🔒Long Wharf’s Leap of Faith

Will the dramatically new direction planned for New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre turn around its declining fortunes of the past few years and usher in a new era — and a new, more engaged audience?

Or will it drive the theater deeper into debt and decline?

When the announcement was made last November that Jacob G. Padrón would become Long Wharf’s new artistic director, it came as a surprise to many.

After all, at 38 he was the youngest LWT artistic director since Arvin Brown who, just out of college, took over two years after the theater was founded 54 years ago. Also Padrón, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, wasn’t a stage director but was a producer, having founded the Sol Project, an organization that champions Latino/Latina playwrights and helps bring their works to theaters across the country.

Perhaps most significantly, Padrón became the first Latino person to lead a major theater in Connecticut, especially one that has not been known for producing Latinx works (though the population of its host city is roughly evenly distributed among Latino, African-American and white residents).

Padrón represents not a gradual, but a dramatic departure from the theater’s recent focus, which begs the question: Will the established Long Wharf audience and — most critical to its bottom line — its funders embrace the new leader and his vision?

“We want to be a theatre company that is radically inclusive,” says Padrón, “one that is artistically innovative and that is constantly thinking about meaningful connections where art and activism can live side by side. I think this is the future.”

Early indicators

Long Wharf is betting the farm on it.

It’s too early to get any hard data. After all, Padrón took over full-time only on July 1 and the first season (2021-22) that will be entirely his own creation won’t even be announced until early next year.

But early indications are promising, at least from corporate, foundation and leading individual funders — which is good news for a theater that’s experienced a rough few years.

In January 2018, LWT fired its longtime artistic director Gordon Edelstein over allegations of inappropriate physical and verbal behavior in the workplace. The past two years produced six-figure — and more — deficits for the company and ongoing debt (offset by a $14 million endowment that contributes $700,000 a year to LWT’s $6 million operating budget).

Its current lease of its Long Wharf Drive facility is also up in 2022, and no decision has yet been made by the theater’s New Haven Food Terminal landlord regarding its renewal — or not.

And most recently, LWT’s managing director of 13 years, Joshua Borenstein, who had been handling the artistic director duties as well as his management ones since the Edelstein firing, departed Long Wharf last month for a variety of reasons, both personal and professional.

That’s a lot for a new artistic director to absorb and move forward.

But the new artistic/activism direction that Padrón plans to take the theater in is actually an old one, he says, going back to the community-centric, social-justice mission of the theater when it was born in 1965.

“We were founded to tell the stories of New Haven to reflect the community and to engage in a lifelong conversation with all who call New Haven home,” he says — and that original mission is as relevant as ever to the present day.

“What the American theater is right now,” Padrón says, “is really is up grabs with cultural institutions asking themselves: What are we doing? How are we doing it? And are we really being of service to our community? The world is on fire and we have to use art to extinguish [the fire] and bring people together. That is our work.”

But how will an audience accustomed to a menu that was strong in Western world classics, react?

“We’re going to be in conversation with our current audience and working hard with messaging and outreach,” says LWT board chair Laura Pappano, “so no one feels excluded. We welcome all who want to come along for the ride.”

Adds Padrón: “We’re not trying to create hard edges [between] those coming from the neighboring countries to those who are hyper-local. It’s a space for all.”

Checkbooks & balances

Response so far has been strong from those wielding the checkbooks.

“Jacob has garnered much attention and large national foundations are paying attention to Long Wharf in a way they haven’t in a long time,” says acting managing director Kit Ingui.

The Andrew Mellon Foundation has awarded LWT a six-figure grant to support new initiatives and Padrón’s early tenure. The theater’s major philanthropists are supporting Padrón and his team “to a person,” says Pappano. (A six-figure grant from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Studies was secured before Padrón’s arrival, but dovetails with his inclusive agenda.)

Most interestingly, a five-figure grant in seed money from a major media corporation will be announced shortly, Pappano says. This will support the theater in the development of a pilot program for stage talent to work across multiple platforms.

“This will be an unprecedented partnership,” says Pappano.

And one of the reasons Padrón was hired.

“Our leadership structure across the field is changing,” he says. “There was a time when artistic directors were stage directors and the theater companies that they ran were platforms for their own artistry. What happened was the institution was really about that, rather than building out a vision of what was best for the company and the community.

“There is a trend that is now happening of [hiring] producers who understand the business of running a theater but who also have the artistic background,” Padrón adds. “I come to this as a creative producer.”

Downtown bound?

Where does all this leave key LWT strategic objective established long before Padrón’s arrival?

Last spring, Long Wharf — in a partnership with the Shubert Theatre and Albertus Magnus College — bid on a College Street/Crown Street space that had became available. When that deal didn’t happen the consortium looked at other properties downtown and even revisited at the original property when the awardee of the earlier bid pulled out of the deal.

When asked if the board and Padrón feels an imperative to have a presence downtown, Pappano is circumspect.

“We want the right solution at the right price and the right time frame,” she says. “We’re looking at all the different actions and we’re doing it very aggressively. There are a lot of conversations [happening] with people around town. New Haven real estate is...complicated.”

Pappano also says there are no plans to undertake a search for a new managing director. Since Borenstein left, Ingui, who was the theater’s associate managing director since 2017, has served as acting managing director.

“I think we have a great leadership team in Jacob, Kit and Betty [Elizabeth Monz, LWT’s director of external affairs] and we have tremendous confidence in Kit,” Pappano says. “We will make a decision about the future of that [position] later. Read into that what you will.”

Will the LWT board allow sufficient time to let Padrón’s vision succeed?

The board is there to support Padrón’s vision, but developing a new audience without losing the old one may take time, Pappano acknowledges.

Consumer tastes and habits have greatly changed since the 1980s, when Long Wharf had 15,000 subscribers and an audience that would fill the seats no matter what was on stage. It now has but 4,000 subscribers and attracts some 50,000 to 60,000 ticket-buyers a year to its mainstage and Stage II performance spaces.

“There’s going to be a lot of excitement from the get-go [when the new season is announced],” Pappano predicts. “There’s going to be some people who are early adapters who will be right there — and others will take longer to figure it out.”

Says Padrón, who has a four-year contract with the theater: “In order to be a theater company for all the people it’s going to take time. But we are committed in investing that time and developing a new social contract with our community.”

Pappano points to dynamic theater happening in New York and the success those shows have had — especially for younger audiences, who are now majority non-white. “The future in audience development is offering programming that speaks to them.”