{"id":2442097,"date":"2019-03-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=302435"},"modified":"2019-03-25T13:33:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T19:33:40","slug":"theatre-aspen-director-jed-bernstein-looks-back-on-his-first-year-and-ahead-to-a-big-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/theatre-aspen-director-jed-bernstein-looks-back-on-his-first-year-and-ahead-to-a-big-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Aspen director Jed Bernstein looks back on his first year and ahead to a big summer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Michael Andreaus in a pre-injury rehearsal of Theatre Aspen’s “Ragtime” in June.<\/strong>
\nAustin Colbert\/The Aspen Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jed Bernstein came to Theatre Aspen before its 2018 season<\/a> with a Broadway pedigree and big ideas for this small regional theater company.<\/p>\n

After more than a year on the job, with his first summer season at the Hurst Theatre in Rio Grande Park behind him and looking ahead to his second, his ambitious vision for the 36-year-old company has begun taking hold with a slew of new initiatives, an expanded educational program, some growing pains and a 2019 summer season led by \u201cGuys and Dolls.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Bernstein, a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer and former CEO of Lincoln Center, quickly launched new programs and initiatives with an eye on expanding the reach of the theater company outside the tent and beyond the traditional summer season.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the first things I noticed when I was thinking about the job was that we don\u2019t want to be in a situation where we close up the tent in August and nobody thinks about us again until June,\u201d Bernstein said in an interview at the Red Brick Center for the Arts atrium last month, when he was in town for Theatre Aspen\u2019s annual gala.<\/p>\n

Among the new launches in his first year: a cabaret performance series, the year-round show choir The Miner Keys, expanding the run of Theatre Aspen School\u2019s student show (\u201cMary Poppins\u201d last year, \u201cThe Wizard of Oz\u201d this summer) and putting it on main stage at the Hurst, moving the summer education programming to take over the Woody Creek campus of the Aspen Community School and pulling off a splashy inaugural collaboration with the Aspen Institute by producing interstitial scenes during the Afternoon of Conversation at Aspen Ideas Festival in the Benedict Music Tent.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a great idea person,\u201d said Soledad Hurst, the local philanthropist and longtime Theatre Aspen board member who began her tenure as board chair in January and whose family\u2019s gift led to a major tent upgrade in 2012.<\/p>\n

Bernstein also has grown the TA Apprentice program \u2014 from 17 college students last year to 20 in 2019 \u2014 and is eying an expansion of its local education programs downvalley and across the Western Slope.<\/p>\n

The biggest of the new initiatives, though, is Solo Flights, the one-person show festival<\/a> that\u2019s scheduled to debut Sept. 18 through 21. This reimagining of the Aspen Theatre Festival, which ran from 2015 to 2017, is the company\u2019s bid for a place on the national landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of places that are doing new play festivals and lots of places doing festivals of new musicals,\u201d Bernstein said. \u201cNobody is doing a festival of one-person shows. It seemed like a gap that we could fill uniquely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since announcing the new festival in early winter, Theatre Aspen received more than 100 submissions of in-development shows. Bernstein hopes that in as quickly as two or three years the event will draw the eyes of the theater world to Aspen the same way that Food & Wine Classic summons the culinary industry and Ideas Fest gathers Washington\u2019s chattering class and the HBO Comedy Festival used to bring Hollywood here.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we get the programming exactly right, I think it\u2019s going to draw people from the theater world all over the country,\u201d Bernstein said.<\/p>\n

Still, most people know Theatre Aspen through its main-stage summer shows at the Hurst. The big musical last year, \u201cRagtime\u201d<\/a> was a timely production that proved to be well-received and attended despite a potentially devastating bad break. Its star, Michael Andreaus, ruptured his Achilles tendon during a rehearsal three days before opening night. Rather than bring in an understudy, Bernstein made the call to keep this emerging young actor in the role. Andreaus performed shows seated offstage, in the front row of the thrust theater. His vocal performance still wowed and audiences rallied around his resolve, making his hobbled performance a buzzed-about summer happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that he persevered and that we could support him in doing that because it was the right thing to do,\u201d Bernstein said.<\/p>\n

The job earned Andreaus his Actors\u2019 Equity Card, helped him land an agent and launch his career in New York.<\/p>\n

Hurst pointed to Bernstein\u2019s decision as exemplary of Bernstein\u2019s character and support for creative talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe could have easily just let him go and replaced him,\u201d Hurst said. \u201cBut I think that showed his humanity and kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernstein found that smaller, but significant, community gestures like offering free tickets to the first responders during the Lake Christine Fire, also went a long way in maintaining the goodwill of an Aspen that \u2014 despite its outsize global reputation \u2014 remains a small town.<\/p>\n

The season\u2019s play, \u201cOur Town,\u201d<\/a> Bernstein said, was the most successful non-musical that the theater has ever produced, though Theatre Aspen has not released audience statistics or revenue numbers.<\/p>\n

Bernstein said he\u2019s open-minded in his programming choices and doesn\u2019t want to be predictable, that he\u2019s as open to crowd-pleasing fare as he is more challenging or politically charge pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a town of traditions and new things take a little time to get roots planted,\u201d Bernstein said. \u201cSo, I\u2019m sure there were skeptics about a lot of things. Was \u2018Ragtime\u2019 too serious? Was a classic play like \u2018Our Town\u2019 too ambitious? My feeling is that you don\u2019t know until you try.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer\u2019s main stage lineup includes the musicals \u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d and \u201cLittle Shop of Horrors\u201d and the play \u201cGod of Carnage.\u201d<\/a> The trio mixes a classic musical everyone knows with a beloved more contemporary musical and a comic play that many have heard of \u2014 the 2009 original Broadway run starred James Gandolfini \u2014 but may not have had the opportunity to see.<\/p>\n

With a year of experience, Bernstein is confident about summer 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are fewer surprises, which is good,\u201d Bernstein said.<\/p>\n

Bernstein knows better than to call himself a \u201clocal\u201d yet, but he\u2019s gotten his Aspen routines down \u2014 the clerks at Local\u2019s Corner and the laundromat know him by name. Living in a rented house on Buttermilk through the summer and splitting his time between Aspen and his native Manhattan over the rest of the year, he\u2019s now seen the town through the heights of summer and ski season and the sleepy offseasons. Most importantly, he\u2019s experienced the madness of Aspen\u2019s culture-glutted summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of knew, intellectually, about the cultural intensity,\u201d Bernstein said. \u201cBut you don\u2019t know until you actually see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After witnessing a summer of programming, he\u2019s concluded Aspen is, on a per capita basis, \u201cthe most cultured place in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThat\u2019s thrilling and exhausting at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most nights in the summer, he\u2019d give his curtain speech \u2014 and appeal for donations \u2014 before the evening performance at the Hurst and then have dinner downtown with donors, collaborators or community members (\u201cI think I had at least one meal in every restaurant in town.\u201d) He saw black bears, he took in the Fourth of July parade (and helped build a Theatre Aspen float), watched a few Jazz Aspen shows and a handful of Aspen Music Festival concerts. It was an Aspen crash course that is informing his decisions for the 2019 season and the future of Theatre Aspen.<\/p>\n

The learning curve of understanding the mountain town audience\u2019s idiosyncrasies, he said, led to some missteps with scheduling last summer. His early matinees of the musical \u201cGodspell\u201d last summer<\/a> \u2014 running at 11 a.m. \u2014 struggled to bring in audiences. Bernstein chalked it up to his not understanding the competition of outdoor activities and Aspen\u2019s commitment to be hiking, biking and such in their leisure time.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s responded by shifting the matinee schedule to Aspen\u2019s apres hour at 4 p.m. for 2019. On two-show days, the nighttime performances will run at 8 p.m. He\u2019s hopeful this will better accommodate the reality of Aspen\u2019s mind-body-spirit ethos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that works, it\u2019s an example of trying to respond to the specifics of this place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Also scheduling a midsummer hiatus for \u201cRagtime\u201d last year to make room for a limited \u201cOur Town\u201d run, he found, led to losing momentum in ticket sales and word-of-mouth excitement. He\u2019s responding by keeping \u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d in rotation through the entire season and keeping all three shows running regularly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt puts more pressure on the scenic design, it puts more pressure on the stage crew, but from an audience point of view it means that in a week that they will always be able to see two of the three and sometimes they\u2019ll be able to see all three,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

That kind of pressure and the new initiatives did challenge the relatively small team of technical crews and staff who puts on Theatre Aspen\u2019s shows, at times spreading them thin over the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think some people were burned out and some were excited by it,\u201d Hurst said. \u201cIt over-stretched our staff a bit and we are adjusting to make sure that we have enough staff in place going forward. But it was a growing experience for all of us. You are always going to have hiccups when you have someone new come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, the company has hired an associate artistic director for 2019, after going a season without one, and split responsibilities among more summer tech staff to manage the load.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned about better job responsibility and division of responsibility,\u201d Bernstein said.<\/p>\n

The company made huge creative strides under Bernstein\u2019s predecessor, Paige Price, who helped make its stage a destination for Broadway talent and high-caliber productions like a monumental 2012 run of \u201cLes Miserables\u201d in the intimate tent theater. When Price left to run the Philadelphia Theatre<\/a> Co., the board brought in Bernstein in a bid to continue that upward trajectory and elevate the company level of international prestige.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have so many incredible world-class institutions in Aspen \u2014 the Institute, the Music Festival, Jazz Aspen \u2014 and Theatre Aspen is of that caliber already, but it isn\u2019t recognized as that yet,\u201d Hurst said.<\/p>\n

She said the board believes Bernstein is on his way to getting Theatre Aspen there.<\/p>\n

And, of course, buying or building a permanent building has been an unrealized goal for the company for three decades. The tent, iconic as it may have become and idyllic as its setting may be, limits Theatre Aspen to a three-month performance window. A permanent home remains a hope for the Theatre Aspen, and the board of directors currently has a committee working toward it, but it remains a long-range \u201cdream of dreams,\u201d as Hurst put it. There are no current plans for a building, or for a fundraising campaign for one, but it remains a goal. If the elusive permanent building is to become a reality for Theatre Aspen, Hurst suggested, Bernstein is the leader to get it done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s somebody who thinks long-term on that,\u201d Hurst said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to step on any toes, because we are partners with the community on it. So it\u2019s premature, but we are taking steps to see what it would take to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Andreaus in a pre-injury rehearsal of Theatre Aspen’s “Ragtime” in June. Austin Colbert\/The Aspen Times Jed Bernstein came to Theatre Aspen before its 2018 season with a Broadway pedigree and big ideas for this small regional theater company. After more than a year on the job, with his first summer season at the Hurst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2442097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 18:12:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}