A dramatic proposal

A monumental game plan, involving the future of theater in New York, and eventually all across the country, has been dreamed up and implemented by a 43-year-old Irish-American actor from Buffalo, an earnest, affable performer who could not, at this point in his career, by any stretch of the imagination be called famous or even solidly established.
The actor is Sean Cullen and what he has in his sights is no less ambitious than a three-stage complex to be constructed at the northwest corner of Greenwich and Fulton Streets, in the area that has come to be known as Ground Zero.
That particular corner has been designated by Daniel Libeskind, the master-plan architect for the World Trade Center area redevelopment project, as a performing arts center, with a handful of cultural institutions already jockeying for a place in the plan.
Among the organizations showing interest in the space, which was cleared nearly 30 years ago to make way for the construction of the twin towers, are the New York City Opera, the Joyce Theatre and the 92nd Street Y.
Recently added to the mix is actor Cullen and what he?s calling the American National Theatre, a dream project that has already garnered an amazing amount of support, mostly recruited from the ranks of established actors, writers, directors and producers of New York?s professional theater.
Since, in the strictest sense, there is at present no northwest corner of Greenwich and Fulton Street, what Libeskind and his colleagues will be working on is a rebirth of a slice of Old New York that once was the location of, among other things, Jimmy-the-Priest?s Saloon, an establishment made immortal by several of the early plays of Eugene O?Neill, who frequented the place and actually lived there for a time when it stood at 242 Fulton St., near the corner of Church Street.
What Sean Cullen and the friends he?s enlisted in the venture have in mind is a variation on a dream that virtually everyone in the theater has held at one time or another, a solidly established theater where the best of American work could be seen on an ongoing basis.
Cullen?s goal is to go in search of the finest work being done by the country?s regional theaters and bring them to New York, presenting them for limited runs on one of the proposed stages.
The anticipated three theaters would have seating capacities of 800, 700 and 400. The plan would embrace 15 guest productions each year, five on each stage, with every show scheduled to run for six weeks.
The American National Theatre would not, as currently planned, support a company of actors, individuals hired on the basis of contracts for a single season or more, as is the custom with a number of key foreign theaters, including London?s Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The American National Theatre wouldn?t be doing two or three plays on the same stage in the course of, say, a single week, as is done by those London companies.
A play would be brought in from the city where it premiered, with its original cast and director.
A jury would tour the country?s resident and regional theaters in an attempt to identify and isolate the best work. There are estimated to be around 150 eligible regional theaters scattered around the United States, so the pool from which the American National Theatre would make its selections is a rather deep one.
The cost of constructing the three-theater complex would be around $170 million and the annual operating budget would be in the area of $17 to $20 million.
Last Monday was the deadline for proposals to be submitted to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the entity that is overseeing the rebuilding of New York?s grievously wounded downtown area.
?It?s been like a Frank Capra movie,? Cullen reflected when he thought about the spontaneous and overwhelmingly positive response he?s had since he first began broaching the idea in a serious way.
Among the individuals who have offered enthusiastic support are actress Meryl Streep, playwright Arthur Miller and producer-director Harold Prince.
A week ago, the actress Blair Brown hosted a cocktail party in Connecticut, the goal of which was to raise seed money for the project. It was, in Sean Cullen?s view, a subtle, understated affair.
?It wasn?t the sort of thing where we waved pens in people?s faces and lunged at their checkbooks,? he said. ?It was, clearly, an attempt to make the project?s goals clear to individuals who might be in a position to be of help when the time came.?
Funding would come, of course, from corporations, foundations and individuals. The boyishly optimistic Cullen points out that, since the plays and musicals would be selected on a national basis, backing sources would, in all probability, have a nationwide character, as well.
The actor dates the germination of the American National Theatre to one particular moment. ?I heard the producer, Emanuel Azenberg, say in a television interview that he brought so many plays over from London because he didn?t see much good homegrown work,? Cullen recalled.
A comment like that is, to an actor, somewhat akin to a red flap unfurled in the face of a raging bull.
Cullen?s fires burn so brightly that, should his project not be selected when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation selects a proposal, which he thinks will happen around the first of the year, he?s going in search of another venue.
It is, of course, impossible to predict the outcome, but on a purely hunch basis, it seems rather unlikely that the New York City Opera would leave its Lincoln Center home, just as the entire adventure seems just a bit grandiose for either the Joyce or the 92nd Street Y.
The American National Theatre, it would seem, has at least a fighting chance of becoming a reality, somewhere, sometime.
Sean Cullen is nothing if not an optimist. And a fighter.
The oldest of four children of a Buffalo teamster and his schoolteacher wife, Cullen graduated from St. Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y., with a major in mass communications and then spent four years working in commercial film production, after which he enrolled in the Yale Drama School, emerging with a master of fine arts in acting.
Among his New York acting assignments was a production of Henrik Ibsen?s ?The Wild Duck? at the now defunct New York Performance Works, at the corner of Chambers Street and West Broadway, a scant distance from his organization?s proposed location at Greenwich and Fulton Streets.
Cullen is probably best-known to New York audiences for his association with playwright Richard Nelson?s acclaimed stage adaptation of ?The Dead,? arguably the most celebrated and the most significant of the stories in James Joyce?s collection, ?Dubliners.?
In the musical version of the tale, which was scored by Dublin-based composer Shaun Davey, Cullen understudied two roles, Gabriel Conroy, the lead, and Freddy Malins, the alcoholic guest at the annual dinner party and musical evening that is the story?s setting.
When ?James Joyce?s The Dead,? as the show was officially named, moved from Playwrights? Horizons to Broadway?s Belasco Theatre, Cullen replaced Stephen Spinella as Freddy, and then, when the company went on tour, undertook the role of Gabriel.
Sean Cullen, potentially at least, is a prime example of the actor as entrepreneur. The response to his venture has been so avid that even he is virtually thunderstruck.
?We?ve had thousands of hits on our website and money has started to come in unsolicited,? he said.