It’s a chicken-or-egg-first question: Does art imitate life, or is it the other way around?
“One day, a stranger arrives… He carries a briefcase, says he is from the IRS, and is there to audit them since the Groden family has reported an annual income of less than $5,000 for several years. This man is William Gibbs. He is stung by a bee, takes to the sofa, confesses his dissatisfaction with tax collecting, and, what with one thing and another, never leaves.”
So begins Roger Ebert’s 2005 review of Off the Map, Joan Ackermann’s screenplay turned movie. But in a strange series of events last month, Oscar Wilde’s observation that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life (from “The Decay of Lying: An Observation, 1889”) seemed to be more accurate. The announcement—that the Town would take Ackermann’s beloved Mixed Company theatre if past-due taxes were not paid—sent chills throughout the surrounding community of writers, actors, directors, and theatre-goers.
Berkshire County’s oldest year-round theatre, located in the old Granary building abutting the railroad tracks at 33 Rosseter Street in Great Barrington, was included on a list of properties released by the town’s tax office and reported to be “at risk of seizure” due to unpaid back taxes. No bee or sofa was involved, but the sting was real and deeply felt. Since then, there has been a good deal of shared regret about the misunderstanding.
“I’ve been to Town Hall every year in June to pay my taxes,” Ackermann explains, “always one year behind, so I’ve paid the accrued interest as well. A few days before reading this notice in the public domain, I put down $4,000 toward the $11,000 I owed for 2022 and told the tax clerk that I would be back by the end of the month to pay the rest of my taxes.”
There was no suggestion that her plan was unacceptable when she left the office that day. Imagine her shock, then, when her friend Rose Baumann forwarded the “breaking news” announcement two days later that the Town was “taking control” of the Granary LLC unless the outstanding debt was paid in full by June 30.
An alarming announcement acts as a rallying cry
Friends and supporters of the small but mighty theatre called and wrote letters of support. Bobbie Hallig (“2019 Berkshire Favorite,” a k a Edwin A. Jaffe Award winner and long-time supporter of numerous Berkshire treasures) reached out to offer help, recalling how her son Oskar would announce, “There’s a production. When are we going?” when he was young, bring flowers to every performance, and memorize chunks of dialogue to carry with him after.
In her letter, Hallig made the following points and pleas:
“Of course, during the pandemic, the shows stopped with incredible financial loss to Joan and her company. It seems only fair that some consideration to unavoidable challenges should be weighed and some slack offered in order to keep a valued community entity alive after 40 years of a presence in the Berkshires.
“There is no doubt that were the threats to its existence made known more broadly, patrons would be appalled at the prospect of losing Mixed Company and what it brings to Great Barrington. Please help to protect this treasured company and all that it brings to us!”
When Ackermann went to speak with Alicia Dunn, Town Tax Collector, she learned that the Town was not taking control of it. Instead, it was placing a lien on her property (meaning that, if she sold, the unpaid taxes would be taken from the proceeds before she received any money from the sale).
“I’m not a scofflaw,” Ackermann states. “I have always communicated my plans, paid my interest, and followed through as promised.”
A positive plot twist
After paying off her 2022 taxes and pleading her case through multiple calls, emails, and meetings with Town Manager Mark Pruhenski and Tax Collector Alicia Dulin, Ackermann was very relieved to learn last Tuesday that the Town would not be placing a lien on The Granary after all. “Both our town officials were responsive and reasonable,” Ackermann says, “and I’m grateful to them.” A payment plan has been initiated for her 2023 taxes, but with Mixed Company Theatre as the primary Granary tenant, it won’t be easy to catch up.
During COVID, landlords were prevented from evicting tenants who couldn’t pay the rent, and many businesses received ongoing PPP support (Paycheck Protection Program—1st draw, 2nd draw, and PPP loan forgiveness).
Ackermann only received PPP help the first year but continued to pay her mortgage, as well as her sewer, water, heating, and electric bills for the property, throughout the pandemic—to the tune of $36,000 over the three years. “I always lost money with Mixed Company, which is the nature of running a nonprofit theatre, but I was paying way more out of my pocket than what was going into it for over three years.” She is currently not receiving pay for her work as a writer due to the Writers Guild of America strike that began on May 2.
Surviving the two-punch challenge of a pandemic and inflation
In Nate Hall’s October 2022 article in The Tufts Daily, in which he recounts the added loss live theater experienced during the pandemic compared with other sectors of the entertainment industry, Hall writes: “For theater, however, there was no COVID-19-safe alternative. As live performances around the country were canceled, all 41 Broadway theaters closed their doors on March 12, 2020. Once COVID-19 numbers declined and vaccines became widely available, Broadway finally reopened in September 2021, but this was only half the battle. This last year has shown that Broadway has yet to fully recover from its 18-month closure as shows continue to struggle with low ticket sales.” As a result, many iconic shows (“Come from Away,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Phantom of the Opera,” and others) were forced to close prematurely.
As Broadway goes, so go smaller, local theaters. And yet our need for them—and the raw, emotional human connection they create—has never been greater. “One of the biggest fundamental problems with Broadway is that it’s not accessible to the general public,” Hall notes. “Theater fans have to travel to New York and pay hundreds of dollars to see some of the most in-demand shows.”
But for $25, you could sit in the intimate space of Mixed Company in the Granary and watch renowned actors like Gillian Seidl bring original plays by Joan Ackermann and others to life. Carl Sprague (designer, Berkshire Theatre Group), following Mixed Company’s last pre-COVID performance, raved: “Such an evening! Great cast. Great play. And, as always, the best place for theater is in the Berkshires.”
For Seidl and Ackermann, Mixed Company felt like a lift. “We always wanted to give something of value, reflect on what was good in humanity, and leave people feeling better than when they came,” Ackermann explains.
Former Berkshire Co-op president Daniel Seitz, affirming the importance of local theater to our community, expounds: “The restrictions on gathering during the last few years have been extremely detrimental to the arts across the board. Theater brings people together and helps to enliven our souls and imagination. Joan’s plays, in particular, are humorous, touching, and insightful, and Mixed Company offers a wonderful, intimate venue for performances. I can’t wait to see what’s next.”
Mixed Company origins
“When Gillian Seidl and I put on Alan Ayckborn’s Bedroom Farce in the summer of 1982, we had no intention of starting a theatre. We just wanted to act and put on a play,” Ackermann explains, adding that they rented the space in The Granary, constructed 12 lights made out of stovepipes (still in use; now there are 20), pieced together 60 slatted seats from a discarded pile marked for firewood, and cast it and rehearsed for six weeks. “It was an instant hit. Gene Shalit wrote that it was the best theatre he’d seen in the Berkshires that summer, and we were mobbed. We had no phone and charged five dollars a ticket.”
After an extended sold-out seven-week run, Seidl and Ackermann looked at each other and said, “Well, I guess we should put on another play.” And so it went for over 170 productions.
Ackermann credits her father’s powers of observation with giving her an eye for detail and his wry wit with cultivating her strong sense of humor. Although she never took formal playwriting classes, she explains that “the process of writing plays is what helps you develop your craft.”
Known widely as a playwright, her other achievements (equally noteworthy) include being a special contributor to Sports Illustrated for many years and writing for Time, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and other magazines. She’s penned more than 20 plays, one of which she adapted into the film Off the Map, directed by Campbell Scott and starring Sam Elliott and Joan Allen. Her young adult novel about a teenage boy from Pittsfield (In The Space Left Behind) was published by Harper Collins in 2007, and she spent seven years as a head writer on HBO’s Arli$$. She is currently under contract to adapt a screenplay from her play The Batting Cage and is working on a mini-series pitch and a new play.
Ackermann’s plays include Yonder Peasant, Staying Afloat, The Taster, QWERTY I and II, Zara Spook and Other Lures, Stanton’s Garage, The Batting Cage, Don’t Ride the Clutch, Bed and Breakfast, Rescuing Greenland, A Knight at the Theatre, My New York Hit, Back Story, Marcus is Walking, and Isabella: a Young Physician’s Primer on the Perils of Love (a musical for which she wrote the music and lyrics). The works have been produced at the Vineyard Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Circle Rep, George Street Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Shakespeare & Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Mark Taper Forum, and Atlantic Theatre Company.
Forty years—a cause for celebration and post-pandemic return
“We never celebrated Mixed Company’s 40th anniversary, and we’ve never had a tribute to Gillian since her death five years ago,” Ackermann notes. (The renowned actor/co-founder/director of Mixed Company was tragically struck and killed crossing a pedestrian crosswalk in Sheffield in April 2017.) Both commemorations moved from the back burner to a new priority after the meeting with Town officials last month. “I always felt that if I could keep alive the spirit and quality that Gillian and I brought to Mixed Company, it would be worth continuing after the pandemic was behind us,” Ackermann says. “It’s always been a joint effort between the audience, the actors, and the theatre.” She notes that the actors were brave, and the audience brought a generosity of spirit.
With that spirit of bravery—and hopes of generosity—Ackermann now is setting her sights on a new goal: to reopen the theatre next January with a production of her play, The Taster. To do that, she will need to raise funds to begin paying her 2023 taxes and to restore the space that has been dark and waiting for a cue since 2019. A special fund-raising opportunity is being planned for the fall to help recover past losses and gear up for the January reopening. Stay tuned.
“It’s much like the opening scene in the movie Shakespeare in Love,” she muses. The Rose Theatre, built by Philip Henslowe (played by Geoffrey Rush), a businessman with a cash-flow problem, is in danger of closing. The moneylender Hugh Fennyman (played by Tom Wilkinson) shouts, “Do you know what happens to a man who doesn’t pay his debt? His boots catch fire!”
“I have a wonderful new play,” the debtor pleads. When the lender agrees to allow him to pay his debt with the play’s proceeds, Henslowe says, “I have to pay the actors and the author.” “A share in the profits!” Fennyman advises. “There’s never any,” Henslowe responds. “Of course not!” Fennyman laughs.
In the next scene, Rush is seen tiptoeing down the cobblestone street on tender feet—an apt metaphor for most theater directors’ reality. “What will happen?” the audience—and director—wonder. “You do it, you put on the play,” Ackermann affirms.
Reflecting on that scene, she recalls painting a rectangular white screen on the back wall of Mixed Company for The Berkshire Film Festival when the theatre was in jeopardy of closing (“which it almost always was,” she adds). Before painting, she’d turned off the lights and popped a copy of Shakespeare in Love into the projector. The film appeared in the white ribbons of paint she was rolling. “It was extraordinarily moving and comforting to see and hear the struggles of another theatre, centuries away—with that glorious soundtrack,” she says. “It was one of the most magical moments of theatre I’ve ever experienced.”
At one point in the film, Henslowe is asked, “How will the theatre survive?” To which Ackermann repeats, all too familiarly, the answer he provides: “It’s a mystery. It’s a mystery!”
