BoD Episode 16: Anne Hamburger

Anne Hamburger is the Founding Artistic Director of En Garde Arts, which she established in 1986. Widely credited with pioneering the site-specific theatre movement in the United States, Hamburger has spent four decades redefining how and where performance happens, transforming city streets, historic landmarks, and public spaces into stages for ambitious, large-scale work.

Under her leadership, En Garde Arts has developed and produced groundbreaking projects with artists who have gone on to shape the field, including Anne Bogart, Charles L. Mee, Jonathan Larson, and Reza Abdoh, while continuing to champion a new generation of changemakers such as Jared Mezzocchi, Aya Ogawa, Hansol Jung, and The Pack.

Her work defines a model of performance that expands beyond traditional venues, engaging directly with the physical fabric of New York City. It has been recognized with six Obie Awards, two Drama Desk Awards, and an Outer Critics Circle Award.

Anne holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and is the proud mother of two children, Hannah and Owen.

https://www.engardearts.org/

This monthly gathering invites directors and other theatre makers to come together, share experiences, and seek advice in a supportive community. There is often an isolating nature to directing, and this new space aims to foster connection and collaboration. The Board of Directors is an opportunity to set aside time each month to be alongside members of the Directing community all over the world. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

There are artists who make work. And then there are artists who make the conditions for work to exist. Anne Hamburger has spent her career doing the latter. As the founding artistic force behind On-Guard Arts, Anne has been a defining voice in site-specific and immersive performance in New York City. But what struck me most in this conversation is how she understands her role, not simply as a producer, but as what she calls an artistic producer. Someone who recognizes vision early, supports it fiercely, and helps bring it into the world. Her work sits at the intersection of visual art, performance, and urban space, where sight is never just a backdrop, but a living metaphor, something that shapes perception, memory, and meaning. We talk about that, about what site-specific theater actually is beyond the buzzword, and how environment and audience experience are inseparable. But we also talk about leadership, about what it means to sustain an organization over decades, to take risks, to support artists before anyone else sees them, and to keep adapting in a constantly shifting cultural landscape. This is a conversation about stewardship, about perception, and about the quiet power of creating space for others. This is my conversation with Anne Hamburger. So Anne, you and I have never met before, but your work has shaped the rooms I've been in for years when you weren't even there through the artists that you've supported. When you look at your career, do you think of yourself as an artist, a producer, or something else entirely?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

I think of myself as an artistic producer. So, yeah, a creative producer. I mean, the issue is that the term creative producer is thrown around way too loosely, you know. But uh I um well, I had a vision for wanting to start a site-specific theater. Um, so I did. Um, in 1986, I actually began it as my third-year thesis project at Yale. And um I work very closely with the artists. Uh, first of all, I choose the artists um that we work with looking for people who have visions that are um complementary to um mine and to the work of the company who are in it and ready for the long haul, because our work generally takes about three years, because we always start shows from the ground up. Um, and who are respectful, good human beings also. Like, do they treat other people well? I think one of the important things is do they listen, you know. So I'm this is my vision that I've had since the beginning, and this is our 40th anniversary, um, happy to say.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

I think we're actually in better shape than we've ever been, I have to say, which I'm very proud about. But yeah, so you know, part dramaturg, part mother, part coach, um, part guide, um, part enabler, you know, in terms of I need to find financial support, emotional support, creative support for artists. And sometimes the projects start off with a vision I have, and I then assemble a team. So there's no one size fits all. Everything's very bespoke to the individual project.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

And where does that desire, you say it's your your third-year thesis project. So this is something that's been burning in you from a very long time. Where what where did that come from? Like what was what's the origin story of I want to start a theater company in the hardest way to make a theater company in one of the hardest towns to make site-specific theater in. Where does that where does that drive come from?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

You know, I didn't start off in the theater. I started off when I went to undergraduate school, I, which was probably, you know, in the 70s. It was the beginning of the conceptual art movement. And I went to undergraduate school as an as a visual artist. Um, and I discovered the world of earthworks, environmental sculpture, um, and conceptual art, and also started reading a lot of psychology books and books about human behavior and culture and forms, how people behave. And so for me, my artistic practice when I was in college and then for quite a few years afterwards was all about creating performance art. It wasn't theater. I started off in doing performance art. And like the very first thing I did in my undergraduate year was uh I was at UMass, and there was there was a huge tall library there. And I literally got the architecture department to draw a two-dimensional representation of the library next to it. Then I got the gym department to come out and spread lime where the lines that the architecture department had drawn. Then I went to the rooftop of the library and I took pictures of how people's walking behavior across this field was impacted by this design that I laid down on the field. So that's where I started from. So I come to the theater from a very visual place, a place where I've always been interested in how space and place and human behavior find their way into the making of work. And so when I trans, you know, kind of transferred, as you might say, or evolved into theater from performance art, it was very much with that foundation in mind.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

What do people misunderstand about site-specific work? Do you think?

SPEAKER_00 6:39

I think there are, I don't know, people, but I think one of the least impactful endeavors with site-specific work is is to look at it literally. Like I'm writing a play that takes place in a bar, so I'm gonna go find a bar. Um I don't think that's I think the best of site-specific is when the site is used as metaphor or when the site is used as a basis for the community community stories that evolve out of the particular place, either it's history or the working life of people who are there now. But when somebody's like, I'm gonna, I just gonna find a bar, and then I'm gonna do my play in the bar, and I'm gonna charge admission, and people could come into the bar because it's a bar, and like, use a theater.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Don't use a bar, use a theater. So I think that's yeah, I perceive that.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

So, I mean, as you're talking about with this this idea of the the library and the field, it's more about perception than it is about location. Or can you even pull those two things apart? Are they overlapped in other perception and location?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

You can't put them apart. It's both. It's both. I mean, that library was this huge edifice that was erected on the campus of UMass and was a bit controversial at the time. Until it was on thing, you know. It wasn't just any building that I chose. It was the, you know, this huge new big red brick 22-story building.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

We did a production in Singapore that Singapore is a is a place that is constantly building. There's there's nothing older than about 15 or 20 years because they'll tear it down and they'll build something up new. And we were doing a performance that was next to a field with a tree, and that's a very rare thing in Singapore to have open space. And we did the performance by the tree, and the very next day a construction crew is coming by and putting up boards around the field that they were going to tear it down. And people still to this day will tell me that they remember that tree. That tree only exists in their memory from the show. And I'd, you know, I would drive past that field, and now there's a big mall in its place. And so that thing of this very ephemeral art that we do can also placemake wherever you're at, can kind of make a historical marker for something that doesn't exist but only in the memories of those who have that's one of my favorite things about that location and perception. You talked before about enabling these great artists that have come around and made work. How do you recognize something worth supporting before the field catches up to it? You mentioned a kindness, you mentioned the listening, but when you see their work early on and you go, I believe in you, I I support you, even if others don't see it yet. What is it that you're seeing? What is it that you're what is it, what is your gut telling you when you see that? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Because it is a it is my instinct, but I think it's like people who are willing to challenge the status quo, but to do so in a way, but they're committed to telling stories that are accessible because, you know, there's a lot of downtown quote-unquote work, which is very esoteric. Um, and I'm not interested in that work. Like, I'm interested in artists that are interested in breaking the boundaries open to look at new ways of telling stories, but are that that their stories they're interested in telling can reach a lot of different people with different age ranges, different races, different economic brackets. That it's not like art for art's sake, you know. And I think there are a lot of organizations that do that and support artists in that work, and I think it's great, but it's just not what I'm interested in. So and the most successful works that I've done are with artists that are true visionaries. They they have a different way of looking at things, they're willing to move mountains to make to help to partner with me to make it happen. Um, but they really want to reach a lot of people with what they're saying and doing and how they're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

When you started OnGuard Arts in the 80s, I don't I'm just thinking of I'm thinking of regulations, I'm thinking of time period, I'm thinking of the city. Was it easier to make work than being kind of like not seen, not recognized, not known? Or has, you know, streamlined over time the process of permits and who to contact and what to do? Is it has it become an easier process or is it always still reinventing the wheel?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

It's always reinventing the wheel. I think it's harder now than it's ever been.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Because 9-11 changed the world fundamentally. I'm interested in bringing people together in community. And at this point, our world is in such a terrible place that I really want to do things that bring people together in community. I think also it's very important for me that like we can do work that allows people to see places in the city they never have seen before. Like, you know, we're doing Jared Mazzotti's show on the Lower East Side Girls Club Planetarium. Who the hell knows about the Lower East Side Girls Club Planetarium?

SPEAKER_01 12:17

No one. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

And Jared did such a beautiful job directing the wind and the rain for us in Red Hook, which was one of the strongest, most beautiful pieces I've ever done. And that's why, and this is how it happened. He's directing The Wind and the Rain. He walked, we're walking down Eighth Avenue, and he says, Did I ever tell you about my mother? And I said, No. And he said, Well, yeah. When I was in high school, she took me out to a steak dinner and she told me that she was under consideration to go aboard the Challenger. Um, uh, and she withdrew herself from consideration because she got pregnant with me.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

This was three years ago. And I literally said to her, Jared said to him, Jared, that's a show.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Here we are. Now we're opening uh April 29th in the Lower East Side Girls Club Planetarium.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

That's amazing. And now that's now the space makes total sense. It's not, it's it's not a bar to be a show about a bar, but it does have the flavor and feel of Lower East Side Girls Planetarium.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

It really ties together also our vision about outer space with our vision about mortality and immortality. Like Jared tells the story of his relationship to his mother and the secret she kept, and and it's really also about how we as adults are reconciling our relationship with our with our parents. You know, we do that as adolescents, we do that as teenagers, we do that our whole lives, right? And so um he talks about not only his past with his mom and the past, but also with where she is at today because she has dementia. So it's a beautiful, beautiful story. And he's using 80s technology like an overhead projector and cassette tapes and uh video camera. Jared's a he was called the a multimedia whiz by the New York Times. But he's an amazing human being. He's uh good-hearted, he's smart, he's performing, which is a stretch for him, you know. And uh Io Gao, who's a brilliant director, did the nosebleed at Lincoln Center, won one of those big Doris Duke grants, is directing, very innovative group of designers, and we're using the planetarium. And yeah, and there's only 64 seats, and um, I'm very excited about it. And then the next one after that'll be a new play by Chuck Me, the Dan Bogart's directing, which I'm very excited about.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

She spoke about this on the podcast as well. She told everybody about it. So I do hope that they go and see it while they can. How do you choose the spaces? Like, I mean, obviously, once you know what the piece is about, you can start to find the vibes of it, the feeling of that. But do you just have a list of places you've always wanted to work in and then I think that's no, I don't think that's the way I work.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Um, it's not that I choose a space and then go find an artist to use that space. And like, I'll give you an example of the way the wind and the rain happened. I had been following the work of Sarah Gantcher, who I think is a brilliant writer. And um uh we got together at a bar, we're having a drink, and I said, Sarah, what's the show you'd love to do that nobody else would let you do? And she said, Well, I have to tell you that I've been I'm interested in writing a show about this amazing woman named Tuna Johansen who runs Sonny's Bar. And I she told me all about Tuna. And Tuna came to the United States from Norway when she was young. She met Sunny, who was much older than her. They got married. They, she's a musician also, and Sarah's been playing the fiddle at Sonny's bar for like 20 years, so she knows Tuna very well. And she just thought her life story was so amazing because Tuna's an extraordinary person. She fought off Hurricane Sandy, which decimated the place. She fought off Sonny's family because he died of cancer and they are mafia-influenced, and they came after her, and she won a court case so she could hold on to the bar. And now it's a place where musicians come and gather six nights a week. And it's in Red Hook. So the piece came out of that idea that the playwright had about wanting to do this piece about Sonny's Bar. And then we were like, well, we can't do it in Sonny's Bar because it's not big enough. But a block and a half away was the Waterfront Museum Barge, which is also a performance space, a historic barge, where we fit 100 people in there. And so the piece started off at the Waterfront Museum Barge, and then the audience at the end of the show would walk through the parking lot where there were there was projection mapping on the truck containers, and they would end up in front of Sonny's bar with projection mapping on the whole building. And then they would go into Sonny's bar and they get to meet Juna. So to me, that's like a perfect example of how ideas and sites match, you know. And there's no one size fits all. There's another artist we're working with, Flacco Jimenez, who does shows called Taxilandia. And Ungered artist commissioned him to do a new Taxilandia. We're doing salons this coming weekend in three neighborhoods. And the piece is, we're planning this for 2028. And the piece will be in um Bedsty, Fort Green, and East New York. And Flacco has a wonderful way of mapping neighborhoods and developing shows by really truly involving the neighborhood, the residents of each neighborhood. So, you know, that's a completely different way of doing site-specific work. He drives people around in a car. We're gonna drive people around in a van. You know, then there's Chuck Mays pieces, which can almost be in so many different places. They're not site-specific, but they are of the city in such an integral way, and Anne knows how to make them of the city in such an integral way that their kind of value is about them being on locations. You know, the show we're doing that's prelude a day to remember forever is going to be in the plaza right by the Fisher Theater in Brooklyn, co-presented by the Next Way Festival. And um, and let's have cafe tables out on the plaza where, you know, people will literally probably be walking through the show and it'll be a part of the show, you know. And then Machine Dazzle's doing the costumes. And I came up, and this is why I love wearing with hands so much, and I said, I really should use the windows of the building beside the plaza. And she said, Well, what do you want to do? And I said, It'll be so great to put Machine Dazzle's costumes in there, the five chorus people will be wearing as costumes in the windows before the show. And she said, Great, let's do it. So, this is what I mean by someone, you know, collaborating, because that was my idea, not hers. Oh, but she's a brilliant director. And she's said many times, the best directors are the best thieves.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

That's the greatest.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

I remember that very well. Actors steal from life, directors steal from everything. Um these spaces, these environments, these people, there's all unpredictability to that. How do you how do you think about and I I don't like this word mitigate, I like it, but how do you use the risk that these real things bring into a work every single night?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

I have a lot of expertise and a crack production team.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

So you know that's all you need, folks. That's all you need.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

I mean, it's I mean, it's it's complicated, but in in a way it's true. It's like, you know, but that's just what my years of experience have given me. Like, what are we gonna do if it rains? You know, we might have the umbrellas that we pass out to the audience. What do we do if it feels like it's dangerous in certain ways? We want to make sure we have crew people in certain places. You know, it I mean, the the logistics behind doing this work is incre it's not for the faint of heart. It's incredibly complicated. And, you know, really good production managers, really good front-of-house people. I mean, the behind the scenes folks that make this stuff happen have to be top fight. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

I remember years ago when we did Orestes with Tina Landau in the 90s, you know, and it was there was this twisted metal pier that jutted out into the Hudson, and it was a huge hit. It was Chuck's play, and we had 30 people in it. And Jefferson Mays, who then was unknown, played Orestes, and of course he was the star on Broadway of I Am My Own Wife. And um and we were there and it started to rain, and I had to call the show and told everybody that I would give them their tickets for another night. And you know, when you're outdoors, you can kind of add cheers. Anyway, Todd Haynes, who then was the art, you know, had just passed away, but then he was the artistic director of the roundabout theater. He walked up to me and he said, I could never do what you do. He's running one of the largest theaters in the country. He's like, I could never do what you do. So there we go.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

There is something slightly, slightly masochistic about it. Like, like I said before, it is it is the hardest thing to do. And it's also such a rewarding thing when it goes well, when the audience, when you see them see something that they've never seen before, or come back the next day and see the space. And they'll never see that space differently. Anybody who's seen a show in a site-specific way always will remember that show. Like I said, it's a it's a historic marker for those kind of things. It's always my favorite when that happens. Oh, well, then then what is? I was gonna I was I didn't want to delve too deeply but they'll go to me.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

No means yes until proven otherwise. Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Has has there been a space or has there been something that was that's too far that you couldn't you couldn't salvage in some way?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Well, not recently, no. I mean, there was in the beginning for sure. The very when I first started on Gardner Arts, I was like, I'm gonna do, I want to do a show at the Pierpont Morgan Library. And so we sent a proposal to the Pierpont Morgan Library, and this woman calls me up. And, you know, after she read the proposal, and she goes, darling, I just have to tell you, I'm not on guard, avant-guard, or any other kind of guard now. It's like, okay, I just make, you know, I think I've been thinking a lot lately. I am a very resilient person. I really think in order to make a life, a long life in the arts, you need to be very resilient. You need to be able to accept failure, you know, you need to get the shit kicked out of you and pick yourself back up again. You need to want it more than you want anything else, or you stop. And that's okay. You know what you don't, you know, it's not for everyone. You know, I think the most traumatic situation we ever had was years ago when we did performance art pieces in the uh rooms of the Chelsea Hotel. And um we had we rented three hotel rooms, and um Squad Theater was in one, Penny Arcade was in another, and I can't remember who's in the third. Might have been John Kelly. I don't know. And and we got huge amounts of press back when actually there was press for theater. And the fire department found out about us and they shut it, they shut us down. But what happened was Kate Lemon, who at the time was working was the head of the Department of Cultural Affairs, loved Engaged Arts and loved everything so much until we all went down to the headquarters, the fire department in Brooklyn, and we all sat around like, how can we make this work? Don't want to shut the whole thing down. Because the audience, there were like 75 people that came to, we had benches in each of the hotel rooms. There were 75 people that went into each, went to see one performance for a half hour, then the next hotel room, then the next one. And then they finally um said, okay, we won't shut them down. You can be in the lobby. We'll let you be in the lobby. Well, the Chelsea Hotel was like, no, we're not gonna let you be in the lobby. And uh then a very good friend of mine, Neil Mazzella, who was running Hudson Scenic Studios at the time, sent, I found I found a found a loft on 20th Street, which is three blocks away from where the Chelsea Hotel was. And Neil sent his guys down, his union guys with these big trucks and moved us down to this loft on 20th Street. Wow. Because every night I I would have the audience would come to the Chelsea Hotel, I'd tell him this whole story with a fire department guy. It was very funny. He's like, why are you gonna do a show uh about a hotel in a hotel? You should just, you know, you should just go build a set that's a hotel, you know. But so every night I would get up and I would tell the story and um then walk the entire audience down the street to go to this warehouse. And that was I I that was that was pretty traumatic. I also find, you know, there's something in the life of a company where, like, it I mean, it'd be horrible. I don't even want to say because it may be bad luck, but let's say, you know, let's say I do a show and for some reason it gets shut down, right? Unguard arts will still exist because we have strength the strength of a 40-year reputation to stand on. But the the shows at the Chelsea, that was my second show. And so if I hadn't figured out a solution and I was just shut down, I might the company might have collapsed, you know, because in the early days is when you're the most, you know, fragile, tender, you know, company. And then as you continue to go along, it's it's a different. But like even today, like we're doing so we're doing a benefit for Make the Road. And we did a show just before and just after the pandemic called Fandango for Butterflies and Coyotes, a beautiful play about undocumented immigrants who come together on the evening of an ice raid and they celebrate through participating in a fandango. And it's a bilingual show, play with music and dance. And uh we're bringing that back for one night as a benefit because I just feel like we have to do something given what's going on with the way undocumented immigrants are being profiled. So this morning we're having, I mean, this is my life, right? So this morning we're having um a conversation about like we really need to get some headliners to be a part of this so that we're reaching beyond just the Engard Arts mailing list, right? And it's a benefit for Make the Road, and we are very happy to be once our expenses are paid, giving them money, but it's also a chance to, you know, gather the wagons, bring people together in celebration of people from different cultures. And so this morning we're going, well, we have to, we have to find, you know, politicians and, you know, can we, how can we get Mandami or how can we get Brad Lander? And then my managing producer says, I think I can get that cell phone of Brad Lander. So I'm walking to a lunch meeting I have. I walk by Brad Lander's office. That's right on my way to my lunch meeting. He's not there. I come back after lunch, walk by his office, knock on the door, there he is. So I'm like, hi Brad, this is what we're doing. We want you to come. And then the person I'm having lunch with said she's good friends with the chief of staff of Mom Donnie. So I call my staff up a couple hours later and I'm like, guess what? I always say this is the thing. Every experience is an opportunity. Every experience. Walking down the street, knock on the door, go to lunch, figure out who they know, who knows who. They're just always networking, networking, networking, networking, and service of making shit happen.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

I teach undergraduate directors, and I go back and forth on this all the time of, you know, the school is pushing them towards a Broadway regional theater model, my class being devised. I'm pushing them towards make your own work. Go and do your own thing, go and make your own thing. And I talk about this on the podcast often. The best thing that I've seen since I've been here was in somebody's basement, they did a velveteen rabbit next to a washing machine. And it was the most urgent and beautiful thing that I'd seen. And then I go see, you know, mainstage shows. But I go back and forth on this all the time because, like you said, you've been doing this 40 years. I wonder if the structures and the red tape are out there so much now that people can't make that work. Or and or they are not anti-fragile enough to do, as you said, be resilient to sit to have those no's. And I I worry that there's that young people aren't going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

I think it's a yes and I think it's a yes and I think uh you can't do some of the stuff I was doing in the 90s, but I'm still doing site-specific work, right? I just can't have 60 people flooding the meat packing district and closing off four square blocks. You know, you can't do that. But I also think, you know, that it is New York is a much harder place to live than it was, uh, because it is so fucking expensive to live here. Like my son and his girlfriend, we were lucky enough to buy brownstone in the 90s. So we have a beautiful place with lots of space, but and he lives upstairs with his girlfriend. And I just the woman I had lunch with said her daughter lives with her. And, you know, I know so many people who are in New York who have kids who've graduated from college, who are living with their parents because they can't afford when when a studio apartment costs $3,500 a month, and as an artist, you're trying to make a living. It's very difficult. It's very, very difficult. So yeah, but I mean, there's still plenty of young people who are out there trying to make it happen in their own way. Um, you know, I do think that it is true that uh like I talked to somebody who's pretty well known, actually runs a theater, who was leaving the I won't mention their name, uh, but who was leaving the arts because he he doesn't come from family money, you know, he doesn't have everything he makes, he's making on his own. And he was gonna go become a therapist because he was just doing all of this downtown work and it wasn't just paying enough to really be able to save for his retirement, you know. And he's literally just about to quit when he found out that he he's probably gonna have a commercial Broadway gig. And so now he's not gonna quit. But you know what? It's very re it's it's real. It's real, you know. I mean, I don't blame and playwrights too, who really want to get that TV show because the arts pays so crappy, you know. I mean, I'm very I we try to I mean, for for a small not-for-profit, I think we pay pretty well. And I'm really grateful that the four full-time people that I have working for me all have very special housing situations, so they don't have to worry about their housing. It's a big deal, you know. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Um, I remember leaving Columbia and wanting to stay in New York. I mean, I'd I'd been there for seven years at that point, and wanting to stay, and all of my colleagues and friends staying and wanting to stay as well. But I remember Ann saying to us, you know, she was starting out, she would go to she'd go to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh was affordable, and Pittsburgh was some other, you know, theater companies that were that were there doing some exciting work, and she said, I would go someplace that is on the cusp of exploding theatrically. I wouldn't start in New York. I couldn't, you can't afford to live in New York and and do work in New York. And I went the opposite direction. I went across the planet to Singapore to a very expensive place to make work, but um, that's my my concern for students as well is you're all you everybody wants to go to New York and it's a fantastic place, but being able to afford to live there.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

People people are moving, leaving the country.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Yeah. Well, for for many reasons. For many reasons, some of them economic, some of them social. Yeah, I understand that very well. So 40 years is not an insignificant amount of time, especially for a theater company. Especially for a theater company that does the type of work that Unguard Art Arts does. What changes about leadership over that span of time? From starting out to where you are now, like can you think about your role as a leader and and what that has meant and how that has changed over time? Just just as the time changes, as the the industry changes, um, and as you change as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Boy, that's a tough question. I think a lot of it is the same, I have to say. I I think it's really important to stay awake to what's going on out there in the world. And I think what can happen with theater companies, they get into a producing model that is like we're gonna do a six-play season, we have to do the comedy, we have to do the two-person play, we have to do the musical. And I think this kind of predictable season can put people very out of touch with what the world wants and needs and predictable mechanisms for marketing. We can't market in the same way that we used to, right? Like when we did the Wind and the Rain, we got a mediocre Times review. Uh, we got a, well, we also, Sarah, Sarah Gensha won on OB for the play, and we were nominated for a Drama Desk Award, but somehow the we got a mixed review in the Times, rave review in New York magazine, Vulture. Um it didn't matter because it was uh between Instagram and word of mouth, people we the tickets are flying off the shelves. I mean, just flying off the shelves. So I think really being a leader for a long time, there's some things that don't change. Like I constantly have to be out there raising money. Right?

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

I really need to make sure I'm hiring the right people to support what I'm doing and treating them well intellectually, emotionally, and financially, so I can get them to stay as long as possible. Because staff turnover can be incredibly corrosive and difficult because you lose all the institutional knowledge, right? Right. But yeah, it's fun, it's how we market shows is fundamentally different. You know, back in the 90s, I had whole pages devoted to On Guard Arts in the arts and leisure section. No, no one has that anymore. Not even the Broadway shows have that. There's just not the same kind of space that's allocated to the theater because it's considered to be less important. And we even had an interesting conversation today. I was like, well, rule of thumb is that somebody has to see your messaging three times in order for it to click in so that they buy a ticket. And my general manager said, no, now it's seven or eight times. We are so overloaded with information that it's much, much harder to attract, you know, people's attention, right? So it's kind of, and for me, intergenerational learning is really important. Like, needless to say, I'm the oldest one of my staff. I'm 72, my assistant is 26, my managing producer is early 30s, my senior producer, general manager 40s, then my um uh associate producer, development manager is mid-30s. So we have a full range.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

And that's really beneficial for me because you know, people from different generations have different points of views, see things differently, experience things differently. You know, I've lived through uh, you know, I mean, my God, I've lived through so many different changes in the world, um, including 9-11, you know. And then as you know, I, you know, people say, How is it? You're 72, you have so much energy. I say, Well, I took a nine-year.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

I was gonna ask.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Because in 1999, I had my kids, um, I had twins, I was kind of exhausted, I was a little burnt out. I saw New York City changing, and I was like, I'm done, I'm done. So I applied, I applied to become the artistic director of La Jolla Playhouse, got the job, went there, wasn't very happy for reasons I won't go into broadly, but just to say there were things that needed to happen, and the Board of Trustees wasn't supporting me in the way they should have. And six months after I'm there, I got a call from Disney who says, Do you want to come and interview to run a global division for theme parks and resorts as their creative head? And I just thought the whole thing was completely bizarre. Because I was like, theme parks and resorts, Disney, what? You know, like somebody had said to me, you know, write down 20 jobs you think you might have in your life. That would not have been on it, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

But so I went and interviewed, I got the job. So I moved my family up to LA and worked for Disney for almost nine years, running this global division, you know. I was an executive vice president with no corporate experience. That's why, you know, I try to tell young people there is no straight line, and you just don't know what is gonna happen, what is gonna come your way, you know, like and a lot of especially now the zeitgeist of society is like, oh, you're 21, you'd want you should know what you're gonna do for the rest of your life. Well, it's just it's just hogwash, right? And and I feel badly that there's all this pressure put on these kids to feel like they're supposed to know everything, right? How can they? They haven't live, right? So you know, so I I think it's just about recognizing who I can learn from as much as who can learn from me, understanding the things I don't know, understanding the things I'm not best equipped to do, and making sure I can take in the valuable information from people who are smarter than me in other ways. What brought you back?

SPEAKER_01 40:18

I imagine I imagine Disney was a bit of uh golden handcuffs, maybe, but what's it up?

SPEAKER_00 40:26

But no, what's funny is I got fired for politics. I mean, I got the highest bonus of my career, and three weeks later I was fired, which I am very happy. But I didn't get fired and come right back to England Arts. It took me a while. When I first came back to New York, I was going to reinvent the Broadway theater from the ground up, which which was a ridiculous thought, but I didn't know it at the time.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Bless you for trying. Bless you for wanting it.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

That was the most miserable three years of my life. I ended up getting on board, like a bunch of different projects. I quit all of them. And then my very, very one of my dearest, most wonderful friends, Joe Molulow, said to me, and he I was his intern at BAM. He was running the Next Way Festival. And he said to me, Annie, you need to relaunch Engard Arts. That's where you belong. And it took me a while to realize, like, you know what? That's what I need to do. Because I had folded the company. I had let my tax exam status go. I was moving to California. I never thought I was coming back. I didn't. Done.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

You know, and so when people say, How is it you have so much energy? I'm like, I'd spend nine years sabbatical. Yeah. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Is is there value? Because you talk about, you know, artists not having that direct path. And you also mentioned a colleague that was going to go and be a therapist for a little while. Is there value, do you think, of stepping away for a while as long as you keep that passion to come back for it?

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Absolutely. And I don't know that you need to come back. I mean, you know, this this is hard. Yeah. You know, and so, you know, I would never wave my flag and say you must do this your whole life, you know. It's not for everybody. And people who want to quit, they should quit.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

So be with you. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Go go with God, you know, like go quit. Go do something sane with your life, you know. I mean, even looking at my kids, I have twins. My daughter went to Emory, got a degree in business, she's in tech, all her friends are in banking and sales. You know, they get out of school, they're making six figures right off the bat, you know. You know, then my son, who's getting a degree in post-production editing, doesn't even know if he's going to be able to find a job. You know, a lot of those people out there have, you know, working at Trader Joe's, doing other things. I mean, it's such a difficult life to be an artist. You just have to want it more than anything in the world. And there's no, I'm not someone who would hold up, you know, beat my chest and say, you must do this. First of all, not everybody really has something that original to say. Also. And if it's that original and they're willing to stick it out, they'll eventually get noticed if they're savvy about how to connect, because, you know, talent's only a small part of it. The other part is knowing how to network, enjoying being with people. I mean, we had the assistant director on The Wind and the Rain come in. First of all, he was like, uh, can I, can I take you, take you for coffee? I went out for coffee, he had the whole script plan, you know, great kid, you know, doing all this interesting work. He's gonna survive, I can just tell, because, you know, he's he's out there, he's extroverted, he's making contacts, he's got plans. But it's and you know, there are people that are talented that don't have that side to them that won't survive as an artist, and they then need to do something. Which is fine.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Yeah. There's a there's a bit of cutthroatness that needs to exist. Not not to the point where it becomes dangerous or deadly to other people, but literally just take no prisoners, kind of like it it rolls off the back, it doesn't bother me. I'm still moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

You have to be an ultimate networkers, I would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

As you as you are working with these younger artists now, as you say, even your assistant is, you know, uh 27. Um what do you think the next generation is getting right that your generation didn't? And what do you wish this generation had more of that your generation had?

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah. I don't know if I I think it's I think it's so that's so complicated, really, of like there are people in my generation that are amazing. Patty Smith is from my generation, right? But then so it's fucking Donald Trump. You know? I think I think the thing that's good about the world we live in now, even though it's only confined to certain cities, is the openness around gender identification.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

So I think definitely, you know, when I was coming up in the world and even through most of the 80s, you know, people who were homosexual felt like it had they had to be in the closet, right? So I think also, you know, while there's de I mean, and it's getting worse by the day, but while there was a there was a lot of racism back then, and I thought it was getting better.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Surprise.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Now we're profiling people of color, so not sure that it, you know, we're kind of taking some huge step backwards. I mean, you know, abortion rights, backwards, you know. So it's even like what day is it, what time is it in terms of like what's happening in the world, you know. I mean, I think that one of the freedoms I felt in the 70s that unfortunately I don't think exists today in the same way as, you know, the world is your oyster. You can be anything you want to be, you can do anything you want to do, you know, money's no object. Just go live through your dreams. My parents instilled that in me. But that was also of a time. It was the time. And I don't think that is exists. It's, you know, and we didn't have AIDS, you know, we didn't have 9-11, we didn't have any of that stuff. So I think it was possible to have a much more optimistic view of what the world could become than it is today, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

So I had a student ask me this question, and I stuck with me, and it secretly kind of dug a hole in my heart, and it became a thing that I'll I ask everybody on the podcast, because I love to hear this of what's a show that you saw that changed you as a person? Not as a not as an artist of like, oh, this is what theater can do, but literally there was Anne before the show, and there was a different Anne after the show. Can you think of a piece that fundamentally changed your humanity somehow?

SPEAKER_00 47:22

It's not even just a show. I think there's certain I mean, like seeing the work in the 80s of like Robert Wilson and Peanut Belsh and seeing the kind of visual brilliance of that, right? Was so extraordinary. And what's the name of the puppet that is going around the world and came in?

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Well, the little girl, yeah. Um all, yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

But that was really significantly meaningful for me and seeing all the different community groups that rallied around, you know, this puppet, I thought was amazing. There's the guy, the French guy, um, who makes these gig I can't remember his name now. He makes these gigantic puppets. And we we went I I broke my I broke my ankle in three places just before my husband and I were planning on going off on a tour around Europe to see site-specific work. And and we went to Nantes uh in France. What is this guy's name? Royal Deluxe. Do you know him?

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

Yeah, and uh, I mean his work I just thought was amazing, these big puppets coming down these cobblestone streets. And then Anne, of course, it's influenced my whole creative career. So Anne Bogart, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

I don't think I would have started on car arts if it weren't for her. I met her when I was a performance artist and then became an actor in her shows and was so blown away by the way she used the city and stage actors and windows and doorways and stuff, and then started finding sites for her. She's has the biggest influence on my career of anyone, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

I I'd say the same. I'd say a lot of people who listen to the podcast or or meet her or work with her would say the same.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

She's such a great person.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Yeah, absolutely lovely. Um I asked this question also of the pod in a podcast, and it's I don't want you to hear it as who was the best, who's doing the best work. But who are artists that you wish people knew more about? That they were getting more recognition than they are, that if you could spotlight them on the podcast and people were to go and find them, that would be a great day for them. Ultimately, it's a question of who should I have on the podcast next?

SPEAKER_00 49:46

Ultimately, is kind of a you should have Jared Mazzocci on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

You know, he's brilliant, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

And Sarah Ganttcher, they're both extraordinary. Let's see. Flacco Jimenez, who I told you about, uh you might have on the podcast. I mean Yeah, I mean, th those are a few people that I think would be incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

These are great names, and they're definitely people I'm gonna try and have on. And if I can get up there, there's a there's a there's a there's a chance I'm gonna be able to make it up for a couple of shows at the end of this month. Um, so if there's something still on, I would love to let us know if you can come make it up to C73 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

It's just running through May 18th, but we're I hope we can extend.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

So perfect. Then I can I probably can. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

I hope I hope we can extend.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

And thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. And I so look forward to seeing the work and finding out where else you're putting shows besides the planetarium of a girl's school.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

Stay in touch.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

If this episode gave you any insight, inspiration, or even just made you smile, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts for more conversations like this. And if you're looking for guidance with a creative challenge, or want to advance a dream of your own, we'd love to help. Visit Board of Directors.world. The Board of Directors is a global constellation of theater directors dedicated to building community, sharing knowledge, and transforming the role of the director in the 21st century. We convene and curate a fellowship that fosters mentorship, artistic inquiry, and collective care, transcending borders and institutions and traditions. Until then, take care of yourself and take care of each other.