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Summer Shorts 2019 (Photo by George Schiavone)
By Bill Hirschman
As Sondheim wrote, “Art isn’t easy.”
That truism is exemplified as City Theatre successfully marks its 30th anniversary this month as a game-forging force in South Florida theater in challenging times.
Summer Shorts, it’s landmark spotlighting short plays, this year will be a one-day event (including dinner) rather than the three-weekend affair it once was. And it has moved from the Adrienne Arsht Center’ Theater Up Close series downtown to the modest rent of Westchester Cultural Arts Center.
It’s operating budget has been sliced almost in half from pre-Covid days, due among other reasons to cuts in state and federal grants at the same time presentation costs have skyrocketed.
But this move is not remotely a finale for the persevering company continuing its various programs. Its champions are determinedly adapting to surmount and survive fiscal uncertainty. Indeed, City Theatre’s situation exemplifies what many South Florida theaters are wrestling with.
“We are not a company that is on a downward trend. We’re a company that is on the start of a new chapter,” said Gladys Ramirez, executive director. “A one-night-only format is helping us be able to be financially sustainable and create this opportunity for our audience that we’re known for… and also be able to navigate this kind of change in the funding financial landscape.
“And if we have to get small and stay nimble to kind of weather what the storm is, it’s not just us, it’s people going to the grocery store, people going to the gas station. It’s everybody. And I’m nothing if I’m not blindly optimistic about us finding a way to navigate this going forward.”
Sardonically she laughed. “Oh, this is showbiz, babe. We’re always in danger of shutting down. Honestly, this is my 5th year as executive director, and I tell (Artistic Director Margaret M. Ledford) we’re always on the precipice of greatness and doom. But look, at the end of the day, we’re artists, we’re artist-led. We’re always going to try to be creative in how we approach what we’re doing.”
Veteran actor Steve Trovillion, who has performed or directed in 16 productions, said, “I’ve got to give credit to Margaret and Gladys. No matter what gets thrown at them, they come up with a different way of doing it. ‘Let’s do it this way. Okay, well, let’s do it this way’ “
Encouragingly, it received a $100,000 grant in January for its Homegrown Playwright Development Program which the funding American Theater Wing cited as “(having) demonstrated innovative new strategies to successfully present the work of American playwrights” in a new approach to developing the American theatrical canon.
Karen Stephens and Beth Dimon
Summer Shorts bowed in June 1996 when founders Susan J. Westfall, Stephanie Norman and Elena Wohl experimented mounting full evenings of 10-minute comedies, dramas and intimate monologues with an ensemble cast of professional artists at University of Miami’s Ring Theatre in Coral Gables. Half of 18 or more plays each season would be done in the afternoon and the rest following an onsite supper in an almost carnival atmosphere.
The program built a national reputation for finding and developing short plays that need no excuses as a full-fledged theatrical art form, sorting through hundreds of offered scripts. Unlike the half-baked offerings at Saturday Night Live, which find a single joke and hammers it until the time slot expires, City Theatre’s offerings are storytelling plays with a beginning, middle, end and usually a theme. Some are hilarious, some thought-provoking. Some even are musicals – of a sort. But they are not skits.
Over the decades, more than 300 works have included world premieres and established works by both newcomers and name playwrights like David Ives, Kenneth Lonergan, Jeffrey Hatcher, Brian Friel, Jeffrey Sweet and Steve Yockey.
“People still talk about the first years of Summer Shorts at UM’s Ring Theatre, but it’s not just the plays they remember,” Ledford wrote. “It’s the break between programs in the courtyard, the food, the conversation with the person next to you about what you’d just seen and sharing the excitement of what’s coming next.”
Over time, the company added full-length productions including Building the Wall by Robert Schenkkan, Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds, What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck, La Gringa by Carmen Rivera, and Black Santa by Aaron Mays.
Building The Wall with Gregg Weiner and Karen Stephens -(Photo by Justin Namon,)
The team has experimented with various theme riffs in auxiliary productions that lasted one or several seasons such as Winter Shorts, Undershorts, the LGBTQ-themed Shorts Gone Wild, Swamp Shorts, Island Shorts, female-centric She Shorts and even a presentation on board a cruise ship.
Over the years it has created and maintained an array of other programs such as City Reads, a free play reading series themed around Miami today, each reading is followed by an audience conversation with the actors. Or Short Cuts Tour, a free middle-school tour of four ten-minute plays for ages 10–14, plus a Summer Tour to camps, libraries, and community centers giving thousands of children their first experience of live theatre.
One former program, KidShorts, a high-school playwright development program, counts among its alumni Tarell Alvin McCraney (the Academy Award–winning writer of Moonlight), Marco Ramirez (showrunner of Marvel’s Daredevil), and Lucas Leyva (co-founder of Borscht Corp).
Miami-based emerging playwright writers from communities historically underrepresented on the American stage have developed short plays that eventually evolved into full-length works. A second full evening called Liberty City Vignettes is slated to premiere next season at the Sandrell Rivers Theater.
There are few well-known actors, directors and support staff who have worked in this region regularly who have not performed in Summer Shorts, some multiple years.
Actress Karen Stephens recalled, “Putting a show together with two acts, eight different short plays and playing multiple roles was a unique experience. The variety and diversity in the playwriting was a welcome difference; coupled with working with various directors was like a theatre camp for grown-ups. I loved it.”
Trovillion will host this year’s production with memories of the unique mode’s requirements. With a short rehearsal turnaround, the artists must learn to work fast, make quick decsions, absent time to experiment with different approaches, he said.
The challenge is changing personalities almost instantly. One year, Trovillion ranged in one night from a woman to a New York subway janitor to a 5-year-old kid to the couple in the American Gothic painting to a Jewish television writer in L.A. It also limits the choices and tropes that you might use for one character because you’ve already used it on an earlier one.
The company refused to cancel last year’s Summer Shorts despite those funding cuts. With a campaign entitled Defunded Not Defeated, they still produced 20 short plays, two musical numbers, and a live band in the Sandrell Rivers Theater.
This year’s structure is an attempt to recall the initial Ring Theatre experience: 16 actors, live music, five directors, a catered dinner. “It’s like a big summer camp,” Ramirez said.
A preview performance will be held at 2 p.m. with a reduced $25 fee. “We want to make sure that we make it accessible to everyone, so the afternoon preview is no food and drinks provided, right? So we want students. We want people on fixed income. We want people in the biz to have that opportunity to see Summer Shorts at an accessible price point,” Ramirez said.
The full experience at 7 p.m. priced from $150 to $250 includes cabaret style seating, a welcome drink on arrival, charcuterie board and sangria at the table, a Spanish-inspired supper, live music throughout the evening and a cash bar.
The anniversary guests of honor on June 13 are two of its founders: Westfall, a Miami-born playwright and longtime civic and arts advocate; and attorney Alan H. Fein, founding board chairman.
Westfall summed up, “Thirty years later, City Theatre is still producing short and long plays, still nurturing playwrights, still growing audiences attracted by the diversity and inventiveness the company has always embraced. I cannot wait to see what the next decade holds.”
Summer Shorts: America’s Short Plays Festival plays June 13 at the Westchester Cultural Arts Center, 7930 SW 40th St., Miami. Preview at 2 p.m with $25 tickets, full evening doors open 6 p.m., show at 7 p.m. $175 general admission, $250 VIP. Tickets at www.westchesterculturalartscenter.com. Accessibility accommodations are available upon request. 
