pawk said residents will therefore appreciate the chance to see new American stories performed. And with the current state of world, she said there are bound to be some interesting works produced during the next few years.
“Regardless of where you lie on the political scale, you can’t help but acknowledge that we’re in a huge transition right now,” Pawk told the News-Record in a Dec. 2 phone interview. “There are a lot of issues that are coming to the forefront and having light shed upon them. And I feel like this is a really valuable time for creative people to help us through it.”
Pawk added that SOPAC is the perfect place to host such productions. Though the partnership is still in its infancy, she said the venue’s leadership has already shown a willingness to collaborate and an understanding of the support a theater company needs to be successful. She lauded Packer in particular for his work in making SOPAC into an arts destination during the past few years, and thinks he will be invaluable as American Theater Group brings its own plays to the stage.
So far the group has announced three of the four readings that will take place at SOPAC next year, starting with the musical “Single” on Jan. 8. That play, which features music and lyrics by Karen Bishko and a book by Bishko and Nat Bennett, is about a punk rocker who has become a successful divorce attorney in search of a man. The second reading, on April 2, will be of Sharyn Rothstein’s “A Good Farmer,” which is about a farming community struggling with issues of immigration, survival and compassion.
“A Mind Out of the Gutter,” to be read May 21, was written by Maplewood’s own Erin Mallon. And Mallon is happy that American Theater Group decided to produce her comedy, which centers on the relationship between a crotchety old man and his precocious 9-year-old neighbor. The resident playwright said she and Vagias are on the same page after they talked for the first time recently. It is now just a matter of finding the right cast, she said.
Once that happens, Mallon hopes her fellow community members will watch the reading. She said she does not know of another play that focuses exclusively on an old man and a little girl, a generational dynamic she found interesting to explore. There are also plenty of laughs to be had, but the playwright said there is deep substance to the story as well.
“I’m always trying to write comedies that carry real issues underneath them,” Mallon told the News-Record in a Dec. 2 phone interview, explaining that both of her characters deal with struggles throughout the play. “I hope it’s a heartwarming experience, but also I’m not afraid of some of the dark undertones that are there.”
Vagias said the group is not yet ready to announce what will be read fourth on June 18. He said it has also not decided what the fully-staged productions will be in 2018, though he would like to do at least one play and one musical.
But American Theater Group will not just stage productions. Vagias said it will also bring its high school DramaFest to SOPAC on April 3, once again giving students from around the state the chance to learn from theater professionals, including Pawk. The first event last year in Rahway attracted more than 100 teenagers eager to hone their craft, and Vagias would love to see twice that number this year. He said he also intends to make the second festival as exceptional as the first.
“At the end of the day’s events, the kids would not get on the buses to go back to their schools — they just wanted to keep talking theater to each other,” Vagias said. “We had teachers come up literally with tears in their eyes saying it was the most special day that they could have imagined for their students. It was a day to be remembered, and we’re going to replicate that.”
SOPAC is looking forward to working with American Theater Group on other educational outreach initiatives moving forward, according to Packer. He said instilling a love of the arts in young people is a major mission of the venue, and he is sure the company will play an essential role in helping to create instructional theater programs for local youth.
Overall, the executive director said he is optimistic about the future now that American Theater Group has found a home at SOPAC.
“This is such a win-win for SOPAC and ATG,” Packer said. “I can’t wait to get started. I really think it’s going to be a wonderful partnership.”
Photos Courtesy of Dee Billia and James Vagias