The Mirror Theater Ltd
The Mirror Theater was founded by Sabra Jones in 1983, who was also the Founding Artistic Director. The first program of the theater was the Mirror Repertory Company (MRC). Founding members of the company included Eva Le Gallienne, John Strasberg, and Geraldine Page. Sabra Jones reached out to Ellis Rabb, artistic director of the APA Phoenix Repertory Company, John Houseman of the Mercury Theater, and Eva Le Gallienne of the Civic Repertory Theatre Company. The company was intended to be "an alternating repertory company in the classic sense" of actor-manager leadership,[1] which Rabb, Houseman, and La Gallienne pioneered. Alternating repertory refers to when one company performs a variety of plays in the same season with the same actors, which was formerly a mainstay of theater tradition. This system has been attributed with helping actors grow in their craft through a wide variety of roles.[2] MRC was funded in its inception primarily by philanthropist Laurance S. Rockefeller, with additional donations from philanthropists and actors such as Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, and others.[3]
Formation
1983
Theatre group
- New York City
Eva Le Gallienne, F. Murray Abraham, Geraldine Page, Lynn Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, John Strasberg, Austin Pendleton, Tina Chen, Geraint Wyn Davies, Maxwell Caulfield, Julie Harris, Juliet Mills, Mason Adams, David Cryer, Matthew Cowles, Marilyn Miller, Tom Waites, Ellis Rabb, Lisa Pelikan, Elizabeth Franz, Arthur Storch, Sean Haberle, Steven Weber, Madeleine Sherwood, Carrie Nye, Jane White, Ronald Rand, Marla Schaffel, Brian Cox, Nicole Ansari, Eve Pomerance, Will River Mossek, Lily McAteer, Sabra Jones, Charles McAteer, Clark Middleton, Myriam Cyr, Kathryn Meisle, Katherine Paterson, Daniel Gerroll, Elizabeth Ireland McCann, Jennifer Tipton, Gail Cooper-Hecht, F. Mitchell Dana, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kate Burton, Jonathan Tunick, John Lee Beatty, Patricia Zipprodt, Nicolas Martin, Mary Louise Wilson, James Rebhorn, Victor Slezak, Matthew Cowles, Mason Adams, Margaret Barker, Michael Moriarty, Peter Mark Shifter, James Tilton, Shirley Knight, Randy Charnin, Gina Belafont, Will Patton, Enrico Colantoni, Willa Kim, Jess Osuna, Marcus Ho, Clem Fowler
1980s repertory seasons[edit]
Pre-production for first season[edit]
The Mirror Theater formed a board of directors in advance of the first season. In 1984, John Elting Treat, a noted philanthropist and member of the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents Carter and Reagan, became Chair of The Mirror.[11] He followed Morton Leavy, Esq. a renowned theatrical attorney on Broadway, and John Breglio, also a New York attorney and producer of the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.[12] The board at that time included Sam Spiegel—the producer of films On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Lawrence of Arabia—Archie E. Albright, then President of the Foreign Policy Association, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, wife of actor Peter Lawford and sister to the late President John F. Kennedy, and Anna Sosenko, celebrated producer and songwriter. All were board members when the Royal Shakespeare Company sponsored The Mirror's first Benefit.[3] Geoffrey Dench, brother of Judi Dench, was Master of Ceremonies. Guests included lauded actors Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi, and Sinéad Cusack. Derek donated his prosthetic nose from the RSC production of Cyrano de Bergerac to be auctioned off at the Benefit, where it was purchased by acclaimed actor Jon Cryer.[13] The Mirror's 3rd Benefit, in 1986, took place at the illustrious Limelight Club with Frank Zappa as Master of Ceremonies.[14] Titled “Rock the Rep,” the Benefit auctioned off such items as an autographed David Bowie tuxedo and a pair of David Lee Roth’s tights.[15]
First season[edit]
MRC’s first repertory season included productions of Rain by John Colton, Paradise Lost by Clifford Odets, Inheritors by Susan Glaspell, and The Hasty Heart by John Patrick.[16] By this time, the company included actors Anthony Hopkins, Maxwell Caulfield, Julie Harris, Juliet Mills, Mason Adams, David Cryer, Matthew Cowles, and Tom Waites, as well as director Austin Pendleton. Company designers were Ron Placzek (scenery), Heidi Hollman (costumes), Mal Sturchio (lighting), and Rob Gorton (sound).[17] The productions were initially presented at a small 70 seat Off-Off-Broadway theater[18] at the Real Stage Acting School[17] on West 46th St. (the building was then owned by the Local One Stage Hands Union). Benedict Nightingale in the New York Times lauded the company in a review entitled “Dramas From the Past that Speak to the Present” and challenged the public by saying “what chance is there for a new repertory with serious pretensions in the theatrical winter of New York today?”[18] On the strength of Benedict Nightingale's New York Times review, a group of backers moved the MRC off-Broadway to the Theater at St. Peter's Church. Its first repertory season was budgeted at $675,000.00 and was financed primarily by Laurance S. Rockefeller.[18] The New York State Council of the Arts, AT&T, and the CBS Foundation also contributed. Geraldine Page was named Artist-In-Residence.[19] The season garnered critical attention. The company's work on the revival of John Patrick’s The Hasty Heart received praise;[20] Rain, directed by John Strasberg, was noted primary for the leading role of “Sadie Thompson,” played by MRC's Artistic Director Sabra Jones, whom Mel Gussow termed “the only reason to see the production” and who usually played only minor roles in productions.[16] For this season, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino joined the Mirror as Major Donors in response to a matching grant from Laurance S. Rockefeller.[3]
Greensboro Arts Alliance and Residency[edit]
The Mirror Theater's summer wing in Greensboro, Vermont was formed in 2005,[27] called the Greensboro Arts Alliance and Residency (GAAR). GAAR mixed professional MRC company members with local community members[44] with the goal to expand cultural opportunities for Vermont's Orleans County.[45] Jim Lowe of The Times Argus said “The Greensboro Arts Alliance and Residency and The Mirror Theater are creating a new arts world in Greensboro, bringing local talent together with seasoned professionals for the greater community”.[46] In 2012, Tony-nominated actress Marla Schaffel became Artist-in-Residence for GAAR, starring first in The Sound of Music.[45] 2013's season included Marla Schaffel as “Marian” in Meredith Willson's The Music Man, directed by Sabra Jones, playing in repertory with Thorton Wilder’s Our Town, directed by GAAR Co-Artistic Director Charles McAteer and Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology.[47] 2014’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel was called a “serious and elegant piece of theater”,[48] while Sabra Jones production of The Miracle Worker was named one of the “Best Bets” by the Burlington Free Press.[49] MRC company member and Golden Globe nominee Tina Chen also presented her one-woman show, entitled “Legacy of my Chinese Family".[45] GAAR celebrated their 10th anniversary in 2015 with three productions playing in repertory: Hamlet, directed by Sabra Jones, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, directed by Myriam Cyr, and Kiss Me Kate, starring Marla Schaffel and directed by Charles McAteer.[50] The Times Argus of Vermont called Hamlet a “powerful experience…potent and convincing” and wrote the company was “one of Vermont’s important theaters”.[50] The 2015 season also featured a lecture with RSC member and Olivier Award winner Brian Cox, who discussed his experiences performing and teaching Shakespeare.[50] GAAR also presented a children's production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown with a cast entirely of children featuring professional costumes, lighting, and set, and directed by Marla Schaffel with choreography by Lily McAteer.[51] In 2016, GAAR received the appellation of “the most powerful theater in Vermont” by The Times Argus;[52] the season consisted of To Kill a Mockingbird, directed by Sabra Jones, in repertory with Annie Get Your Gun, directed by MRC company member Sean Haberle and starring Marla Schaffel, and Joshua Sobol's Sinners. To Kill a Mockingbird was called “a great story well told” and Annie Get Your Gun was said to be “absolutely delightful… there is nothing like a song and dance musical, and this one was particularly good”.[46] Sinners, directed by Olivier Award winner Brian Cox, was the American premiere of Joshua Sobol’s play. About a woman who is condemned to be stoned to death for her affair, the production was said to be ultimately tender, beautiful, and deeply compelling due to the performances of the cast.[52] In 2016, Brian Cox joined Charles McAteer as Co-Artistic Director of The Mirror Theater, under Sabra Jones as Founding Producing Artistic Director.[53]
SINNERS in Boston[edit]
SINNERS in Boston Spring 2017[edit]
The GAAR/The Mirror Theater production of Sinners was so highly lauded that it was invited to Boston by the New Rep Theater which had formed a relationship with GAAR through Sabra Jones's initiative. The New Rep Managing Director Harriet Sheets consulted with us in General Management and then invited the GAAR/The Mirror Theater production into a four-way partnership for a Boston production. The partners were Boston University, New Rep Theater, Israeli Rep, and GAAR/The Mirror Theater. The play, Sinners, is by Joshua Sobel, a prominent Israeli playwright far better known in Europe and the Middle East then here, and the production in Boston was a United States Premiere.[54] The show again starred Nicole Ansare and was again directed by Brian Cox, with sets by Ray Recht and lighting by Brian Barnett, with Jeff Davis as Lighting Associate and F. Mitchell Dana as Production Manager. The play opened on March 23 and played to April 2 in the TheaterLab at BU.[55] It received accolades as it did in Vermont, where it was termed “A masterpiece!” by June Cook.
Boston's Art Fuse summed up the political courage of the work: “This sort of bravery has become very rare in American theater. For far too long, artists and administrators have been arrogantly confident that words such as “truth” and “freedom” mean what they have always meant. Our theaters have blinded themselves to the world's most lethal evils, and have looked for every excuse to ignore its victims. This is why the very fact that Sinners is playing anywhere in America matters.” [56]