By Donovan Wilson
With the city resurrecting the old Memorial Boulevard School’s theater, the city may be covering old ground—since the theater has always balanced the needs of the schools and the community at large–but with a new spin.
The new theater director, Lauren Bent, will schedule acts for the theater outside of the school system, balancing that scheduling with the Board of Education, which controls the school where the theater is housed and school programming.
At the same time, Bent, who has just begun a job that she will pretty much define–Arts and Culture Supervisor under the Bristol Parks, Recreation, Community and Youth Services Dept.–will also have as a priority the park dept.’s art programs for the city as a whole.
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At the moment, she is working with timeline that may change but projects the theater opening sometime by next May. Planning is the goal.
“We are working on the plan with the board of education before anything else,” said Bent.
The joint plan is a first step, she said. Next comes a business plan, which must describe how the theater will run. A projected budget will determine how much money can be used for productions, concessions, etc.
She said having an “outline of things” to focus on helps with the process. Not only is there admissions and concessions, but there is another the big consideration, and that is jobs both full and part-time. Bent described these elements mandatory before they dive deeper.
Overseeing the completion of the theater is the Board of Education, the other half of the equation that seeks for its solution a mutually agreed upon way of proceeding.
Michael Dietter, the deputy superintendent, is at the forefront of the Board of Education’s effort.
“We are two separate entities, but we are working together to continue as a mutual benefit to the community,” Dietter said.
Dietter added that if you were to go into the towns archives, you would find pictures showing collaborative theater work between the parks and public schools departments dating as far back as the 1930’s and 1940’s.
“We represent two different sides but only by design. We have a shared interest in the community,” said Dietter.
One of Dietter’s two major roles in this process is as the chair of the building committee for this project. He facilitates all of the weekly meetings, but he and the committee also work hard to provide updates on the project to the community as frequently as possible.
These updates largely include timelines and status on the building process so far.
With that being said, Dietter referred to that history as the inspiration pushing everyone to push to make sure that this mutual-use agreement is very collaborative and equally represents both sides.
In the end, while each team represents a different side of the project, they both want the same end goal of benefiting the community of which they work for.
One of the major hopes for this in the end is that it creates major opportunities in Bristol, not only for the student community but for the greater community as a whole.
Regarding Bent’s non-theater work. it focuses on arts and cultures programming for the youth. That includes, but is not limited to, softball leagues and camps. Once the fall comes around, Bent said, she is planning to make arts and culture programming geared towards adults.
Bent made it a point to emphasize the “cultures” part of arts and cultures in her job title.
Not only does the resulting work need to integrate culture into the town’s community, but the programming must be approachable and accessible. The department has been working with the city’s mayor to make sure diversity is being integrated everywhere it can be.