Signature Theatre’s Hallmarks: Intimacy and Sondheim
By • September 23, 2024 0 15
In 2006, his Carnegie Mellon BFA in hand, Matthew Gardiner went to work for Signature Theatre — a 150-seat space in what had been a bumper-plating factory (“The Garage”) on South Four Mile Run Drive in Arlington, Virginia.
“We were on an adventure,” he recalled, speaking at The Georgetowner’s Sept. 19 Cultural Leadership Breakfast, held at the President Woodrow Wilson House on S Street NW.
The story goes that when current Managing Director Maggie Boland, then working at Arena Stage, tried to buy a Signature subscription, she was turned down; the season was fully booked. “That is no longer the case,” commented Gardiner (wryly).
Jack Evans, Sonya Bernhardt, Robert Devaney. Photo by Kate O’Brian.
Gardiner became associate artistic director in 2010, the year after Signature relocated to the Village at Shirlington, where it commands two stages: the Max, with 275 seats, and the Ark, with 110. “Now,” said Gardiner, artistic director since 2021, “people come to the box office and ask when we’re doing ‘Annie.’”
Judging from Gardiner’s overview of the 2024-25 season, Signature’s cutting edge is as sharp as ever. And what might be called “The Garage Years” were formative. “That intimacy became Signature’s hallmark,” he said, pointing out how rare it is to be “this close to the artists, this close to the music.” Often that music is by Stephen Sondheim, Signature’s other hallmark.
The season-opener, “Soft Power” — co-created by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori, Broadway powerhouses who cut and reworked the show at Signature — closed on Sept. 15. Opening for a long run late in October: a revival of Sondheim’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” directed by Gardiner.
Evelyn Keyes, Tiffany Green, Liz Farnum. Photo by Kate O’Brian.
“Forum” will be Signature’s 35th Sondheim production. Co-founder Eric Schaeffer, who served as artistic director for 30 years, was the artistic director of the Kennedy Center’s “Sondheim Celebration” in 2002, when his successor, raised in College Park, Maryland, was in high school. At the breakfast, Gardiner called it “one of the most profound summers of my life.”
Three of the other five “mainstage” shows are D.C. (metro) premieres: Ebony Booth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Primary Trust,” directed by Taylor Reynolds; Max Wolf Friedlich’s “Job,” which began Off-Broadway and is “now a very big deal” on Broadway, noted Gardiner, who will direct; and “The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical,” by Joe Iconis and Gregory S. Moss, directed by Christopher Ashley.
Also in the line-up are a “very immersive staging” by director James Vásquez of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s “In the Heights” and, during WorldPride 2025, the glam-rock musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” by John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, directed by associate artistic director Ethan Heard. “Hedwig” made its DMV debut in Signature’s Garage in 2002.
Gardiner said his goal was to choose stories that represent the community. Though the classic American musicals have largely been white stories performed by white casts, the main characters have often been “persons on the outside” — possibly because most of their creators have been Jewish, and in many cases gay, he explained.
Adding in Signature’s cabaret series and special events, the two stages will host more than 800 performances this season. The lower price point for cabaret shows is a way for newcomers to experience Signature; “it turns them into major ticket buyers,” said Gardiner.
Georgetowner Fashion Editor Allyson Burkhardt, Jennifer Gannett. Photo by Kate O’Brian.
Two connected topics that came up: theater education and nurturing younger audiences. Gardiner participated in Overtures, Signature’s summer training program for high school students, and — since he feels it is so important — continues to run it. He said he plans to expand Signature’s two-person education department, which oversees its flagship program, Signature in the Schools. Studying theater or dance (as Gardiner did until age 16) or any art “expands your brain, it expands your emotional capacity,” he said.
Education is a crucial way to excite young people about live theater, but they also need to see themselves in the stories presented. The success of “Job” — a drama in which a Millennial faces off with a Boomer — is supposedly “born of TikTok,” said Gardiner. Despite the prevalence of screens, “Theater is not going anywhere.”
Gardiner emphasized that Signature’s productions rely on private donors. Referring to staging “Ragtime” in a 275-seat theater, as Signature did last fall: “There’s nothing about that that makes [financial] sense.” When former District Council member Jack Evans asked about the role of government, Gardiner said that, while Arlington County has been supportive, more commitment from state and possibly federal sources was needed.
Asked about the increasing number of musicals presented by other companies, Gardiner commented that Arena Stage “has always done them” and that he has noted Shakespeare Theatre Company’s move into musicals (last season’s “Evita,” for instance). The Garage perhaps coming to mind, he cited two smaller companies, D.C.’s Constellation and Alexandria’s Monumental, the latter doing “really incredible [work] on no money.”
Ana Harvey, Elizabeth Karcher, Jack Evans. Photo by Kate O’Brian.
When offered the artistic director position, Gardiner said, he wrestled with the question, “Can I see myself here for another decade or more?” An attendee spoke up to say he was young. “Thank you,” he replied. “I just turned 40.”
