Cool Cleveland Interview
Jacqi Loewy
Artistic Director, Charenton Theater Company

If you think you get motion sickness from reading in the backseat of a car, or sitting in a boat on a choppy day, try following Jacqi Loewy around for a real case of arts-and-culture vertigo. She’s everywhere… all the time… full-tilt. Better find something strong, because your measly Dramamine ain’t going to cut it.

You may not recognize Loewy’s name, but if you’re a Cleveland theater fan, the odds that you’ve seen her in a local Northeast Ohio production are pretty good. She moved to Cleveland from Akron in 1996 to be a part of the cast of Sheer Madness, which enjoyed a long, healthy run on Playhouse Square. It was the start of something beautiful… and really only the very beginning of her story.

From there, it’s all been a whirlwind—touring and moving between acting, directing and stage managing gigs for several local theatres. Loewy also did a little choreography here and there, was an Off-Broadway press rep and delved into the MSM (mainstream media), as a producer of Jon Stewart’s first show, Short Attention Span Theater. Oh yeah, and she was in this Robert Redford movie called The Clearing with Helen Mirren and Willem Defoe.

But wait, there’s more: she’s done stand-up comedy and improv work, spent some time in Oh! Calcutta! on Broadway and toured Europe for several years in a production of Hair. Locally, she’s appeared in Always (the Patsy Cline bio), Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding and her work has appeared at the Cleveland Play House, Dobama, Lyric Opera Cleveland, the Cleveland Public Theater, Weathervane and countless others.

Dizzy yet? You should be. She’s perhaps the hardest working lady in Cleveland showbiz. Creating interesting and socially-conscious work is her most recent obsession. Her recent CPT Black [BOX] work Mr. Lewis Rules is but one recent example. And now she’s taken the reigns of Charenton Theater Company as their Artistic Director—a critically-acclaimed group that nearly always performs in non-traditional spaces (parks, cemetaries, bars and such) and revels in the bourgeois-free offering of no-cost theatre to people of all financial backgrounds.

“I love the commitment to local artists and [Charenton's] philosophy to offer theatre to everyone," Loewy offered to Cool Cleveland during a recent interview. “It belongs to everyone. I am deeply committed to the idea that theatre is not for the elite.” She took time out of her busy schedule to tell us about theatre for everyone, her wealth of experience… and, really, to help us overcome those woozy spells.

Cool Cleveland: I have to say, I think about your résumé and get dizzy.

Jacqi Loewy: Well, I sometimes feel like I don’t have much of a life! (laughs) Honestly, I love what I do and all the different aspects of the theatre… and I’m just sort of learning now not to say “yes” to a million things at once, which along with moving into a smaller house, has helped in sort of simplifying my life.

I have gotten into positions where I am so overloaded that I don’t know how I’m going to get things done. But the finished product always seems to be good and well received and a couple weeks later, when things calm down, I think, “Wow! Did I do that?” I don’t know. I guess that’s the classic, tell-tale sign of a workaholic. (laughs)

CC: You’re working a lot. And yet, I’ve heard friends say there’s just not a lot of acting work to be had in Cleveland. True?

JL: Cleveland has an incredibly vibrant theatre community and there is a lot of opportunity here, compared to some of the other places where I have been living and breathing theatre. And I love the fact that [in Cleveland] you’re able to do so many different things and play different roles without being ‘pigeonholed’ so to speak. There are always plenty of choices and roles to choose from.

CC: So, the million dollar question: Can Cleveland sustain its arts community?

JL: That is the million dollar question. We are sustaining now, despite huge financial challenges at every turn. I'm not sure where other disciplines and organizations are financially, but I do know it is important for us to all keep moving forward. Cleveland is filled with theatre artists and patrons who understand their necessity and support them.

CC: What makes Charenton a perfect fit for you and what would you say is the biggest challenge you face with Charenton?

JL: It’s just that it feels like home. I remember directing the second play that they did, when James Mango was the Artistic Director. He had so much energy—and naïve energy, because you don’t start a company without that. Anyway, we were going to do Look Back in Anger in an art gallery space, which I didn’t particularly like… but there was a dirty old loft above an old jewelry store that I was taken with. I think James wasn’t convinced, but we ended up putting on the performance in there and to this day, it’s still the most satisfying directorial experience I’ve ever had… mostly because we were able to bring the audience right into the dirty old apartment where it was supposed to be taking place.

The challenge—and it’s not as difficult as I thought it might be, because I love Charenton—I would say is in finding the money to support what we want to do. And in any arts organization, large or small, that is always going to be in your mind... as we mentioned earlier.

CC: Are there any works that you’re dying to do with Charenton strictly from an artistic/performance standpoint?

JL: One of the pieces I really want to do is Equus, but I’m not sure we’ll be allowed to do in public spaces because of all the nudity. (laughs) But it is an interesting piece and I think it would speak to kids in particular. I haven’t figured out how we can accomplish that yet. It may be that we need to find a more formal venue by then. Touring is fine, but if it ends up that we’re not doing everything that we want to do, we may find we move into one space and stay there.

Even as I say that, it opens a whole new can of worms and I am really committed to never charging for tickets. If we could find someone to donate a space to us for four weeks to do something like that, perhaps that would put all of our ducks in a row. I don’t think we could ever take Equus to the parks! (laughs)

CC: I’d like to come back to venues in a minute… what informs how you and the company decide what performances to do, where and when to do them? And is it a fairly democratic process?

JL: This was my first season as Artistic Director, so I can’t really speak to how things were before that time. I had just had a meeting with Mindy [Childress] who was our Producing Director around that time. She said, “We need to be thinking about a new season. We’re out of ideas… what do you think?” And I had some stuff in the back of my mind, since I had worked for Charenton a couple of times already. So, we ended up putting out the two things that I wanted to do and suggested… which were Waiting for Lefty and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

In the future, I hope it will be similarly democratic in terms of the sharing of ideas. I am taking suggestions for the next season, if anyone wants to call me up with good site-specific ideas! The way it’s supposed to happen, is that I will bring those suggestions to the board of directors and we’ll talk about ideas, resources and venues… which, to answer your earlier question, is another big challenge: finding suitable venues that we haven’t utilized already. We’ve done a lot of unique things.

CC: How often would you say the company experiences "ambient interference," for lack of a better term... hecklers, public transportation noise, weather...? Where has been the most ideal space to work?

JL: I can’t really speak to that, because at the time Lefty was playing, I was also doing another show at the time. People have told me that some Charenton venues were better than others… one show was done under the Superior Viaduct, which I understand was beautiful… this is still a new opportunity for me and I think that time will tell.

I did spend a year as the Education Director with the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival and they performed, among other places, at the corner of Lee and Van Aken. The traffic there was so bad there that you needed amplification, which is another thing I don’t like. I would love to do productions the way the old troupes did… without lavalieres. (laughs)

CC: Creatively, you seem to find inspiration in all corners, all walks of life and in a bevy of divergent topics… which, as it relates to venues, probably makes non-traditional locations seem very appealing from an artistic perspective. Is there a public place you’d like to see Charenton perform?

JL: I’d love to be able to do something at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, but my understanding is that they haven’t been particularly receptive. I don’t know whether it’s problematic in terms of insurance; I’m guessing it’s pretty complicated. [Charenton] hasn’t done anything in shopping malls, either. And as commercial as that sounds, I think is a really good way to reach teenagers.

CC: Fantastic! That would make a great, vanilla counterpoint or backdrop to post-modern works, or something gritty and dark like Mamet.

JL: Well, the physical venue of a shopping mall is sterile, I agree… but if you go there on a Friday or Saturday night, it looks like what behind the bleachers looked like at a high school football game when I was growing up. It’s all the kids without their parents hanging around. The kids don’t match the environment, but culturally it seems like kids don’t like to be outside anymore.

CC: Attention spans of young adults continue to be compromised, with technology leading the charge. How do you get them to hold still for a theatre production, even in such a desirable venue? And how do you reach that audience with such a minimalist approach?

JL: It’s an interesting challenge, specifically for Charenton, because our mission involves well-known and academically-studied plays from the past century—which is not necessarily the kinds of stuff that kids want to see. For most theaters, that would mean adding multimedia, film, music… the kinds of things that gravitate toward them. That’s not what we do, down and dirty by operating in public spaces.

Related to venues like malls, I’ve had a couple different ideas we’ve been kicking around: doing longer plays where you do one act on one night and another act the next night… sort of like Angels in America, but it’s not. But if you came the second night, you’d never see the first half of the play-

CC: Well, that's certainly true-

JL: And yet at the same time, sometimes I’m not so sure that’s important. I think it really comes down to human contact and seeing people interact—that’s even more important than whether or not it’s a love scene from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

CC: Now that’s high concept! Soundbyte theatre for young adults—

JL: Well, that’s how you would grab their attention when they walk by. I think it would be intriguing for them to walk by and watch a scene, and not necessarily know how those characters got there. It’s non-traditional theatre. They might only get one little piece of the action in 10 or 15 minutes, but you might just capture them for more and get them to thinking about live performance.

I work as an adjunct at Lake Erie College and it is always surprising to me how many kids have not been to the theatre. Ever. Period. No live performances. So, we’re in danger of losing that if we don’t do something. I don’t want to ever give in [with Charenton] and do it with video. That would just feel like cheating.

You can catch Loewy directing a project called The Nerd, written by Larry Shue, and produced through special arrangements with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. The show opens this Friday, May 5 at 7:30 pm at the Solon Center for the Arts. And she tells me if you "dress like a nerd," you get two for one on admission. More information about the production is available at http://www.solonarts.org/

Interview and photos by Cool Cleveland contributor Peter Chakerian peterATcoolcleveland.com (:divend:)