Syracuse Stage celebrates 50 years of bringing the power of theater to life

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On any given day at Syracuse Stage, undergraduate theater students may be rehearsing their lines while professional actors learn a scene in the room next door. At the Stage, for the past 50 years, amateurs and professionals have come together to take the audience somewhere new.

“It’s the ability of theater to do that, that makes it a very special place … I still have that experience when I go and walk into the audience and wait for that curtain to go up,” said drama department professor James Clark. “The lights go down and they go up and you’re transported to a different place.”

This year marks 50 years since the opening of Syracuse Stage. Beyond its success with plays from Syracuse on Broadway, like “How to Dance in Ohio,” and a roster of successful alumni like Aaron Sorkin and Vanessa Williams, the Stage has thrived over the past five decades with community engagement and university partnership.

Joseph Whelan has been involved with Syracuse Stage for 29 years. He worked as the publications director and editor-in-chief of the newsletter and other writings before becoming the marketing editor. He has since stepped down from that position and is working to assist with events for the 50th anniversary.

“(Our mission) is to provide high-quality professional theater to the central New York community and to support the pedagogical mission of the Department of Drama,” Whelan said. “Our programming has changed to reflect what’s going on in the world … but that just sits on top of what the core mission has always been.”

The mission of the theater has not changed over the past three decades, Whelan said. The way that the company executes that mission has evolved, but at its core, Syracuse Stage maintains the same values it had when Whelan first started.

One new endeavor that SU Stage focuses on is the production of new plays. Their resident playwright, Kyle Bass, has shown three world premieres of his work at Syracuse Stage in recent years, along with other up-and-coming playwrights like Brian Piano.

Last year, they produced “How to Dance in Ohio,” a play that made theater history by casting neurodivergent actors to play characters with autism. It is doing previews on Broadway now and will open in December.

Overseeing the play was a favorite experience at Syracuse Stage for Don Buschmann, who has worked at the Stage since 1984. He said it was amazing, and it was an example of the Stage doing something not to get to Broadway, but for their audiences.

“Digging so deep into the theater and into the stories that we tell, I think it makes me a better human being,” Buschmann said. “That was one of the things that really attracted the theater to me because I would see and experience these stories.”

Daily Orange File Photo

Syracuse Stage, having opened in 1974, has hosted countless different performances throughout the years. From breakouts on Broadway with “How to Dance in Ohio,” to immersive plays such as the “Ghost Ship,” Syracuse Stage has dipped into many different genres of theater.
Daily Orange File Photo

Buschmann said they showed “Indolent Boys” a few years ago, the first show by the Stage featuring an Indigenous story. Based on actual events, the story is a tragedy about runaways from the discriminatory Kiowa Boarding School who died in their escape. He said shows that make history are special to be part of and stand out throughout his years at the Stage.

“As I got into college and really started studying (theater), I saw the value of storytelling, telling stories that may make a difference to people,” Buschmann said. “It helps you know, stay human, stay sensitive, which makes us aware of the world around us in a very real manner.”

Another aspect of Syracuse Stage that has evolved over the past 50 years is its community outreach. For every mainstage show, they do a special student matinee performance to expose young people in the community to theater.

“Any kind of art form that you attach to as a young person, that can be a joy for your life,” Whelan said. “ It’s just a chance for people to be exposed to theater, which, you know, being a big theater fan, I think is a great thing.”

Syracuse Stage is made up of two theaters: Storch and Archbold. It is an independent organization but collaborates with the SU Department of Drama and houses SU productions as well as independent Stage productions.

Syracuse University has the only undergraduate theater program in the country with a professional partnership like the one with Syracuse Stage, Clark said. Students can work in the same building and collaborate with professional actors.

Since its inception, Syracuse Stage has collaborated with the SU Department of Drama to co-produce a holiday show. It is a tradition in Syracuse, Whelan said, and is an opportunity for SU students to get experience doing big shows with an audience favorite.

“It expands the theater’s reach, and so if they come in, mom and dad bring their kids to see the musical and they go, ‘Oh, this is really good’,” Clark said. “Maybe they’ll come back and see something else.”

Another collaboration between Syracuse Stage and the Department of Drama is their children’s tour, which is Red Riding Hood this year. Every fall for the last four decades, actors perform a show on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for elementary schools all over central New York.

Over 600,000 people have seen the children’s tours over the years, Clark said, and classroom tools are included in the show. Teachers are given study guides to use in the classroom before and after taking their classes to see the production.

In the spring, Syracuse Stage holds a young playwrights festival. For the past 20 years, the organization has held a workshop for the student playwrights where acting students read the plays, and seven to eight plays get selected to be performed in May, so the students can see their work right in front of them onstage.

“When you go to the theater, those are real people up there. Now, I know they’re telling you a story and are pretending to be characters, but they’re real people. You’re breathing the same air at the same moment that they are,” Whelan said. “It’s a shared experience of our common humanity, and I think that’s something that theater can do that almost no other art form can do.”