Today we’d like to introduce you to Margaret Starbuck.
Hi Margaret, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am the Associate Artistic Director of Boston Court Pasadena Performing Arts Center. Boston Court creates and nurtures innovative, boundary-pushing art that invokes the power of collective imagination to illuminate our common humanity. This year is Boston Court’s 20th anniversary season, and we are incredibly excited to be premiering two exciting plays, Unrivaled by Rosie Narasaki and Measure Still for Measure written and directed by Boston Court Artistic Director Jessica Kubzansky, in addition to our music, visual art, and new play development programming!
We opened our doors in 2003 after philanthropist Z. Clark Branson decided to give back to the Pasadena community that fostered his love of the arts from a young age. Mr. Branson built a state-of-the-art facility that includes a 99-seat Main Stage and an 80-seat flexible space. Each year, we produce a season of more than 100 exciting performances in theatre and music, as well as a New Play Reading Festival, Playwrights Group, workshops, National Theatre Live screenings, and a variety of community engagement initiatives. We also showcase rotating visual art exhibits through our Art Upfront program that complement the themes of our music and theatre programming.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Boston Court Pasadena has faced the same challenges that all theaters and performing arts centers have faced over the last few years due to the pandemic. COVID-19 shuttered our doors to in-person programming for much of 2020 and 2021, but that allowed us to pivot to digital programming with recorded concerts, Zoom readings in our New Play Reading Festival, and a digital escape room, as well as to launch new play development programs we had wanted to launch for many years. Beginning in 2021, we launched our Playwrights Group, which allows us to spend a full year of script development time with a small group of playwrights, providing in-depth dramaturgical feedback and support. Also in 2021, we started our workshop initiative, which provides a playwright and their key collaborators with a multi-week workshop process that can incorporate design or movement elements to help the playwright make discoveries about the script.
We have also faced the challenge of rising costs and inflation. At the same time, as revenues from ticket sales, subscriptions, and donations have decreased due to the pandemic, costs for materials and labor have exponentially increased. Luckily, although Boston Court has had to reduce our programming somewhat to adjust to the new reality of how expensive everything is, we are still able to offer a robust season of music, theatre, visual art, and engagement events, and we hope to be here in Pasadena for another 20 years!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We’re passionate about the heightened, the lyrical, the never-seen-before, the boundary-breaking. We’re drawn to art that excavates the depth of human existence or dances in and out of ineffable wonder. We fall for the imaginative, the impossible, the incandescent. We love the absurd. We swoon for the cerebral. We bow down to heartbreak and humor, especially when we don’t see them coming. Show us the magic of what’s real and the tangibility of what’s ethereal.
Our 20th anniversary season is already underway–you can catch performances of the world-premiere Playwrights’ Arena co-production of Unrivaled by Rosie Narasaki Thursday-Monday through April 23rd, 2023. I had the privilege of directing Unrivaled, which tells the story of 11th-century Japanese writers Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon and imagines through a hilariously contemporary and deeply relatable lens what their rivalry and friendship might have looked like had they met at the court of Empress Teishi. It was a true joy to get to work with the incredible cast and creative team of Unrivaled to bring this story of female friendship and creativity to life!
In the fall, we will be producing Boston Court’s first-ever immersive theater production, Measure Still for Measure. The show uses the entire Boston Court building and parking lot to take you on a journey behind the curtain to experience the layered and intimate complexities of creating theatre. In this play-within-a-play, a renowned director rehearses a spectacular new production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, “the original #metoo story.” But backstage, there’s an even bigger drama playing out as the power dynamics of the play and the rehearsal blow up in the course of the night. Don’t miss this unique and unexpected world premiere written and directed by Boston Court Artistic Director Jessica Kubzansky.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
Theaters and performing arts centers nationwide are struggling right now due to the combined pressures of the pandemic and cost inflation. Government grants and loans were able to sustain many theaters from 2020-2022, but now that government funding has waned, many theaters are facing the reality that they can no longer sustainably function and are having to heavily cut back programming or close altogether. Theaters need the support of our local communities now more than ever!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bostoncourtpasadena.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bostoncourtpasadena/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BostonCourt/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BostonCourt
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCofl8kydetKgD1VL2Ok_ZpQ
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/boston-court-pasadena-pasadena
Image Credits
Photos by Josh LaCour, Brian Hashimoto, and Cheryl Rizzo
