Interview: Joseph V. Melillo, BAM
Posted on 09. Aug, 2009 by Howard Pitsch in Hope and Vision
Queried from their vantage points, throughout the Hill and beyond, we feel we can tell that these chieftans of insight know exactly where they’re headed. It’s good to keep abreast with what’s happening. Joseph V. Melillo is the Executive Producer at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Q. Hope you break a leg! You know that old saw means a wish for good luck on stage. With today’s money crunch, how will BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) break a leg for continued funding?
Artistic and capital expansion of the BAM Next Stage Campaign will come from corporate and private contributions, along with major support from the City and the State. The BAM Endowment Fund supports our programs and operations. Specific funds are dedicated to BAM’s mainstage, education, and community initiatives. As BAM’s Endowment grows through the Campaign, so will the impact on supporting BAM programs via increased distribution.
Q. How do you get BAM’s facilities ready for some truly monumental staging? I think of Pina Bausch’s mountain of roses an actor skied down, or a long glass water tank where the Icelandic troupe swam about.
Last year we saw stage configurations that ranged from the cascading web of ropes from which James Thierree’s entire cast was suspended in Au Revoir Parapluie, to the starkly bare stage of Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona’s Sizwe Banzi Is Dead. All design elements that you’ll see at BAM represent decisions that have been made for artistic reasons – these aren’t merely for show, but are environments that are created to elucidate the broader themes of the performance.
Q. Allright, but the effects are sometimes eye-popping.
BAM’s Production team are pros at production challenges that they attack with relish. Once a production supervisor receives an assignment for the season, months before a production’s arrival in Brooklyn, intense conversations begin with the company’s technical staff about the myriad logistical and safety considerations. No matter how fantastical the production may appear to an audience, what ends up on stage is a very carefully controlled environment.
Q. As Executive Producer, what are your yardsticks in scouting performances to appeal to the New York audience?
There’s no checklist for saying a production will succeed here at BAM. But there are qualities I look for – a production that reveals an artist’s innovation and willingness to take risks, and one which will provoke a discovery for the audience.
Q. How do you choose BAM performances – through agents, word of mouth, or media reviews, or…?
All the above, and more. I certainly depend on a vast network of eyes and ears to keep me aware of new artists and new productions. It’s a network of fellow presenters, journalists and critics, artists, and friends who are familiar with BAM’s aesthetic, people who have a keen sense of what will contribute distinctively to a BAM season. It’s then my duty to compose a season that makes sense artistically, that represents of the most exciting work on a global level.
Q. Do you personally see presentations before making judgments, whether it be the UK, Europe, Africa, Asia?
I feel it is vitally important to see performances in a theater, in the company of an audience. While DVDs and CDs are great introductions to an artist’s or a company’s work, there is no substitute for the experience of sitting in a dark theatre. And while I’m on the road the better part of the year, traveling to the far reaches of the globe, it is sometimes not physically possible for me to see everything that I bring to BAM. But that this is the exception, not the rule.
Q. Any closing thoughts – pro or con – about Fort Greene as a locale, and how you fit into it?
BAM has been a fixture in Fort Greene for over 100 years. The institution is inseparable from the neighborhood, and we will continue to grow and change together. Ten years ago, BAM introduced BAM Rose Cinemas and BAM cafe to Fort Greene – one is an excellent facility for first-run and repertory films, and the other is a popular gathering place to enjoy free live music on weekends. Together, they are the primary ways that new audience members discover BAM.
Q. How do you prophesy BAM and the Cultural District in Fort Greene as we move on?
Ten years from now, the BAM Richard B. Fisher building will be active, providing a new home for BAM’s programming, for the activities of our Education & Humanities Department, and for low-cost community rental. I am thrilled about the new building (former Salvation Army structure in Ashland Place) and the significant contribution that it will represent for the community.
