NYT: Williamstown Theater Festival Was in Crisis. Here’s How It’s Changing.
Posted: 7/16/25 at 7:54am
Brings Harris in to transform WTF
then, spends an additional few million on less programming
???????
Posted: 7/16/25 at 8:41am
Fewer performances doesn’t mean less programming. Considering that WTF has been on life support for the last several years — and was nearly killed by the previous artistic director who should have been sacked long before she got the hook — having a season with actual productions and a few big names feels like a return to form.
Posted: 7/16/25 at 8:43am
Last year (and the years before) they barely produced anything. Costs have also been driven up post-pandemic, especially now that they’re actually paying people.
I hope the model works. It’s different and audacious, and it’s always heartening to see legacy institutions taking big swings when so many others are scaling back programming or being more conservative.
Posted: 7/18/25 at 7:40pm
The Stars of This Year’s Williamstown Theatre Festival—Pamela Anderson, Amber Heard, Chris Messina, and More—Captured by Hunter Abrams | Vogue
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/williamstown-theatre-festival-2025-hunter-abrams
Posted: 7/19/25 at 12:32am
I’ve never been before and going tomorrow to see Camino Real. Looking forward to it!
Posted: 7/20/25 at 8:10am
Can anyone who’s seen Camino Real or Not About Nightingales provide approximate running times?
Posted: 7/20/25 at 6:11pm
Camino Real is 2h30. Not About Nightingales is close to a full 3 hours. Started the customary late time but was leaving the theatre a full 3h5m after the advertised start time.
Spirit of the People (the new JOH play) had to be close to 3h15m at my performance. Hard to say exactly because of the yondr pouches, but if you're going to see that one prepare for a long (yet interesting) evening.
Posted: 7/21/25 at 10:44am
Thank you! I have no interest in Spirit of the People so the running time is irrelevant to me. Although I do find it interesting that Harris once professed his love of texting during plays and is now making his audience lock up their phones during his own play. I'll be seeing the other two next weekend.
Updated On: 7/21/25 at 10:44 AM
Posted: 7/21/25 at 12:40pm
dan94 said: "Camino Real is 2h30. Not About Nightingales is close to a full 3 hours. Started the customarylate time but was leaving the theatre a full 3h5m after the advertised start time.
Spirit of the People (the new JOH play) had to be close to 3h15m at my performance. Hard to say exactly because of the yondr pouches, but if you're going to see that one prepare for a long (yet interesting) evening."
Can you speak of the productions themselves?
Posted: 7/21/25 at 1:42pm
I can only speak for Camino Real. I went in knowing nothing about the show or the plot. It is a very bizarre fever dream, and I’m not sure I entirely get it (or if we are supposed to). All of the acting is great, Pamela Anderson is truly great and I’m so happy she is having her moment in the sun. Worth seeing for sure. I’m not entirely sure I enjoyed it (lol) but I can’t stop thinking about it, so that has to count for something.
Posted: 7/21/25 at 9:54pm
AC126748 said: "Can anyone who’s seen Camino Real or Not About Nightingales provide approximate running times?"
2:40 and 3:00, respectively.
Posted: 7/22/25 at 9:15am
Congrats to Dustin Wills on joining the pantheon of small-minded directors who feel it necessary to lash out at critics who disagree with their work. (The critic in question is David Gordon of TheaterMania.)
Posted: 7/22/25 at 7:13pm
I applaud the vision and ambition but, so far, the only two shows that worked for me were two of the smaller and more experimental ones: The Things Around Us and, especially, The Gig: After Moise and the World of Reason.
My friends and I found both Spirit of the People and Camino Real interminable. Spirit has a kernel of something worthy to address but needs serious dramaturgy and actual direction. Scores of people have been leaving at intermission. Camino is just an interesting mess of a play, emphasis on mess, with a talented cast and director.
I'm not sure where that $8 million has gone...and the endless texts and video prompts are more annoying than useful. Also, front of house is a bit of a train wreck - with one lone intern trying to scan ticket QR codes in the balcony and curtains going up 35-45 minutes after published performance times with no apology. Summer seasons are challenging; I understand and empathize with that but they have been doing this festival for 71 years (as they love to promote) and have been in the 62 Center for a few decades so they should know how to do that by now.
Posted: 7/22/25 at 8:28pm
^ Very sad to read. I’ve been a regular visitor to Williamstown for 15 years. I was hoping for an explosive return to form, especially after the post-Covid “limited” season (The Pillowman reading was fantastic last season, I should add). This makes it sounds like WTF may not have a long life ahead of it. I really hope this isn’t the case.
Posted: 7/23/25 at 3:17am
Melissa25 said: "https://theberkshireedge.com/theater-review-camino-real-plays-at-williamstown-theatre-festival-through-aug-3/"
Is Dustin Willis going to complain about this review on his Instagram too?
Posted: 7/23/25 at 6:49am
What did Wills say? He seems to have deleted his post. There’s hardly anything in David Gordon’s review that’s worth getting bothered over. In some ways, it reads like he’s going out of his way to accentuate the production’s positive elements.
Posted: 7/23/25 at 8:41am
jerseygurl said: "front of house is a bit of a train wreck - with one lone intern trying to scan ticket QR codes in the balcony and curtains going up 35-45 minutes after published performance times with no apology. Summer seasons arechallenging; I understand and empathize withthat but they have been doing this festival for 71 years (as they love to promote) and have been in the 62 Center for a few decades so they should know how to do that by now."
The problem with WTF’s dormancy and new leadership model means there is no “they”. There’s no continuity. I know they’re touting the legacy of 71 years, but this is basically an entirely new organization.
I expect they’re learning a lot of lessons this season and perhaps will come roaring back stronger, logistically, next year or even next weekend.
Posted: 7/23/25 at 8:43am
While taking a big swing is laudable, it sounds like what they really need is a steady hand and someone experienced with summer theatre festivals.
I remain baffled as to how JOH managed to parley one decent play into becoming the Face of American Theatre, but he’s managed to curate a season without a single obvious crowd pleaser. A summer festival needs that kind of a tentpole. But hey, at least they got a Vogue photoshoot.
Updated On: 7/23/25 at 08:43 AM
Posted: 7/23/25 at 8:53am
As someone who was an unpaid (or pay to play as we had to pay for our housing, food and travel) intern here, I say let them crash and burn. They don’t deserve the “prestigious” title they claim.
Posted: 7/23/25 at 8:53am
There aren’t many rep festivals to pull leaders from…they have a well-qualified full-time team who have worked in the regions and on Broadway.
I expect eventually they will set a blueprint which each new artistic programmer will have to slot into. But this org might never run with the smoothness that the world would like.
Posted: 7/23/25 at 9:11am
If anyone is heading to the different summer theatre festivals, yesterday on the Parterre.com messages I read a positive user review of Sunday in the Park at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in Cooperstown.
Posted: 7/23/25 at 11:37am
I enjoyed the season. The Figure Skating piece (The Gig) seemed to be the highlight. The season offered a different view of who Tennessee Williams was as an artist vs the view we take away from The Big 5. They offered what I thought were 8 intellectually compelling pieces. Not everything was to my taste, but I think that's part of the experience when going for a complete "festival" set up like they are trying.
Spirit of the People started very late. They referenced a technical glitch that happened at the matinee as the reason for starting late. JOH came out and read a "welcome to the festival" letter before the play. In this letter it was revealed the script was finished 3 days before the performance we were seeing. The letter put emphasis on WTF being one of the only places left to develop new work, valuing process vs product, etc. And the performance that followed was very clearly a play in development. It was well performed, and I was never bored. There is something very powerful in there. But at present there is an hour of flab dulling the edges. There's a little too much info about mezcal that doesn't always fully link back up to character development.
There were some blips along the way that I thought were to be expected. Spirit and Nightingales were both announced to use yondr pouches. Spirit used them. Nightingales did not. When an audience member inquired at Nightingales, an usher responded "we tried them. It didn't work. We're not using them moving forward." idk if that's just Nightingales, but it's certainly an element they had never encountered before at WTF. They also needed to watch the clock more. There were a few slightly tight gaps to get to the next show. I'm sure that will tighten up in the future weekends.
As for Wills, the insta story took Gordon to task for not engaging with the play and production. It was perhaps more brusque in tone than the Gordon piece warranted, but Wills was not without point. Gordon is admitting "the play itself is fully baffling" and "I couldn't quite tell...if the play had [a dramatic arc], or if I just missed it." One hell of a statement to make. This was not an unknown playwright or play. You may not have seen it before, but you could certainly read it either before seeing it, or before publishing the review to try to ascertain if it had a dramatic arc. Also, in a season that seemed to make the case for Williams as political figure, and in a play that makes more than a couple open and pointed references to JFK, and in a production that is emphasizing an immigration subplot, it is odd that there is not a hint of the politic in the Gordon piece.
As NYT is in flux, I think it's ok for artists to demand that the remaining critics be more rigorous than ever in engagement and response. Did Wills go about that in the best way? No. Is his response completely dismissible? No. I've read at least one other review that was a lot more negative than the Gordon piece, and Wills did not say word one. I don't think this is the generic "lash out at all critics" we've seen from others.
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