Interview with Roy Furshpan, director of CenterArts, Humboldt State University

By Mark McKenna

Roy Furshpan: I am the director of CenterArts. We are the presenting arts organization here at Humboldt State University.

Mark McKenna: How long have you been presenter here?

RF: Ten years.

MM: Tell me about your program and what you do here.

RF: CenterArts is a multidisciplinary presenter. We are basically the main presenter in Humboldt County. Our mission is to bring the highest quality performers that we can to the county. We are dealing with everything from well-known performers to up-and-coming artists. One of our missions is to bring some culturally diverse programs to areas that are underserved and lacking in that area.

MM: How would you describe this area in terms of the population?

RF: There certainly are some nonwhite constituents here, but it is a small percentage of the population. It is a predominantly white, rural area. That certainly creates a certain milieu, I guess you could say.

MM: How has it changed over the last ten years?

RF: Diversity is becoming a focus of the university, and that is due in part to the arts, and in part to the overall climate of the country.

MM: As a person in the business of developing audiences, what are your biggest challenges in this area?

RF: We are in a pretty rural area and we are presenting a program with over 50 events a year, which is large by any standard. We have the largest presenting program out of the 23 California State University campuses and we are probably one of the smallest campuses. My philosophy is not to say that we are in a rural area so we can’t present this company because they are too big, too expensive and no one is going to know who they are. My philosophy is that is the challenge, so let’s do it and make it work.

MM: You are not making decisions by whether this be wanted by the audience?

RF: We are not trying to shove anything down their throats. We have gone from a very small arts and lecture program to, as I said, a pretty major program. The only way that happens is if you have really strong community support. What we are doing is trying to engage the community, while at the same time trying to get them to expose themselves to things they wouldn’t normally think about.

MM: So, how do you get folks to come to a program?

RF: The key to that is giving them a really great experience. There has been a lot of trust built between the community and CenterArts – they have been to something that they have never heard of before and they have been blown away. It is easier for them to trust that and say, "We really enjoyed that last thing, so let’s try it again." That has been a key factor, always trying to keep up that "wow" factor.

MM: What is Center Art’s relationship with Dell’Arte?

RF: We started out with a typical presenter/artist relationship. From the very beginning, we were presenting works for them.

MM: Was it stuff that they were doing at their theater?

RF: They didn’t really have one at that point. This was kind of a local outlet for them. Over the years, CenterArts started getting some major funding, as did Dell’Arte. We were looking for some creative ways to expand the relationship. A couple of major projects developed like that. Probably the first one was the Redwood Curtain Project, funded through the Lila Wallace[-Readers Digest Fund] program, to commission a new work for Dell’Arte, and we would present it as well as this trilogy that they had. There was a tremendous amount of community involvement with that, working with community partners to help inform the work. That project was one of the first times CenterArts really stretched what we did as far as presenting. It was over four nights. Each night, we presented one of the works that make up the trilogy, and then on the fourth night we did all three of them in one day. Since the success of that, we started doing festivals where there are four shows in a day. And now, it is not unusual for us to do three or four shows in a week. I think that initial success we had with Dell’Arte was eye-opening for us.

MM: Being a Lila Wallace project, part of that project’s focus was for audience development? Did Dell’Arte have particular audience-development issues, as well as CenterArts?

RF: The idea was for us both to find new audiences. Part of that came through us singling out different community groups and making them feel like they had a voice in what was happening. That solidified our relationship, in terms of our ability to work intensely with each other, so we did some other, similar kind of things. Just recently we started working with them on a summer institute of physical theater. We received some major funding from the Irvine Foundation, for presenters to stretch beyond what they are usually doing. Dell’Arte serves as the artistic visionaries for that. Through their connections in the physical theater world, they are curating different artists to present and there are workshops and different things as a part of the institute.

MM: Who is the audience for that?

RF: We have tried to go outside the local audience . Certainly, through the workshops, there are people coming into Dell’Arte’s school to study.

MM: Is that something that is going to continue on?

RF: We hope. The funding cycle ended last summer, but we are talking about how we can continue that relationship and make it work without the funding.

MM: I heard you say something about the process of building the trust of the community in regards to your organization. I have been hearing the same thing a lot in regards to Dell’Arte. Do you think there is something in particular about the communities here that might make it harder to build that trust?

RF: I think it is the opposite. Almost literally every artist that performs for us tells us that we have a great audience. It is a noticeable thing. I think it is partly a function of not taking things for granted. Also, people aren’t real jaded here. They are very open-minded and if something is really high quality and is speaking to them, they respond. They are not shy. Obviously that is what artists are looking for.

MM: What are the biggest challenges this community is facing?

RF: As far as the community? The thing I hear over and over again is making a living in Humboldt County. The bigger picture, as an overall challenge, is what is going to happen to the economy and what that economy is going to be based on. This is an issue that the trilogy dealt with, the economy change with the ending of the timber industry.

MM: If you were to describe CenterArts and Dell’Arte as Batman and Robin, how would you describe how you complement each other?

RF: Who would be Batman and who would be Robin? I think they would be the Joker.

MM: In describing the assets that you bring to them and they bring to you, it is a very powerful partnership it seems to me. You have a lot of clout together. How would you describe that?

RF: We are attached to a state university. Because of that we have certain types of infrastructure and facilities and things like that. That is what we bring to the table. What they bring to the table is a tremendous knowledge of their field, and the fact that they are working artists in Humboldt County.

MM: Is there anything else you would like to say?

RF: Just that it has been really fun to watch them develop. Fun is kind of an understatement. I think all of Humboldt County is really proud of Dell’Arte, that there is this company out in little Blue Lake that is internationally known. That is pretty cool.

Mark McKenna is artistic director and an ensemble member of Touchstone Theatre, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris. He has taught theater classes at Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania, and the MFA Theatre Program at Towson State University. McKenna is active in the growth of the Network of Ensemble Theatres. He is a board member of Alliance for Building Communities, a regional community-development corporation.

PERFORMING COMMUNITIES
Carpetbag | Cornerstone | Dell'Arte | Jump-Start
LAPD | Pregones | Roadside | WagonBurner
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