Recently hired by the Trinity Repertory Co. as a conversationalist-in-residence, Christina Bevilacqua is a cultural curator who uses the arts and humanities to cultivate conversation among diverse publics. From 2005 to 2016 she worked at the Providence Athenaeum, where she created the Athenaeum Salon, a weekly event bringing Athenaeum members and the general public together for conversations on such topics as history, visual art, theater, politics, fashion, collecting, literature, food, music, architecture, science, education and urban policy. She earned a bachelor’s degree in writing and literature from Bard College and a master’s degree in social policy from the University of Chicago. In addition to her work in publishing, social services, retail and criminal justice in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Providence, Bevilacqua was a custom milliner from 1992 to 2000.
PBN: As Conversationalist-in-Residence, what is your role at Trinity Rep and what responsibilities does this position hold?
BEVILACQUA: My responsibility is to create ways for conversation to deepen our awareness and appreciation of that shared experience. I work with the staff to think about how and where in-person conversations can be used to create and enhance opportunities for the public to connect more fully to the ideas and emotions embodied in the individual plays, as well as in the season as a whole. Theater is a process in which ephemeralities [such as] ideas and emotions are made perceptible to our senses. Through the work of actors, moving through real space and time, the inexpressible is expressed, actors and audience live through something together, something tangible, particular and memorable.
PBN: In the announcement of your position, you said: “As we enter this New Year, after a period of sobering division and intense national introspection, most of us, across the political and cultural spectrum, are longing for understanding and connection.” Why do you think Trinity Rep is the best place to do this?
BEVILACQUA: I go back to the idea of shared experience. We live in an age where the goal is to accomplish as many of our daily transactions – communication, work, shopping, entertainment, checking on our kids, turning on our appliances, you name it – remotely. It’s tremendously convenient, but it’s not convivial and we do not live by transaction alone. We also long for reflection and response, and for those we need other people. Over the course of a season, or an evening at Trinity Rep, we face with ideas, actions, conflicts, imaginings, emotions, risks and possibilities that challenge us to reflect and respond to the world on stage, to relate it to our own lives, to the lives of those around us. We do so not only in the theater but in our neighborhood, our city, our state, our nation, our world. And we’re engaged in this experience in real time, surrounded by other people engaged in the same experience at the same time.
In our lives of managing everything remotely, I can’t think of any place outside of the theater where we get that dynamic experience in quite the same way. And when I look particularly at the works that Trinity has taken on both this season and next season, these are plays that inspire us to examine everything from international war, to what it means to live in a diverse society, to what family means today, to how we describe our history – or histories.
PBN: How do you hope to draw the public’s attention to Trinity Rep’s 53rd season, which is entitled “Ghosts of the Past, Dreams of the Future”?
BEVILACQUA: This season has concentrated on works [that] could be described as conversations between the past and the future – and by chance, we experienced those plays, and those conversations, during a moment when our attention became ever more focused on a very fraught and insistent present – a present that, no matter what one’s political ideas, is causing us to re-examine our past and wonder about our future as a nation. For that reason, our 2017-18 season will feature plays that give us ways to actively consider the political and cultural divides we are experiencing as a nation, as well as the isolation that many of us feel in our thoroughly modern lives.
For both the remaining plays in this season and the season ahead, we will feature conversational programming that contextualizes various aspects of the plays on offer, inviting subscribers and the general public alike to learn about the playwrights’ influences and the historical or literary traditions inherent in the plays; we will bring in different voices from our community for discussions that highlight the ways that the themes of the plays, whether written 500 years ago or five years ago, find resonance in our world today; and we’re looking to offer many more chances for people to just meet and talk with one another, whether right after a performance, or at an event on a nonperformance night.
PBN: In light of this season’s theme, whom is your target audience?
BEVILACQUA: One of the amazing resources at Trinity is its subscribers, many of whom have been coming to the theater for decades. They have made a place for the theater within their lives, and for that group, we hope to deepen their engagement with the plays and playwrights and provide more opportunities to meet one another and share experiences.
But there is also an audience that we’d like to draw, people who may have never attended a production at Trinity; or who perhaps last attended as children. One of the reasons we plan to offer a variety of conversational programs, including some that will happen before a production even opens, is to give members of the public a chance to come in and hear about an upcoming play in an informal, lively discussion and possibly have their curiosity piqued enough to come back for a performance.
PBN: Please explain more about your new series “Ovation & Conversation,” a gathering of audience and cast members immediately following the company’s shows. What do you hope to foster through this mingling?
BEVILACQUA: We just had a rousing Ovation & Conversation for the tender and hilarious production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate that sense I described earlier of shared experience – in this case one that included a soundtrack of unforgettable 1980s pop songs.
At the end of the run, when the sets are struck and the costumes put away and the actors move onto their next roles, the production in many ways returns to the ether. So, it seems very fitting to be present together to herald the production’s life and passing and to celebrate our good fortune in having been part of it.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a PBN staff writer.
