Schwartz Helms His ‘Most Exciting Season Yet’ at Bay Street
Scott Schwartz speaks in superlatives — “greatest,” “magnificent,” “world-class,” “thrilling,” “unparalleled,” and that is just in one sentence. Well, not really, but it is tempting to go “over the top” after spending an hour with his infectious enthusiasm.
When he first arrived almost five years ago to take over as Bay Street Theater’s artistic director, the Broadway brat (he is the son of Stephen Schwartz, the award-winning composer of “Wicked,” “Pippin,” “Godspell,” and numerous other scores and musical works) was an outsider and an unproven commodity on the Sag Harbor theater scene. Bay Street had fallen on uncertain times with a few years of lackluster performance, management shakeups, and a transitional season that might be best characterized as Florida dinner-theater classic.
Mr. Schwartz is now helming his fourth season fully in charge of programming. His productions that draw on national and international sources of plays, directors, actors, and designers and shaped for East End summer and year-round audiences are clearly a hit. An off-season schedule that has shifted from old films to live performances from musicians, comedians, and even opera, has also brought winter crowds to the theater and to Sag Harbor.
After an awkward stage, Bay Street has emerged as a swan, or rather, a diva ready for its close-up.
In a recent junket to discuss the new summer season, Mr. Schwartz said that the theater’s “subscriptions were way up over last year’s,” which were also “way up.” The theater’s New Works Festival had full houses for most plays, and the fall and spring events have been selling out.
The theater is building on what worked in the past couple of seasons, and shaking its schedule up a bit to accommodate its patrons better. This year, comedy has moved from Mondays to three Saturdays, beginning with Colin Quinn this weekend, Colin Jost on July 1, and a final comedian to be announced for Aug. 5.
The cabaret-style concerts that were usually scheduled on Saturdays have moved to Mondays with Betty Buckley up first on July 10. Other performers include Ben Vereen, Lorna Luft, first and Mr. Schwartz’s father performing with friends.
On the weekend of Aug. 25, Bay Street will once again be in Mashashimuet Park with a concert presentation of “Kiss Me, Kate,” Cole Porter’s musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” starring Melissa Errico.
This year’s Mainstage season will consist of three plays: “The Man in the Ceiling,” “Intimate Apparel,” and “As You Like It.”
Jules Feiffer’s “The Man in the Ceiling” is first up from Tuesday (with a limited number of “pay-what-you-can” tickets available at 11 a.m. that day at the box office) to June 25. This production is exciting to Mr. Schwartz for several reasons. It’s the first New Works Festival play that has gone on to a full production. It is also a “show with three major artists all stepping out of their comfort zone.” It is Mr. Feiffer’s first musical. It is the first time Jeffery Seller, known for his work as a producer of “Hamilton,” “Avenue Q,” and “Rent,” will direct a production. Andrew Lippa, who wrote the music and lyrics for the show, will be acting in it as well.
Rick Lyon, the puppet designer for “Avenue Q,” crafted puppets based on Mr. Feiffer’s illustrations for the original graphic novel. David Korins worked up something similar for the set design. “It’s a dream team,” Mr. Schwartz said. “I can see opening this show on Broadway.” Mr. Schwartz said the world premiere of this musical continues a tradition he started of having one premiere each season. “It’s central to us, and I love new musicals.”
He will follow that by “giving a fresh look to an earlier play by a master playwright.” “Intimate Apparel” was produced 14 years ago, before Lynn Nottage won Pulitzer Prizes for two of her plays, “Ruined” and “Sweat.” He said “the smaller plays ebb away and get lost, because the next thing keeps coming.”
Running in Sag Harbor from July 4 to July 30, it will star Kelly McCreary, a theater and television star from “Grey’s Anatomy,” as Esther Mills, an African-American living in New York City in 1905. Esther makes lingerie for fancy ladies and ladies of the evening while searching for more meaning in her life.
Of “As You Like It,” his first Mainstage Shakespeare production, Mr. Schwartz said he is “thrilled.” He has “one of the greatest directors today” in John Doyle, who guided award-winning stage productions such as the “Sweeney Todd” revival and “The Color Purple.” “I’ve always wanted to work with him and he wanted to do ‘As You Like It,’ one of my favorite plays,” Mr. Schwartz said.
With many songs built into the text, “it’s almost a musical the way Shakespeare wrote it,” Mr. Schwartz said. Mr. Doyle wanted to make it even more of a musical, which required a composer. “There’s this guy named Stephen Schwartz, and I’ve always wanted to work with him,” Mr. Doyle told him. Mr. Schwartz said he would make an introduction. They hit it off, and the play now has a “terrific, really fun” original score written by his father.
The production will be set in the 1930s and have a “Cotton Club” feeling. Many of the actors will play instruments on stage, as Patti LuPone did in Mr. Doyle’s version of “Sweeney Todd.” A co-production with Classic Stage Company, the play will run from Aug. 8 to Labor Day and then go immediately into the city for pre-production, another exciting development.
Mr. Schwartz also described a dizzying array of theater camps and master classes for kids and teens, which should be checked out on the Bay Street website. Goat on a Boat puppet theater will return throughout the summer. And the summer benefit will be held once again on Long Wharf on July 15.
“You can feel this energy,” Mr. Schwartz said. With defining themes of identity, imagination, love, and self-discovery, “this might be the most exciting season yet.”