Mark Cuddy was known as a hands-on artistic director during his nearly three decades at the helm of Geva Theatre.
But he’s been giving new meaning to that reputation as the founder of his latest venture, The Classics Company, which arrived on the local theater scene with authority in January with a striking production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” at the Multi-use Community Cultural Center (MuCCC) on Atlantic Avenue.
When he wasn’t clearing snow from the sidewalks around the theater, he was shuttling props through the back door. On a frigid winter morning a few days after the show closed, Cuddy helped his prop supervisor haul a sofa from the set in a rental truck and lug it up two flights of warehouse stairs into storage. Then he sat for an interview.
“It feels sometimes like all I’ve been doing is shoveling and lifting and moving stuff,” Cuddy said with a laugh after recounting his day.
Except for his sore muscles, he wasn’t complaining. Forty-five years of running theaters around the country has taught Cuddy that the shoveling, lifting, programming, theater booking, fundraising, scheduling, casting, ticket sales and concessions are all part of the gig.
It’s just been a minute since he’s had to worry about all of those things at once.
At Geva, from which he retired in 2022 after 27 years, Cuddy had access to a costume shop, prop shop, scene shop, marketing and fundraising departments, along with an annual budget of roughly $8 million.
The Classics Company launched with a budget of about $140,000, said Cuddy, who met with CITY at Swillburg Studio, a rehearsal space on South Clinton Avenue that he sprang to rent after it occurred to him that he didn’t have one of those anymore either.
“I’m chief cook and bottlewasher now,” Cuddy said. “I’m running the checks, I’m doing the bookkeeping. I’m making the decisions on what The Classics Company is about and what we’re trying to do.”
What the company is trying to do is elevate classical theater in Rochester by devoting entire seasons to the work of a single playwright who influenced the theatrical canon. Think Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw.
Its inaugural season features three plays by Chekhov, the 19th-century Russian doctor-turned-playwright who helped birth modern drama with works that featured frank discussions about social tensions of his day.
The concept is adventurous and would be hard to justify at a regional or community theater, where programming is expected to be topical yet varied and ticket sales account for the bulk of the revenue. (That said, the dashed expectations and melancholic bewilderment of Chekhov’s characters complement the anxious undercurrent in the modern-day United States.)
At The Classics Company, charitable contributions carry the load. Cuddy expects nearly three-quarters of the company’s revenue to come from donations, which include $5,000 from him and his wife, Christina Selian.
“That’s my revenue model,” Cuddy said. “If I couldn’t raise the money, I wasn’t going to be able to do it.”
The support the local theater community has given The Classics Company underscores the deep ties Cuddy forged over decades and dispels any notion he is doing this alone — he’s not, and quick to point that out.
The playbill for “The Seagull” was peppered with thanks to local theater stalwarts — from patrons and actors to representatives of other companies — who gave their time, talent and money to the production. They included electricians, carpenters and prop and sound specialists from Geva Theatre; the former costume designer from School of the Arts; the artistic directors at JCC CenterStage and Out of Pocket Productions; and the names of some 80 other donors.
Todd Green, a principal at the investment firm Alesco Advisors, and his wife, Stephanie Green, are longtime patrons of the arts and the lead sponsors of the company’s second production, Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” which opens March 6.
Green said they invested because of their confidence in Cuddy’s work and their belief that there is room for classical theater in Rochester.
“This is an arts-loving, arts-appreciating community,” Green said. “I think it’s important that when there are grassroots, startup enterprises, people are willing to take a risk on them.”
The Classics Company incorporated last year after Cuddy spent months quietly bouncing his idea off members of the theater community over meetings in coffee shops. He views the venture as part education, part entertainment in a city known for its appreciation of the arts and history.
“People are making up history and there’s a sense in contemporary pop culture that history doesn’t matter,” Cuddy said. “But people are questioning, in a good way, history and what we’re built on and I think they want something besides the latest thing.”
Audiences of Cuddy’s inaugural production in January appeared to agree.
According to the company, more than 600 people saw “The Seagull,” which ran for 11 performances in a theater of about 80 seats. The production was brought to life by a superlative ensemble cast that included standouts Natalia Hulse as aspiring actress Nina Zarechnaya and Aaron Duclos as unfulfilled writer Boris Trigorin.
Whether that level of interest is sustainable is an open question — even for Cuddy.
“Sure, I got people’s attention because of my legacy here,” he said. “But honestly, they got to want to see Chekhov.”
While there are theater festivals dedicated to the work (or lifetime) of a single playwright — Shaw Festival in nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake comes to mind — few companies build entire seasons around one.
Rochester Shakespeare Theatre, a former professional company that launched in 1973, shuttered after just two seasons of staging The Bard and a smattering of other classic playwrights.
Cuddy said he plans to run The Classics Company for the foreseeable future and build it to survive him.
“I’m 71, I can’t be moving furniture up and down stairs forever,” he said. “It’s not about size. It’s about growth and how to sustain this within the Rochester small theater ecology.”
David Andreatta is a veteran journalist who writes about culture, power and people who make Rochester interesting. He’s curious by nature, skeptical by trade and believes local journalism matters.
