If it seems imprudent of Bonnie J. Monte, the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, to admit she finds reading, rather than staging, Shakespearean plays “agony,” her level of commitment to the cash-strapped 48-year-old theater might be even more ill-advised.
“Last year I felt like I had to walk around with a shield—I lived in fear that we were going to lose another grant. And I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet,” says Monte from her office on the campus of Drew University in Madison, the theater’s home.
Monte, who will celebrate her twentieth anniversary as artistic director when the curtain goes up June 2 on season-opener The Taming of the Shrew, is inclined to tough it out, though.
The theater has made “major adjustments” to its shrinking budget, including cutting back this season to six main stage shows from the usual seven. Still, she says, “I don’t know how long we can sustain what we’re doing.” The pressure, the result of cutbacks in donations from budget-crunched corporations and individuals, as well as a reduction in ticket sales due to the slow economy, has caused “actual physical burnout,” she says. These days, it’s not unusual for her to spend twenty-hour stretches at the office, which, luckily, is within blocks of her home. Still, she says, she has found her dream job. “It can be exhausting and annoying, but it also brings me massive doses of joy and elation.”
That becomes obvious when the energetic Monte, 55, launches into a list of memorable moments from her two-decade run. First comes a story about her Connecticut-based mother, who asked incredulously, “What have you done?” on visiting the run-down theater prior to its 1998 renovation. “I said, ‘Mom, it’s fine! I’m going to fix it,’” says Monte. “It was such a jubilant moment for me, because I realized I had such strong, specific ideas.” After a capital campaign and rebuilding, she says, those ideas materialized.
The opening of The Tempest, the first play mounted under her reign in 1990, was another key moment: “I had set a goal for myself to be an artistic director by the time I was 40, and I was 34 when we launched that. I beat my goal.”
Monte already had several significant achievements to her credit. In the early 1980s, she collaborated with her mentor, the well-loved Nikos Psacharopoulos, and Tennessee Williams on the eight-hour production, Tennessee Williams: A Celebration, a retrospective tribute to Williams’s literary canon. And until 1989, she was associate artistic director at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.
An emotional Monte wipes away tears as she recounts the highlights of her Shakespeare Theatre tenure. “I tend to tear up very quickly,” she says. “I do this all the time.”
Her emotional displays, well-known among her full-time staff of more than 27, are not always the result of dramatic profundity, she says.
“I’m not going to pretend. I had plans in my twentieth anniversary year to direct this play and that play, and I was very excited,” says Monte, who has directed more than 45 productions since 1990. “But it’s just not possible because we have to be so conservative economically. So I was kind of whiny for a week when the hard reality hit. People had to put up with me.”
Despite her disappointment, Monte still inspires many. “She is incredibly driven,” says Laila Robins, a Broadway and film actress who has performed in ten or so Shakespeare Theatre productions. “She’s also kept me going. There have been times when my career has sagged; she’s always the person to offer me a wonderful play to get my creative juices going.”
Monte herself remains inspired daily. “I’ve had this amazing privilege,” she says. “Being the guardian of great classic literature is a responsibility I take very seriously. It’s given me an extraordinary, unbelievably rich life. And I’m happy about that,” she says. Again, her eyes are glistening.