Riverside Theatre moving summer series to high ground, changing leadership roles

Change is afoot at Riverside Theatre, and the most recent developments will give the Iowa City troupe and its founders a chance to breathe a little easier.

The popular summer Riverside Theatre in the Park series is moving indoors with 'Cyrano” and 'Love Letters” from June 19 to July 12, trading the flood-prone Festival Stage site in Lower City Park for the protected confines of Riverside's Gilbert Street home. It's a move organizers hope is temporary but is necessary for the theater's financial health in the wake of three recently disrupted summer seasons.

Built in 2000 and modeled after London's Globe Theatre, the majestic park stage was plunged under fetid floodwaters in 2008. It was renovated by the city to its pre-flood glory, only to have the Iowa River spill over its banks again in 2013 and 2014, cutting off access to the site.

'We consider it a hiatus. We just need to take a breath from the financial and artistic risk that the last summers have brought us,” says Jody Hovland, the non-profit, professional theater's artistic director and co-founder. 'We are still passionate about outdoor programming and are in active conservation with our partners at the city regarding the future of summer programming. We just don't know what that looks like yet.”

While the city owns the park venue, Riverside Theatre was instrumental in raising funds for the permanent seating.

'We both have deep investments in the place,” she says. 'I can't emphasize enough what a great partner the city has been, and continues to be. This is a disappointment for both of us, but we hope that it's temporary.”

However, the options of moving the existing stage or rebuilding one on higher ground would be 'an expensive venture,” she says. 'So taking a year or two to re-imagine the summer was truly a pragmatic decision.”

It's a decision she doubts surprised anyone, after Riverside had to scramble to find indoor spaces to house past shows that succumbed to summer's weather woes.

'The Comedy of Errors” and 'The Winter's Tale” moved to Iowa City High School in 2008, 'Hamlet” and 'The School for Scandal” moved to West High School in 2013, but in 2014, the run of the large-scale 'Othello” ended with the flood, while the three-person production of 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised]” moved to Riverside's Gilbert Street stage.

'The community has shared the disappointment of having to leave the park and reassemble the work elsewhere. The community has stepped up over and over again to help us retire the losses from each of those summers. I don't think anybody was surprised that we simply needed to take a break from the uncertainty,” she says.

'What's been frustrating about the last two evacuations, is that the water has covered the road but not reached the festival stage. But without access to the park, you can't use the stage. It's been so close and yet so far.”

NEW LEADERSHIP

This summer's 'Cyrano” also marks Hovland's last project as Riverside's artistic director. She and husband Ron Clark, both 64, are moving out of the troupe's leadership roles, handing the reins to Sam Osheroff of Pensacola, Fla., on Aug. 1. He's a professional actor, director, visual artist and University of West Florida instructor who directed 'Red” last September at Riverside.

Hovland and Clark - who started the resident professional company with Bruce Wheaton in 1981 - will stay on as founding artists, retaining some directing or acting responsibilities, but 'moving away from the desk,” Hovland says.

Since the theater is a non-profit, Hovland and Clark are employees not owners. The organization has been renting its Gilbert Street facility from Joan Gilpin and her late husband, Bill, since 1990.

'After 34 years it's a great opportunity for the company and for new leadership, but we're not going anywhere, and that's the best part,” she says. 'For both of us, it's an opportunity to recharge creatively. Our artistic projects at Riverside will be more limited, but we will have more time for them exclusively, and that is a very exciting prospect.”

She added that Osheroff 'did a bang-up job” in directing 'Red,” and after spending some quality time with him, described him as 'a great fit for Riverside.”

'He's passionate already about the company and about the community, and is just really pleased to have found an artistic home,” she says.

'I'm just champing at the bit to roll up my sleeves and get started,” Osheroff says. He and his wife, Kris Danford, daughter Stella, 4, and son Oliver, due June 1, and dogs Oscar and Sadie will be moving to Iowa between Oliver's birth and July 1, when Osheroff's contract begins.

'As an actor/director you resign yourself to the idea that you will always live in a major urban area, that you probably won't make a lot of money and that you have to sacrifice quality of life, meaningful relationships and basic amenities for your career,” he says. 'When I got to Iowa City, I was floored by the idea that I could live in this beautiful, vibrant small city, have a really high quality of life and still get to work as a professional theater artist.

'The town is so accessible and easy to navigate, the people I've met have been open, smart, enthusiastic and very excited about the future of the theater. The restaurants are good and there's a couple of great bars. There's also a really big contingent of artists - not just theater artists but musicians, painters, etc. - who have serious chops. I think it's a testament to the city that so many talented people choose to be here rather than New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.”

SUMMER SHOWS

In the meantime, Hovland is excited about the possibilities presented by the new Summer on Gilbert Street series, running June 19 to July 12, which replaces the Riverside Theatre in the Park series.

Both stories are based on love letters, and while 'Cyrano” exists as an epic tale for 50 actors, Riverside has found a version using five actors - three who play the main roles of Roxane and the two men who love her: the gifted poet Cyrano, who feels unworthy because of his huge nose, and the tongue-tied, handsome suitor Christian. Two other actors play auxiliary roles.

Hovland says the adaptation has 'retained the heart of the love story.”

'I read it out loud to Ron on a driving trip, and it made me weep,” she says. 'For many, many years it has been one of my favorite classics. I see it whenever I have an opportunity.

'I was really thrilled to discover that this adaptation not only has the adventure and the wit and the romance, but the very deep heart of Cyrano's self-sacrifice. It really is a story for all ages. I'm hoping parents want to introduce their kids to this piece. It's one of those plays that just touches you so deeply in your soul. I am just thrilled.”

She and Clark will be among various actors who step into the two-person show, 'Love Letters,” in which two people's separate lives unfold through the notes they've exchanged over 50 years.

Granted, moving from 472 outdoor seats to 118 indoor seats is a huge production adjustment.

'It's a quarter of the seats on Gilbert Street,” she says. 'On the other hand, our expenses are far less, so that sort of balances. We will be missing an opportunity to be able to develop audience as extensively as you always hope to at the Festival Stage. We feel like what we're doing is extending the Gilbert Street season, in that we found work that really takes advantage of what we do best on Gilbert Street, which is: small cast, versatile acting, inventive theatrical staging. So the summer has a different excitement - one that capitalizes on the charm of the Gilbert Street theater.”

That excitement actually began last year.

'Having to remount for a smaller show last summer did yield an unexpected delight, in that (‘Complete Works') fit great on the Gilbert Street stage,” Hovland says, 'and we packed in audiences, including some on the stage itself. The facility just rocked with excitement and we think we can generate that same kind of excitement this summer with the season that we've selected.”