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Managing Artistic Director & Founder Richard T. Orlando Welcome... We will greet this year head on with season number 30. This season each of our 5 productions brings with it all the excitement and freshness you have come to expect from our little in size, grand in stature, theatre company. Coming up in 30 is an explosion of theatrical experiences and challenges that have unleashed our designing, acting and directing teams. You can once again expect the best in taste and culture that the entire family can experience without having to take out a loan to pay for admissions. There will also be a film project this summer titled SWEET JESUS and throughout the year we will be holding stage readings of our new play by Nathan Sanders, Divine Fruit / Kundalini Rising. Watch your email for dates & times. So, subscribe now and guarantee your seat for the hottest little ticket in town! Respectfully, Richard T. Orlando Managing Artistic Director / Founder
Since 1978, I have directed 125 productions. A majority of those projects were at the theatre company that I founded and developed in San Jose. I based our non-traditional company on a creative approach, continuously producing new or classic works in unpredictable and imaginative ways. My artistic philosophy is based on the tenets of performance, education, and experimentation—standards that have set us apart from other traditional theatre companies in California for thirty years. My original approach to production started with workshops, teaching fundamentals before moving actors into a rehearsal and performance format that provided emerging artists with theatrical experience that extended far beyond opportunities that were offered in the existing school drama departments and community theatre organizations. I assembled a professional staff, dedicated my directing efforts toward training for performance, and supplied the energy necessary to maintain a theatre company that is foundationally stable, philosophically relevant, and conceptually direct. The result speaks for itself: a company that, for the last 30, years has produced 43 current theatre professionals. Artistically, as a director, it is my super objective to provide the substance, direction, and management necessary for theatre artists to create. The overwhelming goal is to liberate the audience with the manifestation of the human spirit created in the performance. With that goal in mind, I have partnered with an exciting new Bay Area playwright, who has a national presence and reputation, to direct his original works at Northside theatre. Our first production of his play received rave reviews and was published by Samuel French after a bidding war between Play lists, Dramatist Play Service, and Samuel French. My collaboration with this playwright represents all that I am as a director: plays that tell the human story that speaks first to the audience’s heart, and then let the underlying social issues that the story deals with come later to their consciousness. Toward this objective, the story must take precedence over any contrived point of view the playwright may want to make. The story must ring true with the audience or any other objective we may have as artists is lost. I believe that it is always a privilege to perform for an audience. Therefore, my core values as a director always start with customer focus, and then mutual respect within all of the production team—meaning quality and professionalism must be embedded in all that we do. As a director and set designer, I have a special respect for all of the designers in my production team. I have always designed all of the sets for the plays I direct. It is part of my process as a director. Since I approach directing as a designer, I require all of my designers to bring their ideas about the play—what the playwright is trying to convey and how the designer proposes to carry out that message—to the first production meeting. Their ideas need as be both broad in concept and specific in detail as mine. There we fully discuss the merits of each theory, profit from the ideas of everyone, and move forward in unison. I welcome and need the energetic support of talented designers. and technicians. Only with such help can I produce high quality, imaginative plays. Only through such productions can I survive, prosper and be true to my mission as a contemporary artist. The impact of my work on Santa Clara County comes not only from my work as a director, but my artistic choices as the Artistic Director of The Northside Theatre Company. This is how I have always operated, and how I intend to operate as a director and leader in the theatre community: Think Big. We must once again be willing to develop and implement large-scale, important projects that are risky and energizing. Arts organizations have been frightened into thinking small. Thinking small begets small institutions, small budgets, and reduced public excitement and involvement. My next new work is going to be an epic journey for an unlikely hero. The logistics of such a production are daunting to a small theatre. But I and the genius designers that I work with have the ingenuity and creativity to pull it off, and we will. Train Leaders. If arts organizations are going to take risks on meaningful projects and maximize their impact, they need entrepreneurial management better suited to the current climate in which they operate. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent throughout the world each year on training performers, but only a small amount is devoted to training the people who will employ and market these performers. I have always required all of the artists with whom I work to take a turn at all aspects of performance and production. As a result, the theatre professionals I have trained are fearless and professional in all aspects of the theatre arts. Diversify. Like all institutions, the arts world is moving close to becoming a cartel of a few large mainstream organizations that survive and thrive. That would be catastrophic. A healthy arts ecology demand that we have large and small organizations, mainstream and edgy, and of all ethnic backgrounds. Teach Children. We owe every child in this nation a chance to experience the joy of self-expression, the power of discipline, and the self-fulfillment of achievement that comes from the performing arts experience. Make History. Every performance counts. Every production needs to bring something new to the world to be worthy of its audience. Whether I am bringing a new play to the world, or producing a well-loved classic, every show is an original that brings something never done before to our audiences. This is why when I direct Tartuffe, I set it in the back yard of a newly prosperous 1950’s Texan auto dealer and why I have chosen to produce new plays with a playwright who speaks to the human heart with every story he tells. I have been living this work for thirty plus years and intend to continue for the rest of my life. It sounds like a cliché, but I cannot imagine any other life than a life in the theatre. Olinder Theatre, 848 East William Street, San Jose CA 95116 (408) 288-7820 northside8@hotmail.com |
Founder and Managing
Artistic Director of Northside Theatre Company...BA from Chico State
College...designated by California Arts Council
as an Artist in Residence...has directed over 135 productions including The Sugar Witch, world premiere by Nathan
Sanders, now published by Samuel French, Everyone's War and Theodore Judah and the Transcontinental Railroad in
New York and San Francisco...other directing credits include, Twelfth Night, Waiting for Lefty, A Christmas Carol
and Rag Dolls ...has also designed sets for over 85 productions, including a number for Santa Clara University,
Teatro Vision, City Lights Theatre Company, Star Productions and Alchemy Arts Theatre Company, all in the San Francisco
Bay Area...teaching theatre arts has been at the heart of Richard's commitment to the theatre community...he has
served as a California Arts Council Artist in Residence for four years, taught on the faculty of
American Musical
Theatre, conducted workshops in San Jose's Arts Express program and trained actors at Northside Theatre since 1978...cited
by City of San Jose and California State legislators for his continued tradition of excellence in theatre.