Trinity’s Curt Columbus Previews Season

Friday, September 10, 2010

GoLocalProv Lifestyle Team

Though Curt Columbus has been the Artistic Director at Trinity Repertory Company since 2006, the anticipation at the start of a new season is anything but old hat. “I’m always nervous!” he said, clarifying it’s a “happy nervous” he shares with the company on the eve of the first performance of the season. Considering the company entertains an estimated annual audience of approximately 120,000, it's no wonder the butterflies come back.

Coming Soon

Tonight’s performance of Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot, which runs through October 10 in Trinity Rep’s Chace Theater, opens the company’s 47^th season. “We really wanted to make our season about legacy; what we leave behind, and what we pay forward, so we’re doing a lot of plays about that,” he explained. Opening with Camelot was a natural, he noted, explaining the King Arthur’s story has been told since the 1100s and continues to be told though the ages. Classics including The Crucible, and Steel Magnolias follow later in the season, in addition to the perennial holiday favorite, A Christmas Carol. In the more intimate Dowling Theater, Columbus brings Absurd Person Singular, a “comedic romp” that follows three married couples through three disastrous Christmas parties; It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, a unique stage adaptation of the beloved film performed as a radio play, broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1946; Yellowman, a two character play surrounding internal racism between light and dark skinned African Americans; and The Completely Fictional - Utterly True - Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe, a world premiere work by company member Stephen Thorne; as well as the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA program productions. He described the season ahead as “eclectic,” and “intellectually challenging but its also entertaining at the same time.”

Road to the Rep

Columbus revealed that growing up in rural Pennsylvania, his parents’ collection of albums was the only link he had to Broadway and musical theater. But they were inspiring, and led Columbus to pursue a career in the arts, leading him to Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company as associate artistic director prior to Trinity Rep. He directed his own translation of Cherry Orchard for Trinity, as well as productions of The Odd Couple, Cabaret, The Secret Rapture, The Receptionist, A Christmas Carol, Memory House and Blithe Spirit. Trinity was home to the world premieres of two of his plays, Paris by Night and The Dreams of Antigone.

As the hours pass closer and closer to the season opener, Columbus with eager bated breath. “It’s not like a movie, where you finish it and send it out on its own,” he explained. “For us, until the audience arrives, it doesn’t exist- they complete us.”

For a complete schedule or to purchase tickets for any of the 2010-2011 shows, visit www.trinityrep.com, discounted and rush tickets available.