Adirondack Theatre Festival And Proctors Collaborative Explore Partnership

Adirondack Theatre Festival and Proctors Collaborative have entered into a three-year agreement to expand shared services and explore how the two will partner more significantly over the long term.

Proctors Collaborative has provided ATF with set construction and marketing services on a fee basis for the past three seasons and cross-marketed for over five years. These efforts have led to conversations about the production of theatre in the Capital Region, the state of locally produced professional theaters around the country and the opportunities for ATF, the Collaborative and its affiliate Capital Repertory Theatre to work together. The goal is to imagine and deliver ever-better professional theater with ever-more stable means and methods for the larger community.

To this end, the parties have signed a memorandum of understanding to determine how the organizations might share creative and administrative resources at a challenging time for American theatre.

“Our donor community and funding communities and the Cultural Industry in general are focusing more and more on collaborations and efficiencies. Proctors Collaborative was born of that sensibility; the opportunity to connect and work with the region's other significant professional theater company just makes sense at this point,” said Philip Morris, CEO of Proctors Collaborative.

Glens Falls-based ATF has operated a summer season for three decades under an agreement with the Actors' Equity Association, casting actors, designers and directors who have worked regularly on and off-Broadway, on television and in movies. ATF stages its productions in the Charles R. Wood Theater, a separate organization.

ATF has a long track record of incubating new works. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Miriam Weisfield it presented a new draft of a musical based on the 1988 film “Mystic Pizza” in 2022, and the following year debuted “Pump Up the Volume,” based on the 1990 Christian Slater film. This summer it staged a concert presentation of the musical “The King's Wife,” created by two-time Grammy-nominated Nashville songwriter Jamie Floyd and award-winning playwright Mêlisa Annis and directed by Tamilla Woodard (“Hadestown”). Also this season, it staged the world premiere of “Todd vs. the Titanic” from the creators of “Murder for Two,” which debuted at ATF in 2010 and has since toured the U.S. and overseas.

Under the leadership of Producing Artist Director Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill, Albany's Capital Repertory Theatre has a longer but similar history. Since its founding in 1976, it has produced over 300 shows across 6,000 performances, including 46 world premieres. It is the Capital Region's only League of Resident Theatres member.

EGOT-winning songwriters/producers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul premiered their first professional production of "Edges" at theREP in 2007; it has since been performed across five continents. Additionally, many of theREP's NEXT ACT! New Play Summit winners have gone to multiple productions across the country including Suzanne Bradbeer's “The God Game,” Jenny Stafford's “Secret Hour” and “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” the Neil Sedaka musical.

“There is a theatrical ecosystem that we can leverage between ATF, theREP and Proctors Collaborative,” said Martha Banta, a co-founder of ATF in 1994 and associate director of “Mamma Mia!” on Broadway and the national tours, and the original resident director of “RENT” for New York Theatre Workshop, Broadway, two national tours and London. 

“As we all are still recovering from the pandemic in the theater industry, entering into a deeper creative exchange is a tremendous vote of confidence in ATF from our colleagues at Proctors Collaborative,” added Banta.

Photo credit:  Jim McLaughlin

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