Today’s Pride Month interview is with Vintage Theatre executive director Craig Bond:
Hi, Craig! I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during current events. What are you doing to stay creatively motivated in these unusual times?
During the past few months I have been very busy with Vintage Theatre and trying to stay creative, nimble, and flexible to weekly changes with this pandemic. Honestly, I have been reading a bunch of plays, while researching new titles to replace some of the current titles that have been selected to present. I have also been my children’s online teacher and stay at home papa! It has been a quiet and very thoughtful time for me to ponder – “what is Vintage’s next big move?” Even with all of this extra time to think and interact with my boys, I have loved taking the time to hear from patrons of Vintage Theatre and have been elated by the community in Colorado.
I drive into the theatre each week and find mail from patrons with thank you cards and donations. Most have a theme of “we love vintage”, “come back” and “stay safe”. This reminds me of a few years ago, maybe 2012, and we were so close to being shut down and I opened the mail and there was a check for $5,000 then. Patrons and the community are so generous, as they give from their hearts and I am always humbled by the support we receive.
I also am very proud of my board of directors and staff, as they have called our subscribers over the past few weeks to touch base and let them know that we will be back after the pandemic and we care about our family.
Since June is Pride Month, I have to ask: how has being gay influenced or informed your art/craft?
I remember attending “Angels in America” on Broadway when it first opened and being mesmerized by the relationship between the characters of Joe and Louis. I thought how I could someday present these same stories in Denver and how important it was for the voiceless to have a voice. I remember how being gay in America was not accepted in the 1980s and wanted to help to change the view that gay people were deviant and choose to be gay.
Having been an artist for the past thirty years has helped me to shape the direction of my audiences with the themes of the work that I choose to produce. To that end, for the past 20 years I have worked to have Vintage Theatre present work that had characters represented from the LGBTQ including Larry Kramer’s “Normal Heart”,” Angels in America”,” Love! Valour! Compassion!”, “Unmarried in America”, “Boys in the Band”, and the list goes on and on. I am very proud of the work and how these pieces have shaped me as an artist.
You co-founded Vintage Theater Productions in 2002 with friends over martinis (as reflected in the company’s logo), correct? Tell us a little about those early collaborative days and the struggles a small professional theater company faced in Denver.
The toughest struggle we had was how to make audiences aware of us (marketing) and then how to build a following with a loyal base of attendees. When Vintage Theatre started the troupe was a traveling theatre company that would bring an entire production to a senior home or country club and we would present the work for one night only. Talk about the amount of energy needed to load and present a show as a touring production, it was truly exhausting and exciting. From there we decided to have performances for a few weeks as a rental group at small theaters. Eventually we found our own home and each year we grew and grew. Watching the growth from 6 to 20 people in an audience to sell out houses of 150 people at each performance has been truly amazing to behold. Last year we reached close to 21,000 people at our shows.
Has the mission of Vintage Theatre changed at all in the intervening years, as you’ve changed spaces and expanded?
Actually we stayed pretty true to the same mission that started Vintage Theatre. We wanted to entertain and challenge both our audiences and our artists that present the work. We wanted to be the serious/fun place for performers to hone their craft and have audiences love the diversity and sheer mass of work we produce each year. We have done it, up to this year with the pandemic, by presenting at least ten shows a year with varieties of themes. Our audiences have trusted us that even if they don’t know the title they will enjoy themselves when they attend.
As a director, what does your creative process look like throughout putting a show together?
I love directing as I am able to step into all of the characters within the piece and look at what type of work or theme do we really want to go for out of a scene. I like to equate theater to cutting into a red onion vs. an apple. With an apple there are a few seeds which are the basic element that you are trying to convey, but when I direct I like to find the layers after layers to get to the heart. Peeling back each layer is the ideal way of telling a story and I love the work that I create.
Your husband, David Bond-Trimble, was one of your fellow co-founders, and your sons are also involved in the company. How do you separate Work from Family Time?
David and the boys get involved once in a while – maybe every other year as performers. I am very grateful that I am still able to get to direct three productions a year and get to watch all of the work that we present. Life balance is always tricky, but I feel that having a great support from my family gives me the anchor I need to create.
What are you, and Vintage, working on now? What changes do you anticipate making as the country slowly reopens to larger-scale gatherings like live theater?
Vintage Theatre will present “Shakespeare in Love” as soon as we are ready to open up safely. We are also looking at David Sedaris’s “Santaland Diaries” will also be presented, hopefully by the end of the year. During the pandemic, Vintage has been working on a deep clean of our theatre and our theater holdings. We have condensed our costumes and taken the opportunity to inventory and improve our equipment. We are ready to go and when we reopen the facility will have never looked better. We are also working on a reopening plan that will keep our patrons safe and we will be lowering our capacities to create safe social distancing at our performances.
Finally, where can people find you and Vintage online?
Vintage Theatre is located in the heart of Aurora, Colorado – about 8 minutes outside of Denver. Vintagetheatre.org is for all ticket information and cbond@vintagetheatre.com is my email if anyone has additional thoughts or questions.