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Phoenix Rises from Cocteau Rep's Ashes
Profile: Craig Smith & Elise Stone

BY ROBERT SIMONSON
June 14, 2005
http://www.nysun.com/article/3817

There are some New York theater careers you don't expect to have a second act. Craig Smith and Elise Stone, for instance. For a combined 50 years, the two were core ensemble members at the Bowery's own home of the classics, Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre (Mr. Smith joined in 1973, Ms. Stone in 1985).Their connection to the small company was so strong that, in 1989, the two married at the theater. Then, last August, the couple abruptly resigned, drawing down upon the Cocteau more press attention - albeit, adverse - than it had seen in decades. "There's been a disillusionment with the theater and the course it's been taking," Mr. Smith said at the time. "The quality of the work in recent years has really plateaued."

Cocteau artistic director David Fuller expressed surprise at the departures, commenting, somewhat disingenuously, "This is a 34-year-old company, so the idea of moving on is the nature of the business."

Mr. Smith and Ms. Stone wasted no time licking their wounds. Almost immediately, they teamed with three other Cocteau refugees - Michael Surabian, Angela Madden, and Jason Crowl - to form a new theater, fittingly named the Phoenix Ensemble Theatre. On October 25, the new enterprise presented a benefit reading at Symphony Space of Eric Bentley's "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" The money will be used to mount a production of Andre Gide and Jean-Louis Barrault's stage adaptation of Kafka's "The Trial" at Midtown's Mint Space in December. The production will be directed by Eve Adams, who founded the Cocteau in 1971.

Ask the duo about the nature of the Phoenix, and you'll get a fair idea of why they fled the Cocteau. "Part of the philosophy is that the money needs to go into the art, as opposed to the administration," Ms. Stone explained recently at the couple's second-floor walk-up apartment in the East Village. "As everybody knows, the theater artists, from designers to directors to actors, tend to be the lowest people on the totem pole when it comes to being paid for what they do." "There is an inherent cottage industry that happens in nonprofit theaters," added Mr. Smith. "It all becomes top-heavy with administration. Then they say, 'Oh, yes, and then we do the art.' The art and artists just become tangential. It may be very idealistic on our part to think that we're going to avoid that."

Ms. Stone, like a good spouse, finished the thought: "But we're going to try."

Their first step toward reinventing the nonprofit model was to eliminate the two positions typically found at the top: artistic director and managing director. Instead, the Phoenix will have an "ensemble director." That job will change hands annually, though Mr. Smith has taken on the first rotation. The company also plans to outsource certain administrative tasks such as payroll, taxes, and fund-raising, and to avoid mission statements - those bits of straitjacketing dogma companies use to attract press and grant money.

"Some theatres have so defined themselves: 'We do plays between 1920 and 1940 written by women with the first named of Florence,'" jokes Mr. Smith. "We're trying to remain flexible. After I explained my stance to funding sources, they said, 'Oh, you want to remain nimble.' That's a good way of putting it." This means new and site-specific performances are very much within the Phoenix's purview.

Considering the increasingly ossified nature of New York's theater industry, one would be tempted to label such notions as naive - that is, if they weren't being hatched by a sober, ministerial-looking man in his early 50s and a raven-maned woman, his wife, roughly a decade and a half younger. No, not naive: Insane, perhaps. Possibly masochistic.

"It has been labor intensive these past two months," Mr. Smith said. "We had to incorporate. We had to open a bank account. We had to deal with the benefit. And all five of us have other jobs."

Ms. Stone added: "And some of us have children."

What she means is that they have children. In 2002, the couple - heedless that they were dwelling then in a cramped studio, held down day jobs, and acted at the Cocteau at night - adopted two Ethiopian children: a boy, Tesfahun, and a girl, Hakima. They are currently awaiting a court date to adopt a third. "You just make the time," Mr. Smith explained.

"We're like most people," opined Ms. Stone. "We don't like change and want things to stay predictable. But little messages get dropped in from the universe, like 'You know, you really should think about adopting some children from Ethiopia.'"

If all goes according to plan, the Smiths will not only greet the holidays with the Phoenix's inaugural production, but with a fifth member of the family as well.

It's hard not to be inspired by these two actors, dedicated to the theater and to each other, who seem a damn sight less defeated than most young theater artists. After all, who today still talks as Ms. Stone does: "There was always the belief that you are laboring for a nonprofit theatre because in the future it will be a place that delivers an artistic home, and life and living to the artists. We'd like to see if there is a way that that really does happen." "These new beginnings," said Mr. Smith, simply. "It's fun."