Although he arrived in Providence just a few months ago, Curt Columbus, the new artistic director for the Trinity Repertory Company, already has plans for the Brown/Trinity Consortium and Brown's undergraduate theater offerings.
Columbus - the former associate artistic director at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater, whom Trinity hired last October - plans to secure new facilities for students enrolled in the program and may pursue a teaching role in the near future.
The Pell Chafee Performance Center, a building Trinity owns, will be turned over next year to third-year students in the consortium, a three-year Master of Fine Arts program. Columbus said his "main hope" is for students to run the center like their own theater. "(The students) are given all these tools to be world-class artists and I want to give them the agency to make their own art," he said.
Columbus has also expressed interest in teaching undergraduate classes at the University, following in the steps of previous directors Adrian Hall and Oskar Eustis. In the past, Columbus has taught classes at the University of Chicago and DePaul University. "While a working professional I have always maintained a connection with undergraduates," he said.
The logistics of Columbus' undergraduate teaching duties still need to be worked out, according to Spencer Golub, director of academic graduate studies at the consortium and professor of theater, speech and dance.
Columbus said he became interested in Trinity because of its esteemed reputation, which he first heard about during his college years at Yale University. "There was a lot of talk about (former Artistic Director) Adrian Hall's theater and people interested in this new direction of American theater - handmade, actor-driven, political, environmental theater."
The Brown/Trinity Consortium enhanced Columbus' interest in the position. Founded in 2002, the program trains 18 actors and directors over the course of three years. It "provides powerful training of actors and directors that is enhanced and influenced by being in the Brown environment," Columbus said.
"I always dreamed I'd work at Adrian Hall's theater, but I never dreamed I'd be running it," Columbus said.
Since his arrival, Columbus said he has grown to appreciate the sense of ownership shared by those who participate in the company's various projects, including audience members and students who participate in Project Discovery, the company's educational outreach program. "I realized the far-reaching impact this theater has had over the past 40 years" during meetings with these various groups, he said.
Golub said that Columbus "brings to the table the things we need in the second stage of the consortium." Golub described the current relationship between Trinity and the University as an "all-encompassing relation-ship." Many of the area heads at Trinity have become clinical faculty at Brown, and some have directed under-graduate productions. Laura Kepley GS currently serves as an artistic associate at Trinity. "The definition of where Brown is has definitely extended there," said Provost Robert Zimmer.
Despite this evolving relationship, Golub said he is wary of further integrating the University and Trinity beyond the consortium. "The foundation on which the consortium was invented was (to) do no harm," he said.
Golub wants to retain performance space for undergraduate use, something that might be hindered if students from the Master of Fine Arts program - who typically study at Trinity's downtown facilities - spend more time on campus. "We want to come together and pool resources but remain (distinct)," Golub said "The goal is being able to integrate who we are up here and who they are down there."
