Everyman Theater

Vincent Lancisi is affable, talented, driven, a man with a good sense of humor and a feel for what makes a night sitting on a cushion you brought from home on a chair bought at Staples a magical experience�something anyone who has ever viewed a play at Baltimore's Everyman Theater can appreciate. Perhaps it's the holiday season, but if Santa Claus had a thinner, younger brother who decided to get into show business, he might be a lot like Vince. While you won't find him coming down your chimney any time soon, Lancisi does deliver some pretty nifty gifts on the Everyman's diminutive stage several nights a week.

Recently, I spent an hour chatting with Mr. Lancisi about the Everyman, its pending move from its current location on Charles Street to the historic Town Theater on Fayette, and why Baltimore has become a Mecca for small professional theater companies�

Tell us a bit about yourself. What's your role with the Everyman and how long have you been there?

I'm the founder and artistic director at the Everyman so whatever it is, it's my fault! I moved to Baltimore in 1989 coming out of Catholic University in Washington, D.C. to found the Everyman. I chose Baltimore, not just because it's a great city, but because of the theater landscape here. At the time there was the major regional theater in Center Stage, some Broadway touring houses and very active community theaters, amateur companies in the neighborhoods�but in terms of small professional theater, it was clear that was a niche that could be filled.

We did our first production in the fall of 1990, "The Runner Stumbles." We rented out St. John's Church at 27^th and St. Paul in Charles Village. The play is about a priest on trial for the murder of a nun and is based on the real life 1911 case in Michigan. We chose a church as a site specific place, lit the stained glass windows from the outside�it was the perfect environment for that play.

That was the birth. Next fall will mark our 20^th anniversary. Our first four productions were done in different spaces around Baltimore City before we landed our current facility (1727 North Charles Street) in the summer of 1984 and we've been here ever since.

What's the Everyman's claim to fame? In other words, what's the Everyman brand?

We are a professional company with a resident ensemble of professional actors who perform in different plays every season. We do a broad repertoire of plays from the classics to contemporary. There's an emphasis at breaking down the barriers between the audience and the actor. There's an intimacy, an honesty, an integrity in storytelling that audience members find compelling�that there's nothing in the way of the work. It's something we strive for at Everyman�finding actors who can transform and dig deep for the truth�and try to expose that truth. We don't do "way out" interpretations or edgy work�it's more about presenting the author's work as clearly as possible.

What makes Baltimore such a "theater haven"?

There are a lot of small professional and semi-professional theaters in town and that excites me greatly because, when we first started, there were no small professional theaters. Over the years there have been many that tried, but haven't been able to endure, until the last six or seven years�now you have companies like Single Carrot Theater that are really making a go of it, finding a new and exciting audience, and I like to think that Everyman helped pave the way. We used to be the "new kids on the block" and now we're more like middle-aged�hate to use that word, but it's true!

I've always believed that good theater begets good theater. I don't think of theaters as competitors�Subscribers of Center Stage would come here to see what's going on and try out a play or two, become a subscriber the next season. Our patrons find the Single Carrots, and so each builds its own audience. We hope there will be a theatrical renaissance in Baltimore that will mirror what's happened in Washington, D.C. When I was at Catholic University in the mid-80s, there were a dozen professional theaters�now there are 52. And prior to that, there was Arena Stage and that was it. Arena was the pioneer and that opened the doors to theaters like Woolly Mammoth and Round House, and they opened the doors to the Charter Theater and the next generation, so theater just grows and grows and grows. The seeds were sown in Baltimore with Center Stage and the Everyman�there were companies that did great work for four or five years, like the Mongrel Theatre, and you have Towson University and UMBC and Goucher�these programs all tend to spawn graduates who want to start their own theater companies. It's hard to survive in the long run as it takes a lot of commitment from artists willing to work for next to nothing, and the support of community leaders and board members.

Why the Town Theater, why that location and not another? Did you look at other locations?

About five years ago it became clear to our Board that Everyman was becoming the victim of our own success. Our subscriber base was growing by leaps and bounds; our first subscription year was 1996 and we had 325 subscribers�today we have over 4,000. Our current facility, which we don't own and never have, was never a building meant to be a theater�it was a bowling alley�so we have very little support space here. We're building scenery in an area the size of most people's living rooms, we have NO rehearsal space�we have to rent space around the city to rehearse�we're building in the same place as we are performing so it takes time to turnover one show to the next. Our landlord has been very generous over the years, but is not interested in selling this building. We brought in architects to see if there was any way to renovate so we could have two performing spaces so you could have two plays running at one time, but they just couldn't do it.

So the Board began searching and that search went on for two to three years, and we looked EVERYWHERE. Our first choice was to stay here on Charles Street. When we first moved here this block was 80% vacant. People said, "Why are you going THERE, there's nothing going on, no restaurants, no businesses." People forget that the Charles cinema went dark for a full year. It was the Everyman and Club Charles and the rest of the block was QUIET.

It's been a joy to watch the neighborhood grow and know that we've had a hand in that. We searched this area high and wide�we looked at the old Chesapeake Restaurant on the corner, the City had condemned it and put a request for proposals for redevelopment, one of which was for the Everyman. It took almost a year to develop the proposal, to go through the process with the BDC (Baltimore Development Corporation) and the other candidates to find out we weren't awarded the project. During that time we were told about the Town Theater (which was owned by the Bank of American Community Development Corporation and The Harold A. Dawson Trust). Bank of American was seeking to develop the surrounding area and wanted performing arts in that space which might otherwise be a Gap or something. Once we lost the Chesapeake, they offered to donate the Town Theater to us if we renovated it for live theater. That was a gift we couldn't turn down, plus, we feel there's some real symmetry on the West Side. You've got the Hippodrome, the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower�we feel it's the West Side's time and we're hoping the same thing happens there as happened in this part of town, on Charles Street. We feel with 4,000 subscribers, people coming in eight times a week to see shows, that businesses and restaurants will crop up around us, will reenergize the West Side which is already on its way. We looked at Inner Harbor East, Fells Point, the Station North Arts and Entertainment District, and then this opportunity with Town Theater came around.

What will people see, describe what the experience will be like when the new theater opens?

A very important quality that patrons and artists love about the Everyman is the intimacy, so it is important that that intimacy remain in the new building. The Town has had such a fascinating history, it's almost the stuff of a play itself. Founded in 1911 as a vaudeville house with 2,200 seats, it was called the Empire. The architects now working on the terra cotta exterior of the building found at its apex an old, faded "E" for Empire that we will restore as the "E" for "Everyman."

In 1913 it changed to the Palace Theater and vaudeville became burlesque and stayed that way til 1935 when it became a little TOO burlesque and was shut down for indecency and turned into an indoor parking garage for seven years! It was completely gutted. In the mid-40s it was renovated again, becoming the Town Theater with 1,550 seats showing first run movies and was quite a gorgeous building. The only historic value is now in its fa�ade and the four walls which is great news for Everyman; we can go in there and rip out the 750 seat balcony that juts out in the middle of the building and have this big, open rectangular shell, go in and add floors and create intimate spaces inside of it.

You'll find no vestiges of crushed red velvet, anything that makes you feel you need to get dressed up to come here. It will be warm and inviting, a place not much larger than our current location, 250 seats to the 170 we have now, because it's not about getting bigger, but getting better.

What the Town has is rehearsal space, classrooms that will allow us to expand our educational programs, a real scene shop, space for offices, for our costume and design people so they can stitch and drape cloth without having to bring sewing machines into the lobby.

The architect is Cho Benn Holback and Associates, they're a local, minority run business and they know just how to get to an organization's core values. They did the design for the Baltimore School for the Arts and the Visionary Arts Museum�they're very creative, just fantastic.

When will the new theater open? Are there any special plans for a kickoff?

We'll open in fall 2011 which will mark the 100^th anniversary of the original Empire Theater. We hope to break ground this spring and begin 18 months of renovation to be ready to open in two years.

What will be your opening production?

That's the million dollar question, what's our first show going to be? I've spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, and the list keeps getting smaller and smaller. I recently was talking with a founder of Arena Stage and she was asking me about the new project. I said what worries me the most is picking out the opening season. Why, she asked. Because it's the inaugural season! She said if I kept thinking that way, I'd never get it chosen! It's a balancing act�my primary responsibility will be to ensure that everything that makes the Everyman special here will be special there. You don't want to become a completely different organization because of a physical building. So I'm spending an inordinate amount of time with designers and the creative team, examining the view from every seat to make sure that the audience can reach out and touch the actors still.

Are there productions that you wouldn't have tackled in the old space that you now feel free to pursue in the new?

At the Everyman we have 11 foot ceilings; we'll have 25 foot ceilings at the Town. We will be able to do bigger plays, plays with larger casts, plays that require multiple sets and quick transitions, plays that require two stories or a balcony scene like "Noises Off" or "Romeo and Juliet" for that matter. If we try to do a balcony scene now at the Everyman, the balcony has to be three feet off the floor! You can't go up any steps in the Everyman. We will have trap doors in the floor and will be able to do scenes where actors appear and disappear more frequently. That will make it easier to do more farcical plays which require more stage trickery.

What's involved in moving a theater company from one location to the next? Will productions still be underway during the move or will the theater go on sabbatical for a period?

In a perfect world, we won't miss a beat. The move will take place over the summer when we are dark anyway, but still requires a quick move. We usually end our season in the third week in June giving us July and August to move into the building and get everything ready. I'm sure with most openings you are still finishing the paint in the lobby and lying carpet just before the first audience comes in. Hopefully things won't be that tight, but we'll try to avoid any work stoppages so we won't lose momentum.

Will this relocation impact ticket costs?

One of the realities of moving to a new space is, it will be easier to keep our tickets affordable. As your percentage of audience who are subscribers increases, that means you're selling more and more discounted tickets and getting fewer full price tickets, plus you're decreasing your inventory of tickets available to the general public. So as the cost of producing theater goes up, the only way to bring in more money, beyond fundraising, is to raise ticket prices. And ticket prices would have to go up if we stay here.

Our mission of being affordable and accessible to everyone is in danger. In the new space, we'll have more inventory and the capability of turning plays around faster, like in 48 hours. All the seating is mechanized, everything is mechanized; we can build scenery and store it another room on site while another play is running, we can change the seating configuration. Now it would take a week to 10 days to do this. By turning over plays quickly, it's easier to extend hit shows. Being more efficient this way saves money.

So will the Everyman own the Town Theater outright?

We already currently own it. The Bank of American gave us the deed.

What new amenities can patrons expect?

Hey, there's only one way to go and that's up! We will have a nice, welcoming lobby with a mezzanine for receptions, a generous concessions area so we can expand our offerings and more bathrooms, particularly women's bathrooms, so our patrons will thank us greatly for that!

You'll be sitting in real cushioned theater seats, not chairs bought at Staples. Now we have patrons who bring in their own cushions who have learned that watching a classic at the Everyman can be painful on their tush! There will be good leg room as you can't enjoy a play if you're squeezed into your seat so you can barely breath and you're knocking your knees on the chair in front of you. There will be an elevator, and parking is directly across the street, so you won't have to scour the neighborhood for a place to park. We have guaranteed parking for 300 for every performance and that's great.

On the Everyman website, you are quoted as saying that this is where you will "come of age." What does that mean exactly?

Like so many young theater companies, we're scrappy. We try and create champagne on a beer budget and that may always be the case. Theater people are good at doing that, having to constantly create magic with very few resources. I feel that what happens is as you develop personally and professionally, you want more. You want to be able to fully realize the set of a classic play, you want to be able to design and build from scratch, make your period costumes for a Shakespeare piece. You want to be able to rehearse with some scenery and not have to imagine everything. You want the columns that are in the way to get out of the way, you want a well-designed, well-equipped performing space. It's like when you buy a house�you want to own it and you want more space so you can grow in it and feel at home.

Given your 19 years as the Everyman's artistic director, what's your favorite production? And do you have a favorite actor?

I have several favorites, you start to list, you always leave one out! There's Cat on a Hot Tin Room, Proof, I Am My Own Wife, School for Scandal, Amadeus, The Glass Menagerie�a lot of the classics. Though The Mystery of Irma Vep (now in an extended run at Everyman) is one of the funniest things we have ever done and celebrates everything that's theatrical.

Kyle Prue is one of our founders at Everyman and was in our resident company for about 14-15 years. He is now our production manager and so a very integral part since Day One. He's heading up the physical production instead of acting, but he misses the acting so I think you'll see him back on the stage again. Stan Weiman has been here for the same amount of time. Deb Hazlett now resides in Baltimore, but used to live in New York and played in many regional theaters across the country.

Anything else you'd like to add?

This is the busiest season we've had in the history of the Everyman. We will have mounted eight productions with a core full-time production staff of four, and probably 25 part-timers. We are bursting at the seams and anxious to get to the next stage. We are ready. We are going to come through the other site of this extremely exciting, invigorated theater, and I think our patrons will be thrilled with it. It will be a new day for Everyman and for Baltimore.