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I was after the beginning of Joe Krysiak's career, and Edward Summer seems to have been there for some of that, so I had a long chat about Buffalo New York and the theater scene there, and how that impressed Krysiak and where his idea of forming Project Artaud must have developed.

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Interview with Edward Summer, director and founder of the Buffalo International Film Festival.

The first theaters in Buffalo, New York were built well before the Civil War and a lot of them lasted well into the 20th Century. In the early 1900's the city had over 60 millionaires, making it the richest city on the planet. Money came in waves, starting with the Erie Canal built in 1820’s, it brought a huge amount of trade and traffic through the city. The second wave came from the steel mills erected along side the erie, steel mills were followed by flour mills. For a while, Buffalo was the largest producer of flour in the world. In 1900 the Niagra Power Project was constructed and Buffalo became the first city on earth wired for electricity.

All this money and power, built a lot of theaters for the wealthy patrons, and brought a lot of talent to the area. Buffalo was an important city for touring theater companies. Out of town trials for Broadway plays, were conducted. Kids growing up saw really big productions with top-notch stars. Next to New York City today, the city of Buffalo has more theaters than any other place in New York State. There are probably still at least nine full-scale theater companies, not counting the university, which has a very important theater school. 

When Edward remembers 15 or 20 really beautiful major full-scale theaters in downtown Buffalo when he was growing up. Most were destroyed as part of urban renewal in the 50’s and 60’s. In July of 2007 they tore down the last Erlanger-Klaw Theater

In the 1950’s the popularity of television started cutting into live theater attendance across the nation, and, after the “Golden Age of Musicals” during the 1950’s and 60’s, live theater underwent major changes. After WWII Japan replaced their old technology with brand new modern steel mills, put the old US mills out of business, and turned Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, and Pittsburg into the rust belt.

In he 1960's Jane Keeler and Kay Kingdon ran a theater school in he Studio Theater and produced a lot of mainstream dramatic shows. It is still operating as the Studio Arena Theater (www.studioarena.org). One of the main directors was Fred Keller, He was a friend of Joe’s, and cast him was in a lot of plays. Fred was also a director at the television station in Buffalo.

Stuart Vaughn, who had worked at the Berliner Ensemble in Germany, and later founded the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City with Joseph Papp, directed the “Good Woman of Setzuan” according to the Bretcht method. Joe shared the stage with Edward and Betty Lutes in his production. Hal Youngblood brought Eugène Ionesco and Arthur Kopit plays from New York.

Neal Dubrock is credited with bringing avant-garde theater to Buffalo and pushing the Studio Theater back into the professional arena. Through the 60’s and the 70’s Neal made the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo one of the most important regional theaters in the country. They did the world premiers of Langford Russel’s  “Lemon Sky” and Albee's “Box-Mao-Box”. Once the spotlight was back on Bufflao, a whole lot of little storefront theaters sprung up and became very active.

Joe Krysiak moved into a storefront on Elmwood Avenue and he started his own theater company. They did Samual Bechet’s plays, then moved into more experimental productions. Joe was very much involved in the fringy stuff. Joe, was a very good, intense, hard-working actor with a good sense of humor. He directed a production of “Androcles and the Lion” in a room in the basement of the converted church version of the Studio Theater. Edward preformed in the play and was the stage manager.

So Krysiak went from George Bernard Shaw and Tennessee Williams, to Brecht, Ionesco, Genet and Kopis, then ended up doing Artaud.