The Gospel According to Booth

Cover Story

by Mary Welch

October 25, 2007

Civilization, according to the gospel of Susan V. Booth, is not only defined by theater but saved by it. "If you look at the plays of the ancient Greeks, they were great plays about understanding humanity and your relationship to fate, these very important themes – and they were the creators of democracy. If you look at the Romans, they wrote plays that weren't so good with themes that really didn't matter. And their civilization went down in violent flames. I don't think it's coincidental."

Susan Booth, artistic director of the Alliance Theatre, is just warming up to the subject of why the arts matter.

"If you look at the play currently in production, "The Women of Brewster Place," and you said to someone, ‘We'd like you to come out and listen to African-American women of a low economic status talk about and sing about living in poverty in a housing project – and we want you to pay for it – you'd think we were crazy. But when you come to that play – or any play – you are forced to imagine that you are someone else for a couple of hours. It puts you into someone else's head. It teaches you empathy."

While she understands the current way of thinking – to "sell" the value of the arts is to emphasize the economic benefits of a vibrant arts scene – she harkens back to the importance of having a soul. "It is because we have a vibrant arts scene that we have people capable of understanding the need for public education or understanding what it feels like to be two women in a relationship – even if that is not how you are feeling or part of your experience. I would say that the arts are the greatest means to an end in producing a great civilization and community."

Booth is now in her fifth year at Alliance Theatre. The theatre, which has an annual budget of $10.5 million, produces plays that are seen by about 200,000 patrons a year. During this tenure, the Alliance has produced the world premiers of "The Color Purple," "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" and "SISTER ACT the Musical," and has launched the national tours of "Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘ Da Funk" and "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

Perhaps the theater's biggest achievement of late was winning the 2007 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. "We have always taken a great pride in our place among national colleague theatres, but there's a world of difference between claiming that place yourself and having the American Theatre Wing and the American Theatre Critics Association lend you their imprimatur," Booth says. "But there's a great sense of responsibility as well. We walk into our theatre every day and get reminded that we've been named the best in the country. You don't get comfy when that happens. You work harder to make sure you deserve the recognition."

Booth got caught up in the theater – or at least the theatrical aspects of life – early on when she went to the Ice Capades. "I was so dazzled by the show. How powerfully beautiful it was. It really affected me." The allure of such theatrics continued every time her great-uncle, a well-known painter, would visit. "When he would come, it was like a celebrity coming to town," she says. "So it seeped into me that the arts was an honest and necessary pursuit."

Booth directs at least one play a year at the Alliance and also serves as a visiting director elsewhere.

To her, there are several important elements in directing. "You have to learn the language of everyone in the room," she says. "And you have to become fluent in all of them. Steven Covey [author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People] talks about the need to listen for true understanding, rather than listening for the opening in the dialogue that's going to allow you to speak. Good direction is a process of guided alchemy. You take all of the given ingredients of a text, a company of actors, a creative team of designers, and a very specific audience for whom you are making the production, and you allow the play to reveal  itself. If you go in with a predetermined outcome as your goal, you'll  still come out the other end with a play. It just won't be the one that many people other than you can find themselves in."

She is one of a handful of women artistic directors of a major theater in this country. "I would tell women to make the arts a career, and do it in your own way," Booth says. "There's no monolithic model for success, and all of those realities of your life that may seem counterintuitive to success – the need to juggle family and work, the desire to create collaborative communities, emotional intelligence – those are, in fact, your best tools."

To her, it all comes back to the community and the dialogue. "I don't remember who said it, but the line was that once the human mind is expanded, it doesn't contract back," she says. "And, that's true of the human heart as well. It doesn't snap back once it's been exposed to empathy. If you can take someone – especially a young person – and expose them, not only to the feelings of others, but to have them feel like that person does – to inhabit their skin for two hours – it changes them. And, it changes them forever."

And that, to Booth, is why theater is so important to a community and civilization. "I want my kid to worry about what other people are feeling," she says. "And the best tool for that is the theater."