Speak Out! 
Hudson Valley Stage
Mecca for the Fanatic
Vassar's Powerhouse Launches 2007 Theatre Season
It has been called to my attention by one of my toughest fans (my husband, Brook, a veteran talent agent and theatregoer) that my previous blog entries have been verbose. Blogs, he reminded me, are succinct, brief jottings. I stand corrected. On Thursday, February 16, I attended a reception at Vassar College for their Powerhouse Theater Program. This is the summer-long showcase of theater pieces still in larval form, created by New York Stage & Film and Vassar and now entering its 23rd year. We’ve attended a couple of seasons of this program, and it never fails to alternately delight, provoke, entice, bore and annoy. Sometimes in the same play. This is without-a-net theatre and it merits support. As actor Mark Linn-Baker, one of the founding members of Powerhouse said at the reception, “Some of it is wildly successful -- some of it doesn’t work.” For the intrepid audience, this makes for some interesting evenings. Typically, the playwright has been rewriting up until the curtain is raised. Of the several hundreds of plays and musicals mounted by Powerhouse since 1985, little more than 50 finally became full-fledged productions. Not a good ratio, but if you are a theatregoer, you probably value quality over quantity. These works had their debut at Powerhouse: Side Man (1996 Tony for Best Play), Tru (one-man show starring Robert Morse as Capote) and John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt (2004 Pulitzer and Tony for Best Play). If you love having bragging rights as a first-nighter, then grab a seat.
