Jump to Epiphany Saratoga

From Stage Center
Spring 2001
By Debra Boyle

Lawyers, accountants, grants, budgets, mission statements, art on their own terms: several young Carnegie Mellon alumni are making the jump from professional theatre artists to director/producers of their own theatre companies. Living in New York and sharing a conviction, fed by years at Carnegie Mellon, that they could do it better, four recent graduates are setting up shop and taking their careers into their own hands.

Amy Singer and Rachel Smith, both BFA directors who graduated in 1999, are Co-Producing Directors of the new Epiphany Theater Company. The idea, born out of a mutual frustration with life in the professional theatre world, was a long time coming.

"I had thought about starting a company on my own when I graduated," Amy says, "But I decided I wasn't ready to do it yet. "Amy had a few "unhappy experiences" in her professional jobs right out of college. After a few emails to Rachel, Amy discovered that she was feeling the same. Amy and Rachel wanted to create a work environment based on trust.

With this fundamental goal defined, Amy and Rachel took their time developing the company itself. The started sending each other emails containing "homework assignments" to help them lay down the structure of the company. The assignments, Rachel explains, included things like "name three plays we want to do" or "name some things we want our theatre company to accomplish."

"Out of these [assignments] started emerging some really basic ideas that we both had in common," Rachel says. Theses shared ideas didn't necessarily focus on the artistic end of theatre, either.

"We spent a lot of time, maybe 60 or 75 percent of our time, talking about how we would set up the structure of the company," Amy says. They came up with a system of checks and balances, in which both Amy and Rachel have equal say on many issues. They broke down the jobs to be done, and distributed them evenly between themselves. Each has the final word over different decisions, such as budgets, publicity, and play selection. "It's a lot easier now, know that Amy specializes in that one thing, and I specialize in other things, and we take it from there," Rachel says.

Working out of their living rooms, Amy and Rachel organized the first show: a cabaret entitled The Future of the American Theater that also served as a fundraiser in February 2000. Defying Gravity, by Jane Anderson, the company's send show premiered in March, and was directed by... Kathryn Moroney... When they started organizing a show for the spring, fellow alumni from the School of Drama seemed a logical source for technical and artistic support. Amy says it was a relief to have Kathryn to turn to for the first directing slot, freeing she and Rachel to concentrate on getting the company off the ground... the third show was the New York premiere of Another Round, written by... John Russell and directed by Amy...

The future of Epiphany is looking good. They have already made plans for their second season, including a fundraiser starting Claudia Shear of Dirty Blonde fame... Zachary Morris will direct a new piece entitled The Jungle for Epiphany this spring. In November, in company filed for official non-profit status. One of their goals is to challenge their audience and themselves through their work. Also, they want to expand their audience to include those who don't usually get a change to see theatre.

"We've started a relationship with a youth organization called Vacamas Programs for Youth," Rachel says. Amy jumps in to explain that it is a broad organization dedicated to "working with disadvantaged kids and kids with behavioral and emotional problems." Groups of students from the program have already attended several of Epiphany's performances.

This search for a broader audience figures prominently into the goals of the company. As the company grows and expands, Amy hopes that "someday, it'll be not how do we reach two more people, but how do we reach 100 more people, or 1000 more people." Even as they expand, they are committed to the ideas on which they founded the company. "I think one of the most important things is not to lose sight of the reasons we founded the company," Rachel says, "And that is really hard to do."

Amy and Rachel both attribute much of their current determination to things they learned at Carnegie Mellon. Rachel says that Carnegie Mellon taught them to have pride in their work. "When we had a choice between doing something that was mediocre and doing something that we were really proud of," Rachel says, "it was an easy choice, because we knew we would do what we had to do to [produce] that." Rachel adds that constant encouragement from their professors to never lose sight of their dreams and, as Amy puts it, "to say yes, and figure out how later," really helped prepare them...