What does Austin arts mainstay Ann Ciccolella have in the works? Let’s see, she has finished a staged reading of a play she wrote about John Singer Sargent’s Madame X. And she has written the libretto for a five-character opera, “Verdict of Love,” based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's final novel, which will soon be produced at the new Butler Opera Center Sept. 11-13. All this, while she is serving as artistic director at Austin Shakespeare. Without a doubt, Ann is still making her presence widely known on the Austin arts scene, where she has flourished since she came here 37 years ago.
I love hearing about people’s “Aha! moments.” Ann grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, with a view of the Manhattan skyline to the east. Her dad was a purveyor of fruits and vegetables, and her parents’ involvement with the arts was mostly limited to attending Vaudeville acts. One magical day, Ann bought a ticket to a Broadway show, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. She sat there in her balcony seat, mesmerized, and told herself she wanted to be involved in the dramatic arts for the rest of her life.
After earning an interdepartmental degree in Dramatic Literature, History of the Theater, and Cinema at NYU, Ann set about starting her career. “Directing, stage managing – I was doing whatever I could do to make a buck!” During this time, she had shows on Off-Off-Broadway and along the East Coast. At one point, she ran her own company called Renaissance Theater.
In 1989, Ann’s partner, Tara Smith, took a position with the University of Texas philosophy faculty, and they moved here. Looking down from the airplane flying in, Ann had expected to see red rocks like Colorado, but was pleasantly surprised that Austin had a lot of greenery.
She wanted to get a “normal job and write plays,” but soon found out that there was an active dramatic scene in town. They were staying in a bed-and-breakfast while looking for a permanent place to live, where she found a guidebook with many listings for Austin theaters. That made her realize that she had a good chance of making a living in the arts.
It wasn’t long until Ann started volunteering at Austin Circle of Theatres, and when the managing director stepped down, she took the job, which she held for nine years. When people ask her what to do when they come to a new town, Ann tells them, “Volunteer! You never know what it will lead to.”
During this time, Ann was actively involved with Project Interact, a Zach Scott project that took a group of professional actors around Texas to put on shows for schoolchildren. They were blessed with support for this activity by the Texas Commission on the Arts, but the funding dried up. Then Alice Wilson resigned as the managing director at Zach Scott, and Dave Steakley came on board as the artistic director. Ann was good friends with Dave, and after many conversations, he convinced her to be Zach’s managing director. She took the position and directed about one show a year, in addition to handling her administrative duties.
I asked her about some of her career highlights during the eight years she held that position. She said that directing Karen Kuykendall in both Full Gallop (based on Diana
Vreeland’s life) and Cabaret, which also featured Meredith McCall, were two of her favorite shows. She also enjoyed working with Fran Dorn in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and with Jill Holmes (Blackwood) and Nick Rodriguez in Masterclass.
In 2008, Ann was hired to be the artistic director and managing director of Austin Shakespeare. The group was heavily in debt at that point and did not have many major donors. One way she reduced the debt was to cut back to one show a year in Zilker Park, to generate publicity and reduce the overhead costs. Within a year, she hired Alex Alford as her managing director, which she says is the smartest thing she ever did. They are still a team, and Austin Shakespeare is doing well now. Ann says that one of her favorite plays has been Macbeth, starring Marc Pouhe' and Helen Merino. They have staged it both at Zilker and in the Rollins Theatre at the Long Center.
One way Ann has made Austin Shakespeare catch a second wind and thrive is by thinking outside the box and bringing theatre into different settings. For instance, they did a version of A Little Night Music in the Rollins Theatre with a 12-piece orchestra. They also did a staged reading of Wolf Hall with period costumes along with music and dance. Last year, they did a junior project with the Austin Symphony at the Long Center, which brought in 14,000 fifth graders to see Midsummer in Marfa: A West Texas Fairy Tale, a bilingual, multi-genre theatrical and musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream. It blended classical symphonic music, mariachi, Latin dance, and reggaetón. (Now that’s variety!)
“We do have a wonderful board and our president, Sue Breland, is very active in the community, which is a big help.” Ann added that they recently took a musical turn by using local singers, including Pamela Hart, in a 1940s hit parade fundraiser at Parker Jazz Club. They also use the Chez Zee Gallery for shows.
Ann also loves to talk about their Young Shakespeare productions, which use actors aged 13 to 19 and were staged for a long time at Richard Garriott’s Curtain Theatre. This year, they were at the Scottish Rite Theatre on Lavaca for these shows. They staged The Merchant of Venice there this June, and they loved using the theatre’s gorgeous backdrops. Ann notes that one of the actors from their past productions performed on Broadway.
They also did a young people’s version of The Odyssey at the Long Center, which Ann wrote, and her adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull. They have also used Shalom at the Jewish Community Center for Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt. During the year, Austin Shakespeare goes into the schools, and the company gets the students on their feet reading parts. They are coming back to Parker Jazz Club, as well, with “Ragtime Piano & Songs” on Oct. 11, including performers Roderick Sanford and Kara Bliss.
There are 80 theater companies in Austin these days, and competition for donor money is stiff. Austin Shakespeare used to be able to count on funds from the City of Austin, but that’s no longer a given. High-tech companies are coming to town, but in those circles, interest in the arts isn’t overwhelming. For Austin Shakespeare, the average donation is $250, which means they have to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. “Survival is the name of the game,” Ann says. But as The Bard put it, “Sweet are the uses of adversity.”
