Women's History Month Spotlight on Manhattan Theatre Club

Last in a five-part series on female artistic directors

You probably know Lynne Meadow. She has been artistic director of the Manhattan Theatre Club almost since its inception in 1970, so you may have noticed her name in Playbills from MTC shows or on posters outside the Samuel J. Friedman (formerly the Biltmore) Theatre, or another Broadway house when MTC transferred a show there. Or you’ve seen her on stage at the Tonys accepting the award for Best Play, most recently in 2005 for Doubt.

Mandy Greenfield you might not know—yet. She too is a woman who runs the show. Helps run it right alongside Lynne Meadow, in fact. When I went to interview Meadow for this series, she heartily recommended that Greenfield join us.

Greenfield, the associate artistic director, is in her sixth season at MTC. She had interned there while attending Yale, then went on to run the off-Broadway theater companies Blue Light and Basic Grammar, producing such shows as Betty Rules and Texarkana Waltz. “Lynne and I stayed in touch over the years and she invited me back,” Greenfield says. She was hired in 2003 as an artistic associate, later promoted to director of artistic operations and—when Michael Bush left MTC after 22 years to run a regional theater in his native North Carolina—assumed her current post in May 2007.

That was right before Meadow took a year’s sabbatical, leaving Greenfield to plan the 2008-09 season with acting artistic director Daniel Sullivan. It got off to a shaky start last fall, as the Broadway adaptation of To Be or Not to Be closed early and John Patrick Shanley’s off-Broadway musical Romantic Poetry garnered some unkind reviews. But in this second half of the season, Richard Greenberg’s The American Plan just wrapped a successful run on Broadway, while Ruined and Humor Abuse have been extended on MTC’s off-Broadway stages at City Center. (Those two shows also both happen to be directed by women: Kate Whoriskey and Erica Schmidt, respectively.)

Ruined, Lynn Nottage’s drama about rape survivors in the war-torn Congo and the maternal bar/brothel owner who cares for them, has emerged as one of the jewels of the entire theater season in New York, and the play, its cast, director and designers are likely to be recognized when award nominations start being announced next month. Nottage’s 2004 play Intimate Apparel won Drama Desk, Obie, Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle awards.

I sat down with Meadow and Greenfield last week to talk about Ruined and other MTC shows, as well as the company’s philosophy and history, and to get insights on women working in theater from the women in charge of one of NYC’s most prominent theaters. Meadow also told me she plans to direct one or two shows on the MTC slate next season. She last directed Our Leading Lady and The American Pilot during the 2006-07 season.

Mandy, do you consider Lynne your mentor?
Hugely. I think before I worked really closely with Lynne, I considered MTC a mentor, because every part of my training on how I think about plays and how I respect writers and dignify the written word as the primal force of the theater is because of my time at MTC in our literary office while I was in college. I was the beneficiary of a philosophy that trickled down from Lynne to the interns, and I really absorbed that. So I think this place has always been in the fabric of my way of working—or is the fabric of my way of working. And to come [back] here and have the benefit of working as closely as I do and learning as much as I do from Lynne, it’s been an extraordinary experience.

LYNNE: And I for Mandy. A relationship like this is a two-way street, so I learn a tremendous amount from working with Mandy. Very fulfilling.

How important is mentoring to women in theater?
MANDY: I can only speak for myself. For me, without question, working for an expert who is a woman has had unbelievable benefits both personally and professionally. I had a baby 10 months ago. So in addition to an incredible learning curve under Lynne’s guidance and leadership, I’ve also been allowed—and encouraged—to have a life as a woman. And I don’t think that that’s anything to be taken for granted. I know a lot of women of my generation who do not feel that they have mentors who are particularly understanding when it comes to a work/life balance, because they are of a generation where they didn’t have mentors who were women who were saying, “It’s okay, you can do both.” I feel extraordinarily blessed, frankly, to be sitting in this spot, and to be able to learn to do it all.

LYNNE: And I feel blessed too because, of course, my generation was the generation that was saying “Can you do it all?” And there’s Katharine Hepburn sitting in her pants with her legs up on the coffee table saying to Dick Cavett “You can’t do it all.” And people like Mandy want to do it all—I wanted to do it all—and to find a way to do that and to try to support each other...it’s not just kumbaya, though. Mandy is a consummate professional. I feel like there’s no sense of sacrifice. It’s just finding a way to fit things in. And it’s a pleasure for me to see the next generation, to work with the next generation.

Lynne, have you raised a family while running MTC?
Mmm-hmm. I have one son and he’s 24.

Does it affect a theater to be headed by women rather than men?
MANDY: We do these intern seminars, and each of the senior members of the staff leads one. One of the interns said, “I see Lynne as the artistic director, and you’re the associate artistic director, and we have such a rich history of having female directors and female playwrights on the stage. Is that deliberate? Is there a particular focus?” In answering I said, “I don’t think there’s a particular focus, but I think there’s a sensibility that can’t help but inform certain choices.” If a theater company is led by a strong woman, you’re going to see stories of and instances of strong women everywhere. I cherish that, because it’s important to me in a non-agenda-driven way but in a sensibility way.

Lynne, what has changed for women in theater in the 35-plus years that you’ve been running MTC?
We definitely now see women in major positions of power. I mean it: Mandy Greenfield’s a powerhouse. When I started, that wasn’t the case. We didn’t have too many role models. When I went to Yale, I was the only woman director there in my second year. When I came to New York, Ellen Stewart was running La Mama, Zelda Fichandler was at the Arena [Stage in Washington] and Margaret Jones in Texas, and that was it. There were no women who were heads of theater companies. Now you look around the country and at the theaters in New York City, there are definitely more. It’s still tougher in New York. As in all fields, we had to prove ourselves.

What hasn’t changed?
There’s things we can’t take for granted. I don’t think I ever had an aesthetic agenda, to say “Okay, we have to have X number of women’s plays, X number of women directors.” But, as Mandy said, certain things were inevitable so that we’ve done our fair share. But we’re not the Women’s Project. I wanted a theater company that had the best men, the best women, the best everything, and was not gender-oriented. I certainly think it’s easier for women now. Mandy has brought into the Manhattan Theatre Club a new generation of women directors: Leigh Silverman, Anna Shapiro, Carolyn Cantor. But we just can’t take for granted that it can be trickier for women. There’s no question there are times when it can be trickier.

In what way?
Well...I think there’s some people who aren’t as open to, maybe, taking direction—that doesn’t mean as a director—guidance from a woman. We’ve worked with some [male] directors who are more or less open and...we don’t want to name names, we don’t want to indict anybody, but we’ve had people...
Mandy is really on the line with shepherding a lot of our shows, and she has brilliant things to say about how a show should move. It hasn’t been that many—it’s not the majority—but we just have to be aware that there are some people who will be more reluctant for nothing having to do with sensibility and ability. [To Mandy] Wouldn’t you say that’s fair?

MANDY: I think that’s fair.

LYNNE: On the other hand, we’re pretty cheerful. We have great relationships with a lot of people, with wonderful directors: Joe Mantello, most of these people... I used to say that I’ve been in a cocoon for a long time, because I was very young when I started at this theater. I was 25 years old, and I sort of created this place with an ethos that I wanted to work in. I think I was protected a lot from some of the things that tend to be out there when women are knocking on doors.

How did you first get involved with MTC, Lynne?
The theater was founded by a group of businessmen in 1970. These businessmen were looking for an alternative to Broadway. There was a burgeoning off-off-Broadway movement, there was a little off-Broadway, and there was Broadway. There was a man from Chicago who was the first artistic director. I was hired in the 1972-73 season to be the artistic executive director. Someone who was on the search committee saw a play that I directed and asked me if I was interested. I had been directing a show—a play called All Through the House, by someone I’d gone to Yale with named Tony Scully. I didn’t realize I had to produce the show too, because I didn’t know what that was. I had raised the money as a way to direct the show. 
[At the time] I needed a day job, so I’d been going to Zabar’s. I lived on the Upper West Side, and I would stop at Zabar’s and ask if they had a job in their cheese department—’cause I’d lived in France and I liked cheese. Every day I’d stop and talk to [Zabar’s co-owner] Murray Klein and say “Do you have a job?” I stopped in one day in July and said “Do you have a job?” and he said, “Yeah, we do.” So I thought: Great, I’m going to the cheese department. I’m set now! And I’ll do my directing on the side. Then I had to decide between the cheese department and Manhattan Theatre Club.

Is there a show you consider MTC’s greatest success?
LYNNE: I really can’t answer that. I think our biggest success has probably been sustained excellence. We’ve had some seasons that are less popular than others, but we’ve never gone too long without doing some really great work. I would call that our greatest success.
Manhattan Theatre Club consists of the people who work here, who make the artistic policy. We work together as an artistic team. The quality of the people who work here and the quality of the people on our stages—the quality of the artists who have come and hung our hats. Then there’s some great shows that have come out of here. If you go into Barnes & Noble and look at the books of contemporary playwrights—how many plays began at the Manhattan Theatre Club. I remember when I was in college, I would look in the front cover of the paperbacks and there were all these plays that came out of the Royal Court Theatre, all these people came out of the Royal Court Theatre. And I think that idea was very exciting to me, that there would be a place where people would want to come. There have been some great writers who have called MTC home. But I think we’re as proud of plays that people maybe have never heard of as the things that have had long runs and Pulitzer Prizes. I mean, we get married every time we do a show.

MANDY: You start out with the same intensity and commitment to every play, and however it turns out, it’s not about the endgame, it’s about the process. It’s a little bit like, probably, being in a car crash seven times a year: You just keep getting in the car and driving.

LYNNE: What’s interesting is if you look at the plays that we’re probably most known for...since 2000, plays that have been done at MTC have been the recipients of three Pulitzer Prizes. We have a lot of pride in that, but our objective has been to do good work, to support writers, to support the process. I don’t think our tendency is to go in and say “This show is going to get to Broadway and win a Pulitzer, or win a Tony.” From the beginning I’ve said that is only a byproduct of the work; that’s not the goal. Mandy read and I read and the person who’s the head of artistic development read John Patrick Shanley’s play Doubt. We all loved it. We read it overnight, came in the next morning and said, “Let’s do it.” We did not sit down and say: “Oh, let’s do this play and then maybe it’ll run on Broadway and then maybe it’ll win the Tony and all those other awards, and then it’ll be a feature film.” We don’t think that way.

MANDY: Truthfully, we’re always surprised when plays turn out to be bigger than...

LYNNE: We’re surprised and never surprised.

MANDY: I guess the way to say this is we’re not focused on it.

LYNNE: We’re focused on trying to make it really good—to work with the director and to work with the vision of it and make it a good experience for the audience.
We did Ain’t Misbehavin’ years ago, 1977. Richard Maltby had been directing a play that didn’t do that well. He felt so bad. I said to him, “Remember that Fats Waller idea you were talking about? We have to do something in the cabaret in February.” We were doing like 10 things a year, we were such bunnies. And I said, “Why don’t you do it? I need a slot. I need to put something in there.” A little 65-seat cabaret. Was I surprised? Well, sure. We were doing it because we had to fill a slot in February. We’re not sitting here going: Okay, baby needs a new pair of shoes. Baby needs not just a new pair of shoes, baby needs a layette! We’re not going: All right, this one will make it. We’re a nonprofit theater, and we’re asking people to give money to support what this endeavor is. And that means taking some risks. And I think that’s the spirit that Mandy has come out of, too.

Has MTC been affected by the economic crisis?
LYNNE: Like every nonprofit business, we’re dealing with the issues facing the economy.

Have you been through more difficult times financially?
LYNNE: It’s very challenging. We’ve been through tough times before, but I don’t think this country has seen a time like this. Definitely we’re right up there with everybody, saying “What’s going to happen? How are we going to deal?”
[Ed. note: A couple of days after I spoke with Meadow and Greenfield, MTC executive producer Barry Grove detailed some of the company’s cost-cutting plans in an interview with the New York Times.]

Did you consider opening Ruined on Broadway?
LYNNE: Mandy should talk about Ruined, because Ruined actually was programmed last season when I was on sabbatical. Dan Sullivan was acting artistic director, Mandy was associate artistic director, and together Ruined was created under that artistic direction.

MANDY: When you read a play the first time and you respond to it and know it’s a play that you want to do—which absolutely was the case for Dan and for me when we first read it—then you start asking all of the questions that you have to ask of a play to figure out how you’re best going to serve it. In Ruined’s case, we asked all of the questions across all of our stages: Where would it be best served? And finally the answer emerged as Stage I. You could make an argument retroactively for why it might have been a good choice to open it on Broadway. But that’s only in hindsight, and at the time, we did what we thought was best for that play—which both Lynn Nottage and Kate Whoriskey were very actively collaborating on to develop and strengthen and mold. We were coproducing it with another theater. The Goodman Theatre commissioned the play, and as Lynn was getting ready to turn in the commission and talking with the Goodman, she submitted it to us. Because of the nature of the work, I think Lynn wanted to know that this play was going to be seen. We committed to coproducing it. We did a workshop of it here last summer, in collaboration with the Goodman; we then had a rehearsal period here at MTC that was the preamble to the Chicago production, with the Goodman staff coming here and working very closely with us. It happened on the stage there, and it had a re-rehearsal period in New York. So it was a real hand-holding of two institutions from the moment of commitment to it.

How do you usually decide which play goes in which theater?
MANDY: In Ruined’s case, there were probably three major factors that made the most sense for it. First and foremost were Lynn and Kate’s wishes—how they wanted to work on it. You know, the spotlight of Broadway shines very, very brightly, and the advantage of committing to doing it off-Broadway, in concert with another theater, is that they really are protected in large measure to just do the work and get it right. It’s also a big ensemble piece. And also there were some considerations for the physical space and the fact that we would be doing it in two different theaters—how best to achieve that reality designing it for two different spaces.

LYNNE: And sometimes it’s availability. John Shanley gave us Doubt in June and the only thing we had left was a slot at City Center. We had programmed already our Broadway theater, so that became availability.
We did Proof and [The Tale of the] Allergist’s Wife sort of at the same time, and both of them then moved to Broadway. I had committed Proof to Stage II and Allergist’s Wife to Stage I, ’cause it’s easier to do a comedy not in three-quarters [seating, as Stage II has]. Then Linda Lavin wasn’t available [for Allergist’s Wife], so I said to Dan Sullivan and David Auburn “Do you want to go into Stage I?” because we thought we had to wait on Allergist’s Wife. They were set then for Stage I, and then Linda became available. But I had already promised the theater to Proof, so I said: All right, we’ll do Allergist’s Wife in II. So some of it is...what did Picasso say, when they asked him “Why did you use blue?” “Well, I’d run out of yellow.”

Did either of you participate in the forum last fall about getting more plays by women produced?
LYNNE: No, I did not attend.

MANDY: I could not attend. Jerry [Patch], our director of artistic development, attended. He, actually, was on the panel.

LYNNE: I think this came at a time—

MANDY: I had just come back from maternity leave.

LYNNE: You had come back from maternity leave. I had come back from sabbatical. When that forum happened, we had come off a season where we opened on Broadway a play written by Theresa Rebeck [Mauritius] and we closed the season with a play written by Caryl Churchill [Top Girls].

MANDY: That was also the year we produced Liz Flahive’s play [From Up Here] off-Broadway and—

LYNNE: Pumpgirl...

MANDY: ...[by] Abbie Spallen.

LYNNE: So of the seven plays, four plays were written by women. So it just was an interesting time that that conference came.

Do you think the complaints of bias against women playwrights are valid?
LYNNE: We certainly feel sympathetic, but we have to look at our track record. We really can only speak for our theater—for the work that we’ve done, what our history has been and what our future goals are. As I said, our artistic mission is not to produce plays by any one particular group of writers, be it gender, race, sexual predilection, whatever. So I stand firm in our track record. From the beginning I had a very eclectic sense of artistic merit. Mandy and I are very much in concert about that now—the range of work that we do.

What advice would you offer young women who might aspire to a career like yours?
LYNNE: Just be positive. Back in the late ’60s, I wasn’t accepted at Yale; I was made an alternate. And I wrote a letter to them saying I hope you didn’t turn me down because I’m a woman. Because women really do a great job, and I can be as good as any guy, if not better. I guess I would give that advice: If you think you can do it, go for it.

MANDY: I don’t think my piece of advice would be specific to a woman because I fortunately—in large measure because of Lynne specifically and because of women like Lynne historically—don’t feel like I’ve had to fight for anything that wasn’t mine. I don’t have that disadvantage. The only piece of advice I feel I am in a position to offer is being open to learning at every stage. The best way to have a career in theater is to surround yourself with incredible people to learn from, and learn with.

LYNNE: That’s great advice.

Photos, from top: Lynne Meadow and Mandy Greenfield, the women who run the show at MTC; the Meadow-directed Our Leading Lady, with (from left) Billy Wheelan, Kate Mulgrew and Ann Duquesnay; The American Plan, featuring Kieran Campion and Lily Rabe; Julie White and Brian Hutchison in Liz Flahive’s 2008 off-Broadway hit From Up Here; Brían O’Byrne and Cherry Jones in Doubt; Ruined, starring Saidah Arrika Ekulona (left) and Quincy Tyler Bernstine; last year’s Broadway revival of Top Girls, with (from left) Elizabeth Marvel, Marisa Tomei, Mary Catherine Garrison, Mary Beth Hurt and Martha Plimpton. [Photo credits: Meadow and Greenfield, Bruce Glikas; American Plan, Carol Rosegg; Doubt, Ari Mintz/Newsday; all others, Joan Marcus]

Want to read more from other women artistic directors? This series previously featured interviews with Angelina Fiordellisi, Sarah Benson, Charlotte Moore and Frances Hill. Click here to read about Fiordellisi and the Cherry Lane Theatre, here for Benson and Soho Rep, here for Moore at Irish Rep, and here for Hill of Urban Stages.