The Play's the Thing

Artistic director Mark Nash brings 20 years of acting, directing, and playwright experience to Burlington's Vermont Stage Company

Story and photos by Sally Hale

When Blake Robison, founder and artistic director of the Vermont Stage Company, asked actor and playwright Mark Nash in 2000 if he would consider taking over the post, Nash answered without hesitation: "No."

"He jokingly used to ‘blame' me," said Kathryn Blume, Nash's wife. "He was offered the job out of the blue, and he turned it down. We were in New York, things were going well, and he didn't want to do it. I reminded him that we try to live our lives saying yes to as many things that come along as we can, and he took it."

"I had absolutely no intention of doing art directing," Nash said. "I was happy to pursue a freelance acting career. I told [Robison], 'I don't think so.' Then my wife convinced me to do it. I went into it blind – I didn't know what it entailed."

Over the past six years, the once-reluctant art director is now more familiar with what the job involves – a job that he now "prefers to acting." It is Nash who chooses which plays the Vermont Stage Company (VSC) performs each year, which actors are chosen for the required roles, and which designers and technicians are hired. He must also consider whether the play will generate the all-essential audience appeal. In addition, Nash determines if the piece was performed recently in the area by another company and whether the production will fit – literally – into the 18 by 18-foot "teeny" black box that is FlynnSpace, which is part of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts.

"The odds of making it in the theater are like winning the lottery. Don't get into it because you want to be a movie star, do it because you have a passion for theater"

"(FlynnSpace) is," said Nash, "quite intimate.' Encompassing a "little bit of everything," from original pieces to Broadway hits to American classics, five plays are performed at FlynnSpace each year. Rehearsal time averages 150 hours for each production, with the actors typically practicing six days a week for three weeks. The life of the actor is, Nash admits, not for everyone.

"If there is anything else you like to do, pursue it instead," said Nash, who has both directed and acted in a total of 18 plays at VSC. "The odds of making it in the theater are like winning the lottery. Don't get into it because you want to be a movie star, do it because you have a passion for theater."

It was a passion that Nash, who received his undergraduate degree in theater and his master's degree in acting, ignited in high school - accidentally.

"As a sophomore, I stumbled across a rehearsal. It looked like the people were having fun, and I thought that I should do that, too," Nash said. "I didn't know immediately that this would be my career; I said, '‘I'll see where it takes me.'"

Indeed, the native Vermonter progressed from the high school chorus line of Bye, Bye, Birdie to directing such Broadway staples at VSC as A Streetcar Named Desire and Waiting for Godot. Observing that an actor must go where the work takes him, Nash estimates that he had 27 different addresses from 1982 to 1994. Among them were locations such as Louisville, Kentucky; Chicago, Illinois; Southern California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Seattle, Washington. Then Nash, who has waited his fair share of tables, returned to Vermont in 1994 where, one year after joining VSC as an actor, he performed in the 1997 production of Much Ado About Nothing and Othello before acting in Amadeus in 1998. Acting, Nash says, was the only thing he could do.

"There wasn't anything else that I was good at," laughs Nash. "But it's a tough life, being an actor. Students ask me, ‘How do you make it as an actor?' It doesn't matter if you're talented. It's if you can handle the lifestyle – constant rejection, not being able to pay the bills, living one step beyond a homeless person. Most people get out because they can't live the lifestyle, not because they aren't talented. I'm very fortunate that I can make a living doing theater in Vermont."

And it's a living that Blume, who calls Nash the "most enlightened person [she] knows," thinks the artistic director excels at.

"I'm not rich, I'm not famous, but I'm making a living doing what I love – and that's a rare thing"

"He has tried to create a company aligned with his vision and philosophy, and he's managed to do that … while hardly ever sacrificing artistic choices," said Blume. "He never picked something just because he thought it would be a big commercial success. We've heard other artistic directors of theater companies say that they didn't personally like a show, but they produced it for the bottom line. He, however, has never, ever done that."

The VSC is currently in rehearsals for True West, Nash's personal favorite, before production begins for Winter Tales, which is to debut December 6 and run until the 11th. Woody Guthrie's American Song will be preformed Jan. 24 through Feb. 4, while The Boycott will premiere Jan. 30 and I Am My Own Wife will have center stage between March 28 and April 8. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The final production of the season, debuts May 2, and bows out May 20. And Nash, who teaches an acting course at the University of Vermont as an adjunct professor, does not plan to leave the 150-seat, 10-foot-tall black box any time in the future.

"People may look at my level of success and say, 'That's great, but you aren't a movie star; you're making a living as an art director for a small theater company,'" Nash said. "I'm not rich, I'm not famous, but I'm making a living doing what I love, and that's a rare thing."

Have you ever seen a play performed at FlynnSpace?

Two for the road

"I auditioned her for a play I wrote [Out of Time]" said Nash. "I had no ulterior motives!"

The "her" he is referring to is Kathryn "Kathy" Blume, whom he met at a 1991 audition and married in 1994-the same year which, incidentally, the Vermont Stage Company was founded. Blume is no stranger to the stage: despite aspirations of being a go-go dancer when she was three and experiencing a "brief flirtation" with marine biology, the Yale graduate and ordained minister of the Universal Life Church has appeared in such off-Broadway shows as The Seagulls, Mirandolina, and The Country Wife. Her resume also includes film credits in such movies as The Apartment and Maybe It's Me, among others, and roles in regional performances of Much Ado About Nothing, Antigone, June Moon, A Child's Christmas in Wales and A Streetcar Named Desire, to name a few.

In addition, Blume has toured the United States and Canada in the one-woman show The Accidental Activist, which has appeared in over 25 cities and was nominated for an Austin Critics Table Award. Blume is also a playwright: she wrote the script for Vanya/Vermont, which premiered at FlynnSpace in 2005, and she is currently preparing to perform in the solo show The Boycott – a play which she wrote that is scheduled to debut at FlynnSpace on Jan. 4.

"Theater has been a through line," Blume said. "[At VSC], I'm always behind the scenes, giving [Nash] feedback on play selections. I'm responsible for bringing artists to [VSC], and I've brought in almost all the people I know from New York City. I haven't been in a show in a couple of years, so that makes The Boycott that much more exciting."

And Blume, who has done "a lot of weird jobs," such as writing study guides and working as a transcriber, is content to leave the arguably more exciting life in New York City for northern Vermont.

"In New York City, I had to have a day job, but here it's lovely; I get to focus on all the things that I want to focus on, and I know that very few people can do that," Blume said. "We live in the house that [Nash] grew up in, a 170-year old house on 30 acres of land. It's not like we make a pile of money working in regional theater, and it's hard to imagine going and getting a better quality of life anywhere else."