Stephanie Bass Abrams was recently appointed Keene State College’s Performing Arts Program Manager and Artistic Director.
Courtesy photo
Stephanie Bass Abrams was recently appointed Keene State College’s Performing Arts Program Manager and Artistic Director.
Arts

New leader eyes ways to ‘bring the community back to the Redfern’

Keene State College plans revival of its Presenting Series and a renewed commitment to the performing arts

KEENE, N.H.-Until about a decade ago, area audiences could see the likes of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Pilobolus, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band at remarkably affordable prices in nearby Keene as part of the Redfern Presenting Series at Keene State College (KSC).

Now, the college intends to revive the series and to bring in other companies and artists - national and international as well as regional - not only as an enhancement to KSC's performing arts students' learning, but also "to bring the community back to the Redfern and really get the arts out there to the community," says Stephanie Bass Abrams, the newly appointed performing arts program manager and artistic director.

The new role replaces the past executive director position that was last filled in 2020, she told The Commons. "It really is like putting all my skill sets to work."

Abrams ran a school for circus and physical theater - Kinetic Theory Theatre - for almost 15 years in Los Angeles, "so a lot of what I'm doing here at the Redfern is very much what I did all those years running my own school," she said.

"The difference here is that this is a presenting house," Abrams explains, noting the uses of the Redfern Center's three spaces: the main theater, a 572-seat proscenium stage house with wing space enough to accommodate large touring shows; Alumni Recital Hall, primarily a KSC music department concert venue seating 350, and Wright Theater, a black box (flexible space) theater that accommodates roughly 100 people.

All are "beautiful, comfortable spaces," she said.

"The primary function of the Redfern," said Abrams, "is to serve our academic departments of music and theater and dance," each of which mounts its own full season of productions - four or five from the theater and dance department, including a fall musical - and frequent smaller concerts with different ensembles, guests, and students from the music department.

Abrams' role is to support all productions, not to create them. "So that's a shift for me," she said.

But managing staff, planning season promotion, and tending to logistics and the day-to-day "crossing of T's and dotting of I's" all combine into a role that "just feels second nature to me," she said.

Abrams is quick to add that there are, of course, ample performing arts offerings in Keene and surrounding areas, "but I've heard from a lot of people that the Redfern used to be this sort of hub, a place that people knew to come to for these really amazing cultural offerings that they weren't going to get at other places in the region. And that, unfortunately, hasn't been happening for quite some time."

So the intention, she hopes, is to bring that back with the Presenting Series starting next fall.

Abrams will be handling much of the curating and booking for the revived series, in collaboration with department chairs.

"I've asked our department chairs for music and theater and dance to send me a wish list - 'give me your top companies that you would love to see at the Redfern' - because they know best what the students really need that goes hand in hand with their curriculum [and] what's going to enhance their learning experience," she says.

Building interest in the arts

One of Abrams' goals is to engage the entire KSC campus community, all of whom are offered free admission to Redfern events. While performing arts students earn class credit for attending, Abrams hopes that other students "will be interested in what we're doing."

"I think we're doing a pretty good job of engaging students within our performing arts departments [and] that could always be improved on," she says, acknowledging that "we haven't seen a lot of involvement with students across the campus yet."

To that end, she's working with other student services and recently "we did some tabling to let the students know that all Keene State students get free tickets to all of our events."

Working on audience development, Abrams seeks connections and crossover, too, reaching out to other academic departments. If, for instance, a show has a social justice focus, that could appeal to political science students and others interested in the social justice movement. Or a culture-specific production could draw a correlated department's students.

Moreover, Abrams intends to reach out to communities beyond the campus - "to families and people of all different ages" - to expose them to arts they otherwise might not get to see.

"And we'd love to be able to bring in school kids from the region for free matinees and things like that, so that we can ensure that the kids in this community are really getting that access," she says.

"We have community partnerships too," Abrams adds. Rather than make the sites available for "just typical rentals," she says the college specifically wants area nonprofit organizations "to be able to bring their shows to their community and to ours."

Redfern staff includes box office, front of house, and technical theater teams, all of which include "a lot of student workers."

"So that's another way the students can get involved," Abrams says. "They work on the shows, so they get that hands-on experience."

Funding still a challenge

One of the challenges Redfern faces in resurrecting the Presenting Series is funding, because funding for all the arts is endangered these days, "but we have access to grants and we're going to do our best to try to get those," Abrams says.

"There have been some amazingly generous donors that have given to Keene State. And we hope that people will consider [...] that their contributions will go far here, because the college really does support what we do, too," she adds.

"And we keep ticket prices ridiculously low" with a current top price of $15, Abrams says - part of the theater's mission "to keep the arts accessible to everyone."

"We may have to raise prices a little in the future, but it's still going to be extremely affordable," she continues.

Abrams hopes that Brattleboro area arts lovers consider the college's offerings as she and the college rebuild and revitalize the program.

"We're only 20 minutes from [Interstate 91] Exit 3 in Brattleboro. I think people sometimes forget how close Keene is," she says.

More information about the Redfern Presenting Series -and related post-show receptions and experiences - will be forthcoming in the spring.

In the meantime, Redfern's fall lineup is seen on keene.edu/arts/redfern and includes a "Dances on Film" project and a musical adaptation of The Bridges of Madison County.

String quartet to perform

The first major event of the school year is a concert on Friday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. in the Alumni Recital Hall by the Apple Hill String Quartet.

Winner of the CMAcclaim award from Chamber Music America, the Apple Hill String Quartet provides music direction for Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music's Summer Chamber Music Workshop in Nelson, New Hampshire.

The quartet is, according to the Redfern website, "known for cultivating connection among people of diverse backgrounds, cultures, and ages through its guiding philosophy, Playing for Peace" and through concerts and residencies locally, nationally, and internationally.

Friday's program includes works by Haydn, Kelley and Miéville, Brouwer, D'Rivera, and Haas.

Tickets are $15 ($10 for seniors and youth) and free for KSC students, faculty, and staff.


This Arts item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.

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