POSNER, TWO RIVER TO PART WAYS
Aaron Posner — seen directing a West Coast production of one of his plays, and caught red-handed for his smash production of MACBETH at Two River Theater. The company’s dynamic Artistic Director will be departing the Red Bank-based stage company at the end of the season, it was announced yesterday.
By TOM CHESEK
The former Managing Director at Two River Theater Company credited him with attracting actors from all over the country to Red Bank.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post all hailed his work, the latter in a feature that was picked up by newspapers coast to coast.
And this past November found him on the stage of the Count Basie, greeting and interviewing his friend and old college classmate Stephen Colbert in a sold-out fundraiser show.
Since coming on board as the Two River company’s Artistic Director in late 2006, Aaron Posner has been regarded as a star attraction in himself; a dynamic young theater professional whose own nationwide reputation and evident skills (as playwright, director and administrator) upped the ante on TRTC’s own reputation as a force to be reckoned with on the regional scene.
Just hours before the first preview of their latest production Barefoot in the Park on Tuesday evening, the company made the surprise announcement that Posner would not be returning when his contract expires at the end of the current 2009-2010 season.
In a press release issued last night by Two River Director of PR and Marketing Deeksha Gaur, the TRTC board of directors officially announced Posner’s departure and added that the 43 year old resident of Middletown would remain as Artistic Director through June, in which capacity he will continue to lead the planning process for the 2010-11 season of shows in Red Bank.
TRTC Board Chair Todd Herman commented, “The Board is so proud of all the great work Aaron has done in his three and a half years at Two River. He has increased the quality of the work, held everyone to a standard of artistic excellence, and made huge strides in increasing the national profile of the theater.
“It is a major priority for us to continue to increase our reputation across the country,” Herman continued in his statement. “It is equally important, however, to strengthen our presence in this community. In searching for new artistic leadership, we will focus our search on candidates who are committed to both of these priorities.”
As Posner himself offered, “While the board and I have clearly not come to full agreement on how best to serve the many needs of this wonderful and complex community, I am very proud of what we have all accomplished together during my time here.
“I have genuine affection and respect for the staff, artists, board, and audiences here at TRTC, and while my wife Erin and I are sorry to be leaving this theater and this community, we are excited for the future, and the many projects we have brewing at theaters across the country.”
According to the Board, the hunt for a new Artistic Director will begin immediately, with a search committee being formed to that end, and recently appointed Managing Director Tom Werder placed in charge of leading the company through what he promises will be “a smooth and successful transition.”
Scenes from several of Aaron Posner’s productions at Two River Theater include (clockwise from top left) the Weird Sisters of MACBETH, Erin Weaver in A MURDER, A MYSTERY AND A MARRIAGE; townsfolk and puppets in OUR TOWN; the Captain of HEARTBREAK HOUSE; Red Bank Regional student Phoebe Ryan at right in MELISSA ARCTIC — and silhouetted at center, Doug Hara as Puck in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.
Posner was already establishing himself as a nationally known rising star when he joined the Two River troupe — a little more than a year after the opening of the company’s custom-built performing arts center on Bridge Avenue — taking over as Artistic Director from Jonathan Fox, the only person to have held the post in the Monmouth County company’s first decade of existence. Fox — who’s gone on to an award winning tenure at Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara, CA — left on an artistic high note with an ambitious and illuminating Samuel Beckett Fest in 2006, an event that brought the participation of Olympia Dukakis and Edward Albee to the Two River stage.
A native of Oregon, Posner was by that time well known for having co-founded Philly’s Arden Theatre, as well as for high-profile productions of Shakespeare and other classics at venues across the United States (including DC’s prestigious Folger Shakespeare Library). He had also earned a pretty sterling reputation as a playwright, having adapted two books by Chaim Potok (The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev) with the blessing of the author.
The new Artistic Director hit the ground running when he arrived in Red Bank, working with many of the people with whom he’d forged artistic alliances in the past — among them author Craig Wright (whose play The Pavilion marked Posner’s Red Bank debut), actor-composer James Sugg — and Erin Weaver, his leading lady in three of his Two River productions, and his wife since 2007.
It was Posner who brought A Murder, A Mystery and a Marriage, his own musical adaptation (with music by Sugg) of an obscure Mark Twain story, to the local stage in 2008. Posner who presented a radical rethinking of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town populated by people and puppets. Posner who jumped the gun on “Jersey Shaw” with a Heartbreak House to remember.
Most of all, it was Posner — working in collaboration with with magical mischief maker (and first time co-director) Teller — who brought Mr. Shakespeare to Red Bank in all his gory glory, with a “tricked-out thrill ride” staging of Macbeth that made national headlines; extending its run twice, selling out nearly every seat and putting Two River Theater on the map for connoisseurs and casual theatergoers alike.
While installed at Two River, Posner continued his activities at various other push-pin points around that map — including a return to his home state to premiere his own stage adaptation of Ken Kesey’s classic American novel Sometimes a Great Notion, and a chance to bring the Bard’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the California hills, in a CalShakes Theater production that made its way to Red Bank late last year.
Currently on the Snowmageddon’d stage of the aforementioned Folger is Orestes, A Tragic Romp, an adaptation (by acclaimed playwright Anne Washburn) of the ancient classic by Euripides that will be heading this way as the last scheduled Posner-directed production at Two River. The show commences its run on March 23, and tickets are available via the TRTC website.
Over here at Red Bank oRBit — where we once described the director as “equal parts young Orson Welles and young Elvis” — we’ve always found Posner to be a particularly energizing figure on the local scene; possessed of a dynamic curiosity and always ready with the pithiest of quotable quotes. At the same time, we’ve always maintained that this oversized talent was simply “too Bad, too Nationwide” (to paraphrase ZZ Top) to be contained for very long by the parameters of the Shore’s growing (but not quite there yet) artscape. We’ll be following his career with interest; rooting in the meanwhile for the Two River company’s continued success — and hoping that Posner’s path as a sought-after freelancer will land him once more at station stop Red Bank.
Posted
February 10, 2010
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