The word is out on Kent Thompson, and that word is good.
“His reputation preceded him,” playwright Evangeline Ordaz said, “and I think this weekend certainly confirmed a lot of people’s suspicions.”
The suspicion is that Thompson is true to his word. The Denver Center Theatre Company’s artistic director said he would bring diversity on an unprecedented scale, and just how far he has come was colorfully apparent at his second Colorado New Play Summit on Feb. 9-10.
Ordaz’s epic immigration play, “Visitors’ Guide to Arivaca (Map Not to Scale)” was one of four featured plays read to packed houses, including two that are among
Thompson’s first class of eight plays he has commissioned for development.
Last weekend, esteemed Ocatavio Solis, whom Ordaz calls, “The shining example of the successful Latino playwright for all of us,” turned in the first draft of his commission, “Lydia.” And Jose Cruz Gonzales (“September Shoes”) has been hired to write a play fully in Spanish Thompson will take directly to the people it speaks to.
“We plan to tour it throughout the state to communities with large Hispanic populations,” Thompson said. “This means we will perform in nontraditional venues – churches, community centers, schools – in addition to theaters.”
Before Thompson, the DCTC had staged eight plays by women in 26 years. He staged four straight plays by women his first year. Check.
Before Thompson, the DCTC had not staged a Latino play in six years. He has since mounted “September Shoes” and “Living Out.” Check.
Denver is nearly 32 percent Latino, and the DCTC, in both programming and staffing, is catching up. Su Teatro’s Anthony J. Garcia, longtime artistic director of the state’s only Chicano theater company, says, “Welcome to the party.”
“The difference between Kent and his predecessor (Donovan Marley) is night and day,” said Garcia, who attended Ordaz’s reading along with visiting actor Jesse Borrega (“Con Air”). That was momentous in itself.
“The bottom line is there is a relationship between us now, where there was none before,” Garcia said. “Well, there was a relationship – but it was antagonistic.”
Associate artistic director Bruce K. Sevy, who is in charge of new-play development, hopes the 2007-08 season has several world premieres. Those might include some of the plays that were read at the Summit, or new commissions by playwrights such as Michele Lowe, Lee Blessing, Theresa Rebeck and Steven Dietz – though most of those are a year from being ready.
“I think we have some really good candidates,” said Sevy.
The two most were talking about at the Summit were “Plainsong,” Eric Schmiedel’s adaptation of Colorado author Kent Haruf’s best-selling 1999 novel about the residents of fictional Holt, Colo.; and “Arivaca,” which was not a DCTC commission but would be a world-premiere staging.
“Arivaca” follows a desperate young Mexican couple crossing the border through the unforgiving Sonoran Desert, while offering many points of view ranging from vigilante border patrollers, local ranchers and Samaritan relief workers. It’s an important and timely play “because the battleground in the immigration debate has really shifted to Arizona,” Garcia said.
“People are now trying to cross the Sonoran Desert, and they are dying. So it’s really important that this issue gets taken out of the hands of the crazies like (Colorado Congressman) Tom Tancredo, who have been very aggressive in controlling this conversation, and moved in front of an audience, where it can be discussed more calmly.”
Ordaz said the destination city of Tucson is now in crisis mode. “The Sonoran is brutal, it’s hostile, and people are dying,” she said. “In the year before I wrote this play, 400 people died trying to cross.”
It’s progress, at least, that any talk about staging a play like Ordaz’s can now move straight past the need for it to be told – to everyone.
“Theater not only has a responsibility to represent as many perspectives as possible, it’s essential,” Ordaz said. “Otherwise, you are only looking at a very narrow part of what it means to be an American. We all live together, and we all have to get along, and we all have to understand each other. Theater can play a really important part, and Kent has taken an amazing step in that direction.”
Garcia is still stinging from Marley once being quoted as saying he did not feel there were many Latino playwrights he could produce on the Denver Center’s stages. He hopes to be a resource to Thompson, not only in terms of cultural clarification but in providing local actors and artists.
“As we continue to build our Latino audience and Latino programming, I am sure we will seek to collaborate with Su Teatro,” Thompson said.
They did in a small way on 2005’s “September Shoes,” when Garcia housed “Shoes” composer Daniel Valdez.
“I believe it’s very important that the DCTC help all the other theaters in the area to grow and flourish,” Thompson added. “We also want to create Latino work that will complement Su Teatro’s artistic offerings.”
It’s one thing to say it, but to do it is so much harder.
Thompson is doing it.
“He’s pulling out all the stops,” Ordaz said. “He’s trying to make up for lost time, I think.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
The four plays that received readings at last week’s Colorado New Play Summit:
“Plainsong,” by Eric Schmiedl *: Set on the high plains of eastern Colorado, Kent Haruf’s novel follows a high school teacher who cares for two young sons alone while two elderly bachelor brothers help a pregnant 17-year-old with no place else to turn.
“Our House,” by Theresa Rebeck *: A rising TV news anchor is tripped up by her own ambition when she covers a hostage crisis perpetrated, she learns too late, by a man who despises her. A skewering of the trend toward TV news as entertainment and anchors as celebrities.
“Visitors’ Guide to Arivaca (Map Not to Scale),” by Evangeline Ordaz: A Mexican couple desperate to immigrate to the U.S. becomes stranded in the harsh Sonoran Desert.
“Shadow of Himself,” by Neal Bell: This retelling of the Gilgamesh epic is a provocative clash between the ancient and the modern, speaking to the enigma of male identity.
* Commissioned by the Denver Center Theatre Company
– Compiled by John Moore
More online:
PODCAST: Denver Post theater critic John Moore interviews Bruce Sevy, Evangeline Ordaz, Michele Lowe, Jason Grote and Steven Dietz. listen at denverpost.com/theater
