Dan's Papers - August 17, 2007 - Josh Gladstone

Josh Gladstone is a perfect Renaissance man -- he acts, produces, directs, sells tickets, moves sets, paints scenery and even does clean up. In person, he seems a composite of Shakespearian characters. He has the social affability and playfulness of a young Falstaff, the inner drive of Hamlet and the quick wit and intelligence of shrew-tamer Petruchio. He is artistic director of Guild Hall's John Drew Theater since 2000, and also happens to be married to a lovely Kate, the actress Kate Mueth.

"My passion is producing plays," Josh tells me as we speak two weeks before the East Hampton theater's summer production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile is to open. "My job is never boring. The John Drew Theater offers me the amazing opportunity to present the work of other creative artists, while also acting and producing. It is thrilling to work with the exceptional range of artists here and I want to bring in more professional theater."

Josh backed into doing theater in the Hamptons about ten years ago when he was between acting jobs and visiting his cousins David and Neal Brandenburg one winter weekend at the family's Amagansett home (where he often enjoyed childhood summer vacations). After graduating from Colgate with honors in art history and English, he had to ask himself, "What can I do with majors like that?" He needed to do some graduate work. "I had acted in college and loved theater, so I got a small apartment in Manhattan and did odd jobs while studying at Circle in the Square [the well-regarded Off Broadway theater company].

"After completing the professional acting program, I began to work and joined Actors Equity. In December of 1995, when I was cast as Babar's hindquarters in a children's theater Christmas production in Minneapolis, I knew I had to find a more satisfying theater job.

"In early January or February, hanging out for the weekend in Amagansett with my younger brother Dan and the Brandenburgs, we got the idea to start the Hamptons Shakespeare Festival. We went right to work on it. Friends had connections in the Suffolk County Parks Department and we made arrangements to rent the summer cabins and side lawn at Theodore Roosevelt County Park in Montauk for a few weeks that coming summer.

"With donations from parents and friends, a grant from the Suffolk County Department of the Arts and assistance from our unemployed actor friends, we opened a full production of Romeo and Juliet, with music, in the summer of 1997." [This reviewer attended that first HSF show -- and many others -- all delightful outdoor productions for children and adults.]

Josh stayed on with HSF for four years, with his cousin, David Brandenburg, who still runs it. He and Kate married in 2000 and along came son August Solomon Gladstone who, at the ripe age of four, joined the family business. (Josh quickly notes acting is Augie's choice, not something he and Kate pushed him to do. Now just seven, Augie already has a major professional credit -- he acted in the middle play of Tom Stoppard's Tony Award-winning trilogy Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center this past season.)

"By the fall of 2000, although I loved living on the East End, with a wife and child, I needed a full-time job. I was doing temp work during the day and working on the next HSF season at night. Browsing job opportunities online, I saw a notice for the artistic director at Guild Hall, and I applied. Ruth Applehof interviewed me. Emma Walton, of Bay Street Theatre, put in a good word for me -- for which I am very grateful. I got the job."

Seven years later, Josh finds himself mid-journey into artistically rebuilding the historic John Drew Theater at Guild Hall. He has developed good working relations with "local" professionals Harris Yulin, Roy Scheider, Mercedes Ruehl, Tony Walton, Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, Robert Wilson, Dina Merrill, Steven Hamilton and Emma Walton. He also started a summer theater affiliation with Mitzi and Perry Pazer's Playwrights Theatre of East Hampton to co-produce staged readings of new and classic plays with professional actors.

In 2002, he met Josh Perl, an original member of the Pilobolus dance troupe who was doing graduate work at Southampton College. Perl had started Naked Stage, an informal cooperative of local writers, artists and actors meeting bi-weekly during the winter to read plays. In 2003, Gladstone invited Naked Stage to do its off-season readings at the John Drew and opened the readings to the public, free of charge. Naked Stage is now a contributor and source of talent for the John Drew Theater.

In his seven years at JDT, Josh has selected, produced, directed and/or worked on more than two dozen shows, including Robert Wilson's Persephone, and staged readings of Joe Pintauro's Beside Herself, The Price (with Harris Yulin, Eli Wallach and Alec Baldwin), Don Juan in Hell (Ed Asner, Dianne Wiest, Harris Yulin, Paul Hecht), Golf with Alan Shepard (Dan Lauria, Jack Klugman, Charles Durning, Peter Boyle, Len Cariou), Murray Schisgal's Pushcart Peddlers and Regret (Judd Hirsch, Estelle Parsons, Lewis J. Stadlen), Leftover Stories to Tell: A Spalding Gray Tribute (Hazelle Goodman, Richard Gere, Carey Lowell), Viva La Vida! (Mercedes Ruehl, Jeffrey Tambor) and The Exonerated (Mia Farrow, Billy Dee Williams).

He continues his love affair with Shakespeare and the classics, producing and directing full stagings of Hamlet, The Cherry Orchard, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet at the John Drew. He just had to step in as one of the leads in the Steve Martin absurdist comedy Picasso at the Lapin Agile (which is onstage at East Hampton Studios in Wainscott) when actor Michael Nathanson got a big part in the national tour of The Lion King. On nights when Picasso does not play, the JDT has a staged reading of David Mamet's dramatic Oleanna with Larry Pine and Joanna Howard (August 19), an "American Musical Theater Salute" to Irving Berlin with Melissa Errico and George Dvorsky (August 26), and a new-play reading with Playwrights Theatre of East Hampton on September 2 -- all at East Hampton Studios.

Josh says fall plans for JDT productions include "Naked Vaudeville" on September 18 with brief scenes from Chekhov, Wendy Wasserstein, George Abbott and others, a staged reading of Pinter's The Homecoming on October 2, and Jane Martin's comedy Cementville (similar theme to the musical Urinetown) on October 16.

Guild Hall director Ruth Appelhof, Josh and his John Drew theater crew have been working feverishly on the restoration of the theater, aided by architect Robert A.M. Stern, builder Ben Krupinski and the Guild Hall board. Somehow simultaneously acting, scheduling and supervising two busy JDT seasons of plays, music, lectures and dance at temporary venues, Josh Gladstone is accomplishing it all.

"I love this community and I'm excited about the state-of-the-art facility the John Drew Theater will soon be," he concluded. Guild Hall is fortunate to have Josh Gladstone, but the biggest beneficiaries of his talents are East End audiences.