Theater company mixes modern classics with world premieres
By Telly Halkias, Vermont Country correspondent.
DORSET — From June to September, audiences in and around Southern Vermont can see world-class theater in their own backyards. The Dorset Theatre Festival, currently in its 47th season, is a nationally renowned organization playing a crucial role in the greater ecosystem of the American theater.
With seasons comprised of new plays in conversation with celebrated staples from playwrights giants, the Festival is known to host Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe-winning actors at the historic Dorset Playhouse, starring in productions that have a history of transferring to Broadway and off-Broadway houses.
Dorset Theatre Festival was born June 1976, when John Nassivera and Jill Charles rented the historic Dorset Playhouse for the summer (still currently owned and operated by the Dorset Players Inc. since 1929) and presented a professional season under the name of Harlequin Ltd.
Since then, the Festival has established a commitment to present a summer season with both new plays and classics in tandem.
Early works by playwrights like Beth Henley, Leslie Ayvasian and John Patrick Shanley made regional premieres at the Festival throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with successful world premieres or off-Broadway productions following. This gave the Festival’s rural audiences a feel for the industry’s pulse in New York.
In the 1990s, the Festival began to produce unpublished works as world premieres. A young Cynthia Nixon in 1992 starred in a new play called “The Country Club,” by Douglas Carter Beane. In 1999, it went on to its first production in New York, where Nixon was joined by actor Amy Sedaris for an acclaimed off-Broadway premiere that garnered two Drama Desk award nominations in 2000.
The Festival’s commitment to new plays gained momentum in 2009 when incoming artistic director, Dina Janis, teamed up with Theresa Rebeck, Broadway’s most-produced female playwright, to enhance the Festival’s commitment to new work. Spring 2010 marked the first season in which the Festival would host a playwriting retreat started by Rebeck and The Lark Playwriting Center in 2007, and the first season the Festival would produce a New Play Reading Series. In that same season, the Festival mounted the world première of Rebeck’s Pulitzer Prize finalist, “The Novelist.”
This success attracted high-level talent to Dorset for both readings and Main Stage productions. In 2012, the Festival staged the world première of Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cristofer’s “The Whore and Mr. Moore,” starring Oscar nominee Judd Hirsch. By 2015, playwright Martyna Majok held a reading of her brand-new play “The Cost of Living,” and just two years later, it played to audiences at New York City Center, followed by its 2018 Pulitzer Prize.
Increasingly, the summer season grew into a venue for new plays, and Rebeck became the Festival’s resident playwright. Rebeck’s “The Way of the World” premiered at Dorset in 2016, starring Obie Award-winner and Tony Nominee Kristine Nielsen. The Festival’s 2017 world premiere of Rebeck’s “Downstairs,” starring Tim and Tyne Daly, transferred to New York City the following fall, produced by Primary Stages.
In 2018, American Theatre magazine celebrated the Festival for being one of the first stages to present the groundbreaking new play “Cry It Out” by Molly Smith Metzler, before it became one of the most-produced plays in the country. The New Play Reading Series became the Pipeline Series, adding week-long retreats for each play featuring union actors and directors from NYC.
“Dig,” written and directed by Rebeck, saw its world premiere in 2019 at Dorset, winning an Edgerton New Play Award and the Berkshire Theatre Critics Association Award for Best New Play. This past August, it debuted off-Broadway at Primary Stages and became a New York Times Critics’ Pick and was nominated for the 2024 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Play. Originally workshopped in Dorset in 2022, “I Need That,” also by Rebeck and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, ran on Broadway this past December at the Roundabout Theatre Company starring Danny DeVito, Lucy DeVito and Ray Anthony Thomas.
The 2023 world premiere production of “Still” by Lia Romeo made its New York City premiere this spring in a production by Colt Coeur. Tony nominee Jayne Atkinson and Emmy nominee Tim Daly reprised their roles from the play’s acclaimed run at Dorset.
Entering its 47th Season, executive artistic director Will Rucker and managing creative director Ryan Koss are committed to keeping the Festival’s legacy and tradition of producing new plays alive. So the 2024 season will conclude with the world premiere of “True Art” by Jessica Provenz, directed by Michelle Joyner. Jayne Atkinson is slated to return this summer to lead the cast.
“Sometimes stars align,” Provenz said. “This favorite child of mine, ‘True Art,’ is being launched into the world by this gem of a theater under the helm of the savvy and bold Michelle Joyner. I couldn’t be more excited to see what happens at Dorset Theatre Festival this summer!”
Rucker added that world premieres remain the Festival’s passion: “We are so thrilled to welcome Jessica into the family and to share this new work with our home audience before it goes on to take the country by storm.”
The Festival also dedicates resources to developing plays for future productions, whether that be in Dorset or beyond. Sarah Gancher’s play “Russian Troll Farm” won a special citation Obie award and was named one of the year’s 10 best productions of 2020 by the New York Times. She also enters her third summer in Vermont developing her epic bluegrass adaptation of “Eugene Onegin,” based on Pushkin’s novel-in-verse and Tchaikovsky’s opera of the same name.
“What’s most rewarding is being able to create world-class work with these professionals and share it with our community in Southern Vermont,” Rucker said. “We hope they feel as proud and honored as we do to have been part of the journey of so many great works and artists.”
If you go …
Dorset Theatre Festival is at 104 Chaney Road, Dorset. For tickets visit dorsettheatrefestival.org, call 802-867-2223, or stop by the box office.
Telly Halkias found his way to Bennington County on a blind date while in college, and vowed to live here one day. While the romance fizzled, years later he made good on that promise. Telly has spent two decades freelancing features, reviews and columns for so many regional outlets that he’s often mistaken by readers as a staff writer somewhere — but where exactly they have no clue. Telly has also been fired a few times, only to be rehired almost immediately after minor subscriber revolts. His greatest source of joy is when locals stop him while grocery shopping to discuss 15-year-old columns from which they can still quote lines. Reach award-winning freelance journalist Telly Halkias: tchalkias@aol.com, X: @TellyHalkias
