Rod Kaats Producing Artistic Director Ordway Center for Performing Arts
Rod Kaats, the incoming producing artistic director at the Ordway Eye for the Performing Arts.
At that place were big tap shoes to make full at the Ordway when James Rocco announced concluding yr that he would step down equally Vice President of Programming and Producing Artistic Director. On Thursday, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts announced that information technology had found a lucifer. Starting February 1, the Ordway's Producing Artistic Manager will be New York producer Rod Kaats.
Kaats brings a long and distinguished resume as a multi-talented producer, director, and writer. Of special notation is his time at the Step Theatrical Group (forerunner of the current Broadway Across America, the land'south largest presenter and producer of touring Broadway shows), where he was Vice-President of Programming. His portfolio includes investing in Bob Dylan's musical Girl from the N Country (currently playing in the West End) likewise as working on Broadway and Off-Broadway productions of American Psycho, Hay Fever, A Long Twenty-four hours'south Journey into Night, Stone of Ages, and Silence! The Musical, amid many others. He is also an award-winning writer and director, with a distinguished tenure every bit artistic manager of the Helen Hayes Theatre and numerous freelance directing credits.
"This is an exciting fourth dimension for the Ordway as nosotros welcome Rod," said Ordway President and CEO Jamie Grant. "We expect forward to Rod bringing his vast feel on Broadway and from around the world to develop new piece of work that will advance diverseness and inclusion with the stories we tell on our stages and the artists who tell them."
Rod Kaats and Jamie Grant spoke with the Arts Reader's Basil Considine nearly the future of programming at the Ordway and new directions in its presenting and cultivating shows and talent.
JAMIE: One of the unique things about the Ordway is that we produce and present shows. If you do what I do, it'due south [actually] a very rare opportunity to exercise a search for the blazon of producing artistic manager similar nosotros have here.
Every bit we were preparing for this hire, we told ourselves that it would be great to detect someone who was an expert in one area and who only had to learn the other [instead of learning both]. What nosotros discovered, however, was that we had found someone who was as skillful in both sides of our concern model. We're thrilled that Rod has agreed to bring together our team at the Ordway.
BASIL: Rod, have they told you well-nigh the weather conditions that await you when you beginning in February?
ROD: [laughs] Aye, I've actually visited the Twin Cities several times, and when I first did I immediately started looking online for i of those "Nanook of the North" coats.
I plant i for half cost and I've carried it to St. Paul iii times, in expectation of the weather…simply when my plane touches down, the temperature goes up! I'm armed with my gear, just I haven't been "into boxing" [with the conditions] notwithstanding.
BASIL: Jamie, equally y'all mentioned the Ordway's producing and hosting touring shows is relatively uncommon. This includes something that I've only seen at a handful of arts centers, where the presenter develops programs to build up local talent.
Over the last several years, James Rocco oversaw several of these programs to cultivate talent in the local community, letting the Ordway exercise shows and productions in ways that weren't possible earlier. Audiences seem to have responded very well to this, especially to the incredibly loftier standard of dancing and choreography reached in contempo shows like West Side Story and In the Heights. Are there plans for standing this sort of talent-building programming going forward?
JAMIE: I recall office of the reason we wanted to bring someone with Rod's expertise was to continue the "Ordway Originals" [i.e., these self-produced shows] – but who could also keep to present and bring things in.
1 of the unique things that Rod brings to this chat is his relationships. There are a lot of opportunities that I think be for Ordway-produced shows to go to their cities. If you look at Rod'due south resume, you'll come across that he has a great skillset in that area, too.
BASIL: Are you thinking in terms of touring locally, regionally, or all the fashion up to sending shows to New York?
JAMIE: I think the scope, ultimately, is "all of the above". As we imagine the future of the Ordway – specially on the producing side – it starts with "How tin we produce piece of work that makes sense economically?"
We know nosotros have a lot of talented people here in the Twin Cities, and that the investment in a show is best recovered over equally long a catamenia as possible, which includes touring. In that location are shows like In the Heights, which we took to Dayton, Ohio this concluding year, that already exercise this. I believe that in that location are other theatres out there that would be interested in partnering with us, and we should look at programming from that end.
I likewise think that a guy with Rod's skill fix in new work is going to exist very valuable as we try to imagine some of the things that will head to New York, and what role we might play on the front end – a sort of "Ordway on the Mode to Broadway" serial. Having that combination of skills that Rod has will help us imagine that future in an exciting new way.
BASIL: Rod, producing is sometimes the art of knowing when to delegate the hats that you similar to wear. Y'all've worn many hats over the years; looking at this next year, exercise you expect to wear some hats more than others?
ROD: I don't desire whatsoever of my hats to get dusty – I desire to use them all – but I think that being a producing creative managing director is more than anything almost looking for opportunities. There are models in your head where you think, "I'd beloved to produce that testify and take it on the route" or "Oh, look, this show is touring – permit'due south produce it hither, besides" or "Let's co-produce information technology with some other theatre."
While these models exist that can go you lot started on your journey, what really has to happen is that you need to keep your eyes open and be aware of the [current and upcoming] opportunities are. To see where things start to connect and gather.
One of my favorite artistic directors is Jim Nicola at New York Theatre Workshop. He has a phrase: "Look for the heat", which I recollect is keen. Yous sort of feel it. Other people talk about things "smelling" skilful and "having legs". Information technology'southward sort of similar when you've fished a while and learned where the fish are in the swimming.
One of the fundamental things about existence a producer is having all your senses open and be really listening carefully for where opportunities are and where you tin partner with people. Where there are things that are exciting and, to use Jim's word, "Hot." And then you go towards the rut and see what you tin put together.
It'southward hard for me to predict which hats I'll be wearing the well-nigh. I don't have any problem wearing those hats – in fact, what I love nigh producing is its unpredictability, only like when you become out to fish and bandage your fishing pole, you never know what's going to bite.
BASIL: Back when you started at the Ordway, Jamie, the new Concert Hall'due south paint was even so drying; now it'south a few years into that space's operation, and things seem to be going fabulously. (The acoustics certainly are all that was promised.) At this signal, will the Ordway be looking at that specific space for more or different programming in the future?
JAMIE: Starting time of all, the Concert Hall is a spectacular space, whether it'southward for spoken discussion or music. Nosotros've used information technology from everything from comedy to concerts and it just seems to piece of work. One of the things that Rod and I have talked about is this whole idea of looking at opportunities to do theatrical concerts in that infinite. I think the space is spectacular for that.
If you interview the two of us a twelvemonth from now, I think there'll be more and different things that we've done in the Concert Hall than when information technology was first envisioned – we've constitute that it works for everything.
ROD: I'm really excited about programming in that infinite. The involvement in musical theatre in America has grown so much that something like a concert staging of a show that might have seemed too barebones or besides "Where's the scenery? Where'due south the show" earlier is received differently. Now, people understand that you can practise the "radio show" version of a musical or a reading of a new work, using your imagination for the rest. The entire Encores! series in New York, for example, is congenital on that.
You may know that the Broadway production of Chicago that's playing right now started at Encores!, and that it was done in a minimalist way to arrange the short rehearsal time and limited budget at Encores!I saw the original product of Chicago on Broadway on a mean solar day when Gwen Verdon was out and Liza Minelli stepped in to make full her shoes…a real exciting time! Chicago is a big book musical, and it was originally washed with lots of sets, but then people saw this new production and said "Wow! This reduced version of it is wildly effective!"
I think this illustrates why a space like the Concert Hall is so valuable an asset for usa for experimentation and wanting to programme new and interesting things that are at various stages of development.
JAMIE: Rod and I both continue an annual basis to a festival of new musicals in New York. We see showcase versions of new musicals in 45-minute chunks; if y'all wait at the number of shows currently playing on Broadway that started in that environment, the number is actually large. I think in that location're a lot of unique opportunities [in things similar this] and having someone like Rod who tin seek them out will be a huge asset for the Ordway.
BASIL: Looking at the Ordway as an organization, a staff deviation and arrival is ever an opportunity to expect at how the organisation as a whole tin can meet the needs of its constituents at present. Are there any other outstanding changes planned for the organization as a whole?
ROD: I'one thousand very new to the system, so I can't speak to "We're going to make these procedural changes" – nor do I necessarily remember that any are needed – but my arrival at the Ordway is not just nearly my appointment. It's an opportunity for everyone on staff to accept a moment, footstep dorsum, and retrieve near where we've been and where nosotros're going. That's a conversation that I want to take with the staff, and frankly a conversation that is going to exist formed in collaboration with them.
My watchword for everyone is, "Look outward – think about looking outward and how nosotros tin extend our reach, to make partnerships both within the Twin Cities and around the country." I'm besides encouraging people to be willing to wipe the slate clean – "Let'due south recollect of this as a fresh get-go". This doesn't necessarily hateful that we'll change everything, but it gives a pose where everyone can stop and reflect. "Should we go on going downwards this path, or should we change course?" It's a actually exciting time to be function of an system, and I'm thrilled to be role of it.
BASIL: Rod, we have high (and trained) expectations of producing artistic directors who not only produce these peachy shows at the Ordway, merely also step on stage. Exercise you have any plans to don that hat yourself?
ROD: Yep, no. [laughs] You won't see me on that side of the footlights!
I did start every bit an actor – merely I won't be doing whatsoever of that in costume and in front of the audience at the Ordway.
I of the great things near this job is the power to exist invisible. I actually think that when a producer or a manager has done their job, no ane has any idea that yous [the producer or director] accept been involved at all, and information technology seems like the show just happens completely naturally. The only time your work gets flagged is when you've made a mistake.
When it works, when you're watching from the back of the room and seeing the audience be thrilled and full of excitement… When y'all're feeling the free energy from the performers when they know they're giving a super-hot performance…that, to me, is way more of a high than ever standing downstage and in the spotlight…which I hope to never practice once again!
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Basil Considine is the Editor of the Twin Cities Arts Reader. He served as Performing Arts Editor and Senior Classical Music and Drama Critic for the Arts Reader's first five years before succeeding Hanne Appelbaum. He was previously the Resident Classical Music and Drama Critic at the Twin Cities Daily Planet and remains an occasional contributing writer for The Boston Musical Intelligencer and The Chattanoogan. He holds a PhD in Music and Drama from Boston Academy, an MTS in Sacred Music from the BU School of Theology, and a BA in Music and Theatre from the University of San Diego.
Basil was named one of Musical America's 30 Professionals of the Year in 2017. He was previously the Regional Governor for the National Opera Clan's Due north Central Region.
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Source: https://twincitiesarts.com/2018/01/22/interview-incoming-ordway-producing-artistic-director-rod-kaats-and-jamie-grant/
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