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[0:03] Hal Luftig: Hi everyone. This is Hal Luftig with my Broadway Podcast Network show, Broadway Biz, where every episode I will chat with my friends, some of the top theater professionals in the business about the business of Broadway.

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[0:56] Hal Luftig: Kate Macguire is the artistic director and CEO of the Berkshire Theatre Group. Kate's commitment to the performing arts is so admirable, and I have such fond memories of developing a new play in the Berkshires with her. I can't wait to talk to Kate about her passion for theater on this episode of Broadway Biz.

[1:18] Hal Luftig: So good morning, Kate. How are you today?

[1:21] Kate Macguire: Oh, I'm so happy to hear your voice, Hal.

[1:24] Hal Luftig: Oh, me too. Me too, me too. I was so excited. Hey, you know what I realized on Monday after this weekend? This will be the exact third anniversary of when we began rehearsals for Children of a Lesser God up at the Berkshires. Do you believe three years?

[1:44] Kate Macguire: Oh, wow. Three years.

[1:46] Hal Luftig: It seems like yesterday in some ways, and like 30 years ago in other ways.

[1:52] Kate Macguire: It's like in dog years, you know, in some ways.

[1:56] Hal Luftig: Well, yeah. I want to publicly thank you for allowing that production to start there. Your theater is amazing. Your staff was amazing. We all felt completely nurtured and taken care of and supported, and anything we needed, we got, and within reason. I always, I did, I don't understand why we couldn't have that elevator that had dancing waters, Kate. I just don't know why you said that.

[2:26] Kate Macguire: I, you know, well, I promise, I promise once you left, we got the ocean outside the theater now, a little bit of Atlantic Ocean, even in the Berkshires, whatever you want the next time.

[2:42] Hal Luftig: Next time, okay, I'm gonna hold you to that.

[2:44] Kate Macguire: It is the saying, would you move heaven and earth for Hal Luftig?

[2:48] Hal Luftig: Yes.

[2:50] Kate Macguire: Okay, I'm gonna, listeners, I'm gonna test her that because you know we're gonna have another show up there. We'll see.

[2:56] Hal Luftig: Thank you. I'll get back to you. The Berkshire Theatre Group is one of the most incredible theaters I've ever worked at. Like I said, from stem to stern, it was wonderful. But there are listeners might not really know what BTF is. So could you give us a history of what the Berkshire Theatre Festival is and how it got started?

[3:22] Kate Macguire: Sure. I'll try to summarize because you know the history is almost a hundred years old.

[3:28] Hal Luftig: Okay, we don't have that much time.

[3:29] Kate Macguire: Exactly. Berkshire Theatre Festival was founded in 1928, and it was founded on the inspiration of the great Eva LaGallion. During the 20s, Eva LaGallion spent a lot of time trying to establish theaters around the country. There were lots of theaters in, you know, there were theaters in Chicago, in Boston, in New York City, but there were no theaters around the country. And Eva really knew that until there were, then theater people wouldn't know what theater really was or wouldn't understand the benefit that a theater could bring to a community. And so she had her civic repertory company and she began to send members of her company out to create theaters around the country. And fortunately, one of them arrived in Stockbridge, and the Berkshire Theatre Festival was born in 1928.

[4:26] Kate Macguire: Eva LaGallion was the first lady of our stage. She did a play called Cradle Song. She came back to do several other productions. But it was really on her inspiration to make sure that there were theaters that were developed all around the country. And so we have operated every single summer since then. There was one summer during World War II where the theater was almost dark, but we had our group of acting interns, and they performed that year. So the theater has always continued through all the despair, all the darkness, all the difficult times that we've lived through. Right now we're trying to make sure we have a performance this summer. Fingers crossed. We don't ever want to be dark. And so that theater that was started in 1928 was created in what had been a casino.

The casino was located in the center of Stockbridge. It was pulled down the street by horses and is at its current site in Stockbridge, right on Route 7. There was a farm on the property owned by the Mellon family. And that is where all the sets were built. And then a smaller theater was developed there called the Unicorn Theater. It was founded by students from Syracuse University. And so the theater has continued on. And 10 years ago this year, we merged with the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield and took on another theater. So now we have four stages actually. There's two spots in Pittsfield. The gorgeous Colonial Theater seats almost 700. We have a space we call the Garage. There's the Playhouse, which seats over 300, and the Unicorn, which seats about 120.

[6:22] Hal Luftig: You said that the Unicorn was built by students from Syracuse. Can you talk about when was that? And what was the impetus for that?

[6:32] Kate Macguire: So it was the late 50s, early 60s, in much the same way that, you know, drama students around the country were looking for summer homes. Syracuse was also looking for a summer home. So while we were working with many of their kids in terms of technical positions, administrative positions in the summer, there was a group that came together and said, you know, we're gonna build a little theater. And so they built a small theater in the barn. About 25 years ago, we created a new space attached to the barn, which is a beautiful gem of a theater that we still call the Unicorn, all founded on this inspiration of young people, people that want theater created, different kinds of theater. The Unicorn is a space where we do sometimes more provocative work, a little more aggressive, and often new pieces.

[7:27] Hal Luftig: Yeah, it's a beautiful theater. Could you talk a little bit about what the mission, if you will, of Berkshire Theatre Festival is, what their goals are?

[7:36] Kate Macguire: Well, I mean, the stated mission is to support wide-ranging artistic exploration and acclaimed performance in theater, music, dance, and entertainment. So, you know, that feels pretty broad. But what I think is important in that statement, Hal, is that it says to support wide-ranging artistic exploration. Because if we're anything in the theater, we are explorers. And I think about that word a lot these days. What I'm so proud of in terms of our theater community is that we change all the time. I think that those of us that work in the theater are attracted to change. Certainly, my life was opened up because of all I learned and continue to learn in the theater through new voices. Just by reading a play that I've never read before, I'm introduced to all kinds of new worlds. We change every time we start a new production. We meet new people. So the idea of exploration feels like the key word in that mission statement to me.

[8:52] Hal Luftig: You talked about when you joined. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey specifically to the Berkshire Theatre Festival?

[9:01] Kate Macguire: Sure. So this is my 26th summer. I arrived at a time when the theater had had a series of artistic directors, and the board was really trying to sort of stabilize. It was a little tumultuous when I came in. And the board of 50 members, 5-0, was trying to decide what the Berkshire Theatre Festival was. And so I had come as a managing director, and before that as an actress. I was an actress a hundred years ago.

[9:39] Hal Luftig: I did not know that really. What wow?

[9:42] Kate Macguire: I was an actress a hundred years ago.

[9:47] Hal Luftig: Anything I would have seen you in?

[9:50] Kate Macguire: I was an actress in Boston. And then I had these two little girls, twins, and all of a sudden I had to decide because I was a single mother. Was I going to, you know, take these kids all over the country and continue this career? Or was I going to stay in the theater and teach myself about press relations, box office? I mean, I did everything. No one lets me go near the technical part of theater.

[10:18] Hal Luftig: Me neither.

[10:19] Kate Macguire: But I have worked in just about every other area of the theater. And so I was a managing director at a theater in Springfield called Stage West. And an old friend who was on the board of Berkshire Theater came and said, Are you interested in coming back to the Berkshires? I had had a short stint at Shakespeare and Company in the Berkshires. And I said, Yes, because the Berkshires is so beautiful and a cultural destination. And when I came, I was, I have to admit, Hal, I was confused about what the Berkshire Theater Festival was. I mean, I remember one board member saying, we are about happy endings and stars. And I responded and said, I'm half Greek and half Irish. We do tragedy really well.

I don't know about happy endings all the time. And stars, sure, if they're in the right vehicle. I mean, it was that was an interesting statement. And then another board member said, I don't want to go to the theater and feel like I'm listening to elevator music. I want to be provoked. I want to think. I want new. So the board was incredibly divided. What I did was I went into the archives of the Berkshire Theater Festival, which are vast photos from all the years, stories from all the years. And it was there that I realized what the inspiration of the theater actually was founded upon. And that was dear Eva LaGallion and her desire to bring theater, great theater, whether it was new or the classics, out to the masses. And it was then that I thought, okay, I belong here. I don't know that I'm about happy endings and stars all the time.

[12:17] Kate Macguire: But we can create a, we can embrace the word festival. I just really listened as closely as I could to all those 50 board members, but to also all the audience members, and began to realize that my responsibility as an artistic director is to listen, which is what we learn as actors, to listen really carefully, but also to try to stay just a couple steps ahead of the audience to bring them on a journey, right?

[12:50] Hal Luftig: That's what you do as a producer, I'm sure.

[12:53] Kate Macguire: Yeah.

[12:54] Hal Luftig: Yeah, and yes, in a absolutely in a way that's and a good play will do that too. It's not just the personnel, but it's the playwright and and the play itself. Uh which leads me to a question that's on everyone's lips. And I've talked to this about several of my other guests, about you know, we need new plays developed. We need a culture where people can take a risk, and a playwright can take a risk, and a director can take a risk. And if it works part way, it doesn't mean that the project is dead in the water. Um, I I was wondering what your thoughts on and what the role of the Berkshire Theater Festival uh has in developing new works and giving new works a place to launch, things like that.

[13:41] Kate Macguire: Sure. Certainly each year there is at least one play that's new. And and as you indicated a little bit in what you were saying, how it can be a treacherous path. That is a path of risk. Um, and the theater is a risky business anyway. But when you put together a new work, you're so dependent on all the pieces coming together in a in a way that is entirely new. It's uncharted territory, so you don't exactly know what's going to come at the end of the process. It goes back to the idea of our being able to change, to speak to newer voices, to speak to the next generation. I mean, how do we keep the American theater going if we don't create opportunities for new artists? Is there a special mission or is there a special part of BTF that is committed to providing that place to develop a play, write a play.

I don't know if you would call that a commission of a play. But that kind of thing where the some of these, you know, non-for-profit regional theaters, summer theaters, you know, would be a fertile ground for you know new playwrights, new directors, new artists to come up and try things out.

[15:09] Kate Macguire: I try to make sure that it happens each year. So certainly, Hal, you know that when you say you've got a new play, I mean, there are just partners like you that I've worked with in the past and I trust and I know the work that you've produced. So when you say I've got a new new play, Kate, I'd like to try it out at Berkshire Theater, I tend to go yes. You understand that the Berkshires is a place where writers and artists have come to create for a long time because there is the space to be able to create. You know, artists aren't running through from one subway stop to the next. There's a place to just sort of send to yourself and do good work. So that opportunity is there. This year we were supposed to do two new plays.

One play called Broken Code, Bird Switching, by a new playwright named Tara North. And we've postponed that till next year. The play is about, interestingly enough, an African American woman who becomes a very prominent attorney in a very white lawyer's firm.

[16:29] Hal Luftig: Wow.

[16:30] Kate Macguire: I know. And she begins to question who she is, what her identity is, and how she got to this place. I'm so sorry that we can't present it like today.

[16:41] Hal Luftig: Yeah, me too.

[16:43] Kate Macguire: We'll take a look at it and we'll have great discussions next year. Yeah. We are um we are going to do my fingers across that we get to phase three in the governor's phasing. We're going to do a piece called Letters to the President. This is a brand new piece developed by young artists out of Northwestern University and another good buddy of theirs, young, fresh out of school. They've been working in New York for a few years. And what they have done is they've gone through archives of letters that have been written to many presidents.

[17:24] Hal Luftig: Oh, wow.

[17:25] Kate Macguire: By American citizens, all kinds, all status levels. And they've put them to music. And there are 18 composers. Two of the composers are Jonathan Larson Grant recipients. Just incredible composers that have put these letters to music. Wow. Of course, it's a presidential election year. So to hear to hear the empathy of so many of our presidents, their voices, to hear citizens screaming for their rights through some of these letters. And to also, I mean, there is, you know, there are some that are just highly amusing. Little kids writing letters that it just warms your heart to hear these letters that they're writing to some of our presidents. So the piece felt important this year. Um, because obviously we're in a presidential election year, and I have to say it felt good to sort of sit back, and even some of the presidents whose politics I may not have agreed with, you really recognize their genuine care for the American people, and that they understood the awesomeness of their office.

[18:36] Hal Luftig: That sounds amazing, Kate. And those two projects that you just talked about, you know, have sort of like made me sit up in my chair. Those are the kinds of things I love to do. How did those two plays find themselves to you?

[18:49] Kate Macguire: They're so fascinating and interesting. Are they submissions?

[18:53] Kate Macguire: We get a lot of submissions. I I wish, I just wish I had time to read all of the submissions. I do have some wonderful folks that read plays for me, but I have to admit, Hal, one day I was sitting in my office and I was going through some scripts that I hadn't been able to get to, and there was this play called Wit.

[19:18] Hal Luftig: Oh.

[19:21] Kate Macguire: It had been done. Yeah. I never opened it. I was just like, oh my God. How many wits are in that pile right there? It's an awful feeling. And you don't know which ones to go to. I mean, sometimes I as soon as it arrives, I get to it. There are other times that I can't get to all the plays. I hope that the people that are reading for me that they I trust that they understand what the theater is about. Tara No sent this play to me. She happens to have a home in the Berkshires. And so she handed me this play. She was very shy about it. When I started reading, I realized, first of all, that I was learning something when I read the play. So I was engrossed, trying to understand who this woman was, how she came to lose her own identity, and then how she grappled to find it.

So it's an interesting play about womanhood, but also about this African American woman in particular. And so we did a reading of the piece. I just said, let's just pull together some folks and sit around a table, which is I'm sure what you do as well. Sit around a table, read the play. We read it. It was very powerful. Last summer we did a weeklong workshop of the piece. And then I went to LA in the fall. There was another workshop this past winter. I just really felt like the piece deserved a full production. So we'll get to it next year. Letters to the President was done in New York at Cooper Hewitt Hall. There was only one performance. And I heard through a couple of people that this place was packed.

The piece was amazing. They had a guest named Lawrence O'Donnell, who of course is on MSNBC every night, and he read one of the letters. And so I kept hearing about this piece. And then lo and behold, one of the creators was one of our directing interns years ago. And so he got in touch with me. And it's been just a nice sort of coming together of a young person who we worked with and hopefully helped to develop, and is now starting out on his own career with all these amazing composers.

[21:57] Hal Luftig: That's you know, that that is that's exactly what we need. It's exactly what we need. This new space like you're giving for uh new works to be developed. Uh I just wanted to tell you, just so you don't feel bad about wit. Many, many years ago, when I was first starting out, I used to read every single play from cover to cover. And I did so because I I just always had this fear that if I put it down, and you know, the next page after I put it down, it was going to turn into like Amadeus or something. You know, and I would have missed it.

[23:34] Kate Macguire: Right. And how and the great Hal Prince, uh, may you rest in peace, one day said to me, I was telling him about this. He said, Listen, Al, if if you know the first 20 minutes. Imagine you're reading 20 minutes, and my rule is like a page a minute. So you are 20 minutes into a play, and it's still not grasping your, you know, grabbing your attention, or you don't know where you are, you should probably put it down because imagine sitting in the theater for 20 25 minutes and not getting into what the story is. And I thought, you know, Mr. Fritz, you just saved, you know, half of my life.

[23:37] Hal Luftig: I was going to say though, I'm so impressed that you took so much time for so many years.

[23:43] Kate Macguire: Oh my God. I would like give up vacation. I would take them on vacations, on planes, you know.

[23:49] Hal Luftig: Yeah.

[23:49] Kate Macguire: And you know, and uh, you know, I did read some some interesting stuff, but most of it, you know, not so much.

[23:56] Hal Luftig: I know. I also have to say, I put it down if I open it up, and the cast list is longer than one page.

[24:04] Kate Macguire: Oh, yes.

[24:05] Hal Luftig: Oh, yes.

[24:07] Kate Macguire: Me too.

[24:08] Hal Luftig: I love that.

[24:09] Kate Macguire: I I do that too.

[24:10] Hal Luftig: Yes, yes, yes.

[24:11] Kate Macguire: You know, 35 actors and you know, dancing elephants, and uh, you know, I I kind of put it down.

[24:18] Hal Luftig: Yeah, yeah, I put it down because there's no way I could produce that. Kate, I wanted, you know, since this uh podcast is Broadway Biz, which is about you know, trying to marry the artistic side of theater uh with the financial side.

[24:34] Kate Macguire: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that from your perspective as the artistic director of Berkshire Theater Festival. How do you navigate that water between what the artist may want or need or the artistic need of a show? And yet you have the financial concerns, you know, of the Berkshire Theater Festival.

[24:57] Kate Macguire: Well, we embraced the words not for profit, Hal, which often gets us into trouble. But we are not for profit. And most I have come to realize that the capitalistic society that we live in have no concept of what that really means. We have normally in the theater, if you get to 50% earned, I mean, everything is earned, so why they call it earned, but earned ticket sales revenue and 50% contributed, then that's a good balance. We've been lucky in that our ticket sales are about 65%, some summers even 70% of our income. So we've been very fortunate in that regard. And we've had some years where we've managed to have a surplus that we're able to tuck some dollars aside for some capital needs, but you know, we're talking in the year 2020, and so we're trying to hold on right now.

It's got it's definitely a struggle, and I'm actually glad for some of those years over the past 25 years where we had to get through a lot of struggles. Remember 2008 when the global economy collapsed, and we cut our budget that year by 25% and managed to get through. So there are a lot of times that I'm having to say to the Hal Luftig of the world, we can't afford that. And luckily, Hal, we work with creative people. So most of the time there are solutions. We're also used to working with restrictions in our world and with magicians too, who can come up with some wonderfully creative ideas for our being able to bring the ocean and water streams to your shows, Hal. I'm looking for a musical right now that has water in it.

I'm telling you. Oh no. Sometimes it's just no, we can't do that. It's it tips the balance too much. Um so in a given year, we decide what is that balance. So at the beginning of a year, when you sit down and you start thinking about, okay, what am I going to do? What are we going to do this season? Do you actually think of the show first and then back into the financial aspect of it?

[27:45] Kate Macguire: Right. I think of you know, this is also my title is Artistic Director CEO, which I feel like the board gave me just to force me into the schizophrenia of that title. Because there's one side of my brain that always goes to, I have to do this show. This is an important show. This is a beautiful show. Imagine this show, this romantic piece on a summer evening. And then I think, but how am I going to afford this? And so sometimes, honestly, that forces me to look at okay. If I put this show on, this is going to take up this much of the budget. I've got X amount of dollars left. So I really then have to go to a smaller size production for the other plays. So I'm balancing that way. So sometimes I'm forced to make decisions based on, oh, I'm looking for a three-hander or a two-hander now.

But most of the time, you stick with the play and try to get that best product out there. And as I said, we're at 65%, sometimes even we've reached 70% capacity in terms of where we've gotten to with the numbers in ticket sales. And so I feel like our audiences stick with us and they're enjoying what we do. And in the end, the play is the thing, right, Hal?

[29:13] Hal Luftig: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And what a wonderful segment, and because it's not only the play is a thing, it's the audience is a thing. And one of the things that Berkshire Theatre Festival program you have that I saw firsthand that is just near and dear to my heart is what is the Encore program you have for original high school musicals and the program you have about bringing students, you know, and offer by working with students. Can you talk about those two? Because I think it's such an important thing you guys do.

[29:49] Kate Macguire: I'd love to. You know, as I said before, every single doorway in my life was open to me through the theater. My mother took me, trotted me off to elocution lessons, Hal, when I was four years old. And I didn't understand why. I thought it was because I was so loud and she just didn't want to listen to me. And so she was, you know, having this poor elocution and drama teacher channel my energies. And right before my mother passed, my mother was the child of Greek immigrants. She was the youngest. Right before she passed, she said to me, none of us could speak English when we started school. And I wanted you to be able to speak as powerfully as possible because I realized how important communication is.

Oh my gosh. And I thought, oh my gosh. I'm like choking up. But it was it like everything. It was like, you know, realizing what Eva Gallion's inspiration was in creating the theater. I thought, oh, this is what my life has been about. And so when I started at Berkshire Theater Festival, Berkshire Theater Festival had a suite program where we were in one of the schools in Stockbridge, one of the schools in the grammar school, and we would teach each child how to write a one act play. It was a great program, but it was only one classroom. And so that program where we worked with 20 kids, and in the summertime we had a camp where several of those kids would write plays. That program is now developed to the point where we serve 13,000 of the 16,000 school kids in Berkshire County.

And we what we do is we go into the schools, we're an after-school program for kids at risk. Each child that we work with writes a one-act play. It can be a musical, it can be a straight play, it can be whatever, as long as it's their story. And then in the summertime, those kids that really want to continue come to us for a special camp. Or they're in our production. So we have three productions a year at the Colonial Theater, which is our bigger space in Pittsfield, and a hundred kids take over the stage in a production of Peter Pan or Mary Poppins, whatever it is, but they own the stage. And they own the stage for a few weekends in the spring, a few weekends in the fall, but they own that stage at the Colonial for three full weeks in the heart of the summer, so they can show their talents to all the tourists that come in.

And they're working alongside the Kenny Leons and the incredible actors that we had in Children of a Lesser God. And they're part of the mix. They're growing, and they're certainly, you know, learning all the skills that we know you learn in the about in the theater. So the Encore program is directly out of that. The kids will pick a musical or they'll create their own pieces and present them for some time on our stage as well in the springtime.

[33:12] Hal Luftig: So not only do the kids get to pick a musical, you know, perform it, but also I'm assuming that the audience is made up of students as well.

[33:12] Kate Macguire: The audience is made up of students as well, Hal, and also grandparents, parents, cousins. It's packed.

[33:30] Hal Luftig: Yeah. God, that must feel. How does that feel for you when you stand in the back of the theater and you you've just watched this, you know, the youth creating and participating and enjoying theater for what I'm gonna guess might be their first time.

[33:46] Kate Macguire: For their first time. I you know, one of the um things that happens now right around, I think it's right around the holidays in December, is I am now asked by so many high school kids who have been with us for maybe 10 years for recommendations for their to go on to college to study the arts.

[34:10] Hal Luftig: Oh, wow.

[34:11] Kate Macguire: So I began to realize wow, we are we are now moving, we've created a generation of kids that are moving through and will become the playwrights that we'll work with at some point.

[34:23] Hal Luftig: Yeah, yeah. It feels good. It feels it feels like part of the responsibility though, right?

[34:30] Kate Macguire: Yes, yes. Well, my my hat's off to you, Kate, because I I do personally feel that is our future. Not only is that our future, but every I think child needs to experience what it's like to be in a theater, what it's like to see a live performance, what it's you know, like to see that with a thousand other people sitting in the dark with you.

[34:53] Kate Macguire: I think absolutely yeah, it's it teaches so many lessons and enlighten so many ways that you know, hats off to you. Thank you for doing that. In any way I can support that, you know, you know where I live.

[35:05] Hal Luftig: Thank you. Hal, what was the first show you saw in New York?

[35:10] Kate Macguire: Oh, I can tell you that immediately. Fiddler on the Roof at the Imperial Theater. And I can actually tell you where we sat. And in fact, when, yeah, when I was um uh what I was in the Imperial Theater. I was a production assistant on Dream Girls. I was at Columbia University, and they assigned me to stage management. Like you, I knew nothing. And uh, so I you know trained with everybody. And I was in there for Dream Girls, you know, before the audience came in, and I walked all the way up to the rear mezzanine, and I sat in that seat.

[35:49] Hal Luftig: Oh it was it was really it was really, you know, yeah, a special moment.

[35:55] Kate Macguire: Well, and you went on. Thank you so much for creating one of the most gorgeous fiddler on the roofs the world has seen.

[36:03] Hal Luftig: Well, thank you. And that's why that one was so special to me. And and I do remember, and this is why I I so advocate for children going to the theater. I I was seven years old, and um my mom, my two brothers, and she took my grandmother with us. And I remember us walking to the, and this was the days you got dressed up, you know. So as an eight-year-old in a suit and a you know, a jacket and a tie, and I was like very uncomfortable to start with. And walking into the theater, she I remember her explaining to me, um, you know, you can't talk, you can't move around, you know, there are live people on that stage. Uh, you know, and she was like kind of giving me the rules of like behave.

[36:48] Kate Macguire: And I thought, oh my God, you know, I remember the feeling of this is gonna be awful. And the minute the curtain went up, I sat there totally enraptured that by intermission, my mom said, you know, we're gonna do this every day because I have never seen you sit so still and so quietly. And I was just it it takes a child into a different world and it stimulates their imagination. And, you know, and from there it led to, you know, wow, as I got older, there's lots of different parts of a musical in a play, and you know, and then eventually I knew I had like zero talent. I couldn't sing, I couldn't dance, and you you know, you don't want to hear me sing, and I can't direct. When I was part of Columbia, the master's program, we had to direct as part of our, you know, curriculum, a scene.

And I chose a scene from Summer in Smoke. It was only two characters, and the professor would come in from time to time and watch you rehearse these actors. And after one rehearsal, he pulled me aside and he said, Um, you don't have any idea what you're doing. And I actually admitted it. And he said, Okay, I I'm gonna help you because you know, you know, that's part of, you know, you're not, yeah, you it's not like you're experimenting with anything, you are like down a wrong path. And I learned a lot. I learned so much. It's true. I don't know anything, I don't know how to direct either. People will say, Why don't you direct? And I'm like, I can't do that. I can't. Yeah. But that's why I sit and watch when I can.

And again, when you guys we had Children of a Lesser God, and we were all up there rehearsing, I would sit enraptured every day by watching Kenny Leon. Yeah, you know, and how he directed. And I watched Jerry Mitchell. It's one of my most fun things to do in the development process. Watch the choreographer. I love watching the creatives create it's because it's something I can't, you know, possibly do.

[39:08] Kate Macguire: I know we're we have time constraints here, so I want to ask you just a couple of things, um, you know, personally about you, and then you know, we we'll move on. Uh as the artistic director, what is like the greatest thing you could say you've learned? What has been your greatest growth as an artistic director of BTF? It's such a big question. Um I think that what I hold dearest are the people that I work with and the team that's been developed. I watch people work so hard because they believe so deeply in theater, in the art of theater. And so I've learned the greatest thing I've learned, I think, is to assemble to try to assemble the right team of people. Because you know, you were with us, Hal.

There's there's eight productions going on in the course of three months, and you know, we're year-round with the Colonial Theatre, so it's a four-ring circus, what we're trying to manage. But if you've got the right people, then it be it's like watching it's like, you know, it's what you were saying. It's like watching Kenny Leon, or it's like watching a musical come together. And what makes me proudest is to realize that I've had some small part in inspiring them to work in the way that they do to create for audiences to come and see what theater can be in the world.

[41:07] Hal Luftig: Wow.

[41:09] Hal Luftig: Yeah. That’s beautiful. That is that is beautiful. And uh I think you know what, if I may say, you have succeeded because you're the team that you have put together is stunning to actually watch. I don't know how to, you know, it's not just that they're nice people, of course, you know, they're more than nice, but you know, watching the interns taking the lights from one theater and walking them over to the other, you know, cables and and things like that, and do it with such joy. You know, it's like they're they're part of what's being created. And that makes a big difference, I must say, and you know, it starts at the top. So in my opinion, Kate, you have you have succeeded with A plus plus plus plus.

[41:56] Kate Macguire: Oh thanks. Well, it's just it's important, I think. And and also, as we're going through these days, there are 24 of us that work year-round. And it's going to be, you know, we're hoping to get a musical mounted this summer in an outdoor space on our grounds. And it's only going to be the 24 of us for some time here. In the summer, we usually hire up to 200 people to be with us. But it's the 24 of us. And I have to admit, when I see these faces, you know, it's like Hollywood Squares on a Zoom call.

[42:31] Hal Luftig: Yeah.

[42:33] Kate Macguire: And they're still at it, they're still going. We're still figuring it out. And it's almost harder to put on one play in this new world than it is to get eight plays up in a summertime right now. Because the considerations are so, well, they're it's life and death, right? I mean, we're in a different world. Um, but this team just they stay at it. I'm just so fortunate and inspired by them as well.

[43:01] Hal Luftig: We're gonna need to say goodbye soon, but before we do, there were two things I wanted to mention. Kate earlier in the program talked about the stars that used to come up to the Berkshire Theaters, you know, as it was formed. I beg you, if you go to the Berkshire Theater Festival, leave yourself some extra time and look at what is hanging on the walls. There are great, great photos of people who went on to be big stars or already big stars who returned to the Berkshire Theater Festival to do a play or two. When I was leaving, Kate very graciously gave me a beautiful gift that is hanging right by my desk in my office. That's how much I love it. And that is a photo of Buster Keaton in Three Men on a Horse.

And it's one of my favorites, and it's just stunning to see who actually came up there to play. So I asked the listeners to take a few minutes and take a look around you'll you'll have a great time. Kate before I can let you go I'm going to ask you three rapid questions. Don't think about them just you know give me the first thing that pops into your mind. There's no wrong answer okay so the first is what is your favorite musical?

[44:18] Kate Macguire: Mame because it was my first musical that I saw on Broadway.

[44:29] Hal Luftig: Oh my God I can't believe you thought I'm not supposed to comment but I'm gonna break my own rule. That was it was like my second music and somehow we got seats in the very first row and you know at some point Angela Lansbury you know saw me Angela Lansbury and she like waved to me oh my gosh she like at the curtain call waved to me and I you know all at once I was elated I was shy I was like what does that mean? Years years later again while I was at Columbia I became a production intern on the short lived unfortunately revival of Mame with with Angie back in 83 and I went up to her on the first day of rehearsal and I asked her I told her that story and I said you know you were it was so meant so much to me and whether she was making it up or not she said oh I remember doing that I remember you were so cute and I've never seen someone oh my gosh. You just your mouth was open and your eyes were bulging, and you just you know I I don't know if she meant it.

[45:34] Kate Macguire: What a story.

[45:34] Hal Luftig: I don't know if she meant it, but I'll take it that she did and move on. So I love that it's Mame.

[45:51] Kate Macguire: Yeah.

[45:52] Hal Luftig: Um, okay. Question number two. What is the wackiest moment you've ever experienced in the theater?

[45:58] Kate Macguire: Oh that I can repeat.

[46:02] Hal Luftig: Um I don't know.

[46:05] Kate Macguire: Say it, and maybe we'll have to edit it out.

[46:09] Kate Macguire: We had an actress that was really misbehaving. And she didn't want photos taken at all. And you know, of course, we've got young people everywhere. And so her means of keeping the photographer out was to be going through the scene because you know how the photo sessions work. They're going, they're going for the play. Right. And every once in a while, just to lift her skirt.

[46:40] Hal Luftig: Oh you mean enough, you mean enough that it exposed so much.

[46:47] Kate Macguire: Oh, it was not. It was not that I just kept saying there are interns in the house because there was nothing under the skirt.

[46:59] Hal Luftig: Oh yeah.

[47:03] Kate Macguire: You win. Best story ever heard.

[47:06] Hal Luftig: The wackiest, the wackiest.

[47:09] Kate Macguire: Yeah, wackiest.

[47:09] Hal Luftig: So okay, the third question is so the lesson you learned from that experience was be careful who you hire.

[47:21] Kate Macguire: And make sure they own underpants, I guess.

[47:27] Hal Luftig: Oh.

[47:27] Kate Macguire: Well, Kate Maguire, I thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.

[47:37] Hal Luftig: You're the best, Kate Maguire.

[47:35] Kate Macguire: You're simply the best.

[47:37] Hal Luftig: Well, I can right at you. And I promise you and everyone who's listening, we will, you and I will rise again and we will work together, and I will look forward to that day. Thank you so much. Be well, please.

[47:55] Kate Macguire: Thank you. Bye bye.

[47:56] Kate Macguire: Thank you, Hal.

[47:57] Hal Luftig: You too. Big kiss. I love you.

[48:00] Hal Luftig: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Broadway Biz. If you have any questions about today's episode or the business of Broadway in general, let me know on Instagram at Broadway Biz Podcast or via email at BroadwayBiz at Halluftig.com. Be sure to follow me at Broadway Biz Podcast for updates on everything Broadway Biz. The Business of Broadway. Broadway Biz is part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Huge thanks to Dori Berenstein, Alan Seals, and Brittany Bigelow. This has been produced by Dylan Marie Parent and Kevin Connor and edited by Derek Gunther. Our fabulous theme music is by Nell Benjamin and Lawrence O'Keefe. To learn more about Broadway Biz, visit BPN.fm slash BroadwayBiz.