Linda Nelson: We could tell that, in the not too distant past, this terrific, historic old building had been the heart and soul of this community. We realized that in saving it from abandonment and ruin–in restoring both the building and the programming–we had the potential to make a positive contribution to a community we had fallen in love with.
     The Opera House has been on this site in Stonington for more than 100 years: touring shows came by steamboat from all over the world; silent movies and talkies were shown early on; residents acted in local drama here; and graduated from high school here until 1957.
     All small, rural places once had theaters (both for live productions and movies) on their Main Streets; and one might argue that communities which maintain this kind of creative, local institutions are stronger for them.

AG: Ten years on, how do you see OHA’s current mission compared to the original?
OHA’s mission, “to use the performing arts to foster and promote excellence in all the ways we perform our lives: Incite Art, Create Community,” has been steadfast throughout.
     The major shift in how we have implemented this mission occurred in 2005, when we raised enough money to winterize the building and put it into year round operation. Until this point, our focus had been much more on the building: restoring the historic Stonington Opera House to its original, 100-year-old role as the vital heart at the center of this community.
     Having spent five years in restoration mode, in 2005 we were able to turn our focus even more greatly toward our programming. The results have been significant: a big collaboration with the Deer Isle-Stonington school district and Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts national arts education program; the commissioning and production of Quarryography in collaboration with Island Heritage Trust at the Settlement Granite Quarry; the commissioning and production of the video documentary Tire Tracks and other original films, and the growth of our Imagination Project Public Access Digital Media Project, to name a few…

AG: How has OHA’s role in the community evolved?
OHA continues to become a more and more solid cornerstone of the island community, both economically and from a community development perspective. Several residents have mentioned to me lately, in reference to our 10th anniversary, that it seems as if OHA has always been here. And of course, as the embodiment of the Opera House, it has! And this pleases us, because it means we have succeeded at that part of our mission: to restore the historic building to its original function at the heart of this community.

AG: How have each of your individual roles and responsibilties evolved?
As any nonprofit organization grows, roles really do change. Our budget has more than doubled in just three years. This means that my role, as Executive Director, is increasingly on the development, institutional advancement end of things: making sure the infrastructure exists for OHA’s programming to continue and to succeed.
    Judith’s role, as Artistic Director, profoundly shifted last year when one of our co-founders, Carol Estey, was named head of the Dance Dept. at Stephens College in Missouri. Carol remains on the board but is no longer Co-Artistic Director with Judith.
     Last fall we hired island resident Jennifer Morrow as full time Program Manager, and she is great and makes a huge difference in how well OHA implements our complex and busy program schedule.

AG: How do you think the Opera House lives up to its slogan “Incite Art Create Community.”
Our goal from the beginning has been to really listen to this community, and to the history of the building itself. From that process of listening, to our hope to add value and to contribute to the community in ways that strengthen the existing and unique cultural legacy that is Deer Isle, what we add is the belief and expertise in the performing arts as a powerful tool for bringing people from all walks of life together.
     While TV and Netflix represent conveniences that we all can appreciate, they are also a real loss in that they isolate individuals and families in their own homes, rather than bringing people together.
     What the Opera House offers–live performance, movies on a big screen in a theater–is the power of sharing experience and building consensus: of creating, through art, communities with common reference points and a greater tolerance for change. So I feel we enact and embody this slogan every day our doors are open, or whenever we are creating programming–whether that is at the school; in the Reach Performing Arts Center; at the Island Community Center (where we ran our Big Rock Café student entrepreneurship project for a couple of years); or at the quarry (Quarryography).

AG: How many volunteers are involved and what different roles do they fill?
There are more than 100 volunteers actively engaged in some way, large or small, with OHA; and of course this list changes all the time as new volunteers (always needed!) get engaged and others take a break.
     Community members volunteer for our Community Advisory Board and Board of Directors; they sell popcorn and movie tickets; house our guest artists; make food; usher at live shows; help to clean and paint the building and tend its gardens; assist with mailings–there is no way the Opera House could survive without our passionate, engaged, and committed volunteers. It takes an island to support an Opera House!

AG: What’s on the plate for this year? What are your ongoing plans or hopes?
Our ongoing hope for OHA’s programming is that we are able to continue to commission and to create original performance work: work that springs directly from HERE, that tells the stories of this place and people; that helps to sustain this unique cultural legacy of Down East Maine; and work that we can use to extend these unique, particular voices into our national conversation.
     Suburbanization and homogenization have caused the U.S. to lose most of its distinctive regional voices. Deer Isle-Stonington and Down East Maine still have their own, authentic culture: and it is critical that this voice—rural, isolated, and built on working waterfronts—be heard and understood as an important component of U.S. culture.
     We all need to see ourselves in art, including performance: to be represented to ourselves and to a larger world by more than our elected officials, or our primary products (lobster!). OHA is one of a tiny handful of theaters in New England that commission and create new, professional level performance work from our community. We’re very proud of this and, while it is the most difficult thing to fund, we believe it to be at the heart of our mission.
     For this 10th anniversary season, we’re doing several things differently and launching two new works-in-development. We will extend our successful Shakespeare in Stonington program to seven performances over two weekends, July 2-12, Shakespeare’s great comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
     On July 17, we will be the proud “Off Off Off Off Broadway” hosts to a preview of a new one-woman show, “On Becoming,” by acclaimed stage and TV actress and singer Catherine Wolf. Catherine is a member of the Wolf family of Bay Chamber Concert fame, and this show opens at the Cherry Lane Theatre in NYC this fall: it’s a true preview!
     August 7 & 8, we will invite audience members to participate in the development of our new “story at the quarry,” as we present a short, in-process preview of a new chapter to 2007’s Quarryography: Q2: Habitat at the Settlement Quarry.

     Also in August, we will present, as part of our Live for $5 intergenerational theater program on Thursday evenings, a sneak preview of a new children’s opera we have commissioned and on which we are working with the local schools and community: a musical version of the beloved Robert McCloskey book, Burt Dow, Deep Water Man. The completed version of both of these original works-in-development will be in 2010.
     Additionally, we are very lucky to be presenting the legendary cabaret singer, Mary Cleere Haran, who has performed at such mythic venues as the Alongquin’s Oak Room and The Carlyle Hotel, in concert, singing from the great American Songbook.
     And finally, on August 14-15, we will hold our 10th Anniversary Revue: bringing back community and professional stars who have appeared on our stage over the last 10 years, from near and far, for a real experience of OHA history in performance.

AG: The Imagination Project: has it been well utilized by community members?
So well utilized we are conceiving of ways to expand the space for it.
     Community members have now completed four documentaries through this project: Tire Tracks, Island Prom, Off to Do or Die, and Life by Lobster–in addition to many short films and audio pieces.
     The project has also co-sponsored and lead a filmmaking class as part of Katy Helman’s Studio Art course at DI-S High School for three years.

AG: If you were just starting out now to begin this venture, what would you do differently? Would you take it in a different direction?
We would not take it in a different direction: we believe the community appreciates OHA; participates well in it; and that we have met many of the goals we originally set out.
     The only small thing we would do differently would be to allocate more budget from the beginning toward staffing, to ensure long-term sustainability. From the start, we put all of OHA’s limited funds into the building restoration and the program. We, as founders and staff, worked other jobs, and basically volunteered our lives to making this project happen.
     Now that the programming has expanded so greatly, we can no longer do that and it is difficult to expand the budget enough so that the staff required to implement this level of programming make real wages. This is essential if the institution is to survive beyond its original founders, and it is our intention that Opera House Arts exists for many future generations.

AG: Hindsight being what it is, would you do it again?
Absolutely. We are blessed in having the best work in the best and only place and community in which we want to live.

AG: What direction do you want to take OHA? And where do you see it on the next 10 year anniversary?
We hope that by the next 10 year anniversary, the fabulous “first generation” of young people who have really taken ownership of OHA, who feel and love the transformative potential of a public performance venue–Galen Koch, Jake Adams, Heidi Grego, Sam Coombs, Hannah Gotwals, Peter Atkinson, Kimberly Grindle, Annie Ames, Annie Harris, Amanda Larrabee, and so many others, as well as new generations of young people to come, are asserting their visions for this magic box of a theater, this fantastic community building organization.

Want to see more images from the first 10 years at Stonington’s Opera House? Click here.

Opera House Arts is located in the Opera House, at the corner of Main and School Streets in downtown Stonington. 367- 2788 www.operahousearts.org   

Check our calendar for more information on events at the Opera House and other places around our area.