Tony Bannon Remembers Calvin Rand

You'd think you understood, and then it would come clear that you were not even close to understanding Calvin Rand's purpose. Sometimes you'd think his ideas were a clever trope, gifts of a man who understood literature and philosophy, but they were more than that, experience told. He just kept opening doors for a lot of us, and after a bit we figured it out and came to anticipate his donation of surety, authority and wisdom. Some understood that he was a big hearted, unselfish civic presence. But he was only known by his deeds if you were paying attention. He usually did not announce himself. And that was not simple modesty. I think he wanted it that way so he could be free to consider the unthinkable, and not be bothered when he set out to construct playgrounds for ideas at parallel or perpendicular with given truths and practice.

I was an apprentice critic for The Buffalo News in the late 1960s and available for any kind of story. My luck that I drew the straw to cover and review the last days of the old Shaw Festival and the development of a new theater. My seniors on the arts staff likely didn't want to take on the drive and get back across the bridge for an early a.m. deadline. When Calvin, who was a Shaw Festival co-founder, recognized that I was covering the transition, and he invited me to Randwood, a fabulous estate where Calvin and his family welcomed scholars, critics and the likes of Queen Elizabeth II. As he told the story, quality professional theater and then culture cast more broadly could rescue an historically rich community, now on its heals in disrepair. (And his follow-up was to be the creation of an international think tank, focusing on Canada-US opportunities with roundtables in Niagara-on-the-Lake.)

Brian Doherty, Niagara-on-the-Lake attorney, playwright and patron of the arts, had established with Calvin a Festival to celebrate the wit and witness of George Bernard Shaw and later artists like him. A summer of Festival theater began in 1962. Two men with gumption, good will and guts decided that with little funding they might get through by employing underused civic space; the firehall, the town court, and the town jail as an information center, operated by the enlivened chamber of commerce in the town's one jail cell. Then, in 1969, Doherty created several doors away. It was suspected with Calvin's help, a professional mime theater. With this new and growing complex, the Brassbond Gallery for art, ceramics, books and dining also established across the street, and old Fort George, located at the waterfront, was restored. The backstory: These two collaborators believed in the arts and culture as a significant catalysts, if not kindling, for a thriving civic intentions. This was fundatmental and with this focus, they began considering a truly transformative building process.

The Festival soon overtook the now crowded and uncomfortable unairconditioned civic halls, and had courage to speak about appealing to government and patrons for a $2.5 million (think a 1970 dollar). This, thought Calvin and Doherty, should be a professional performance space, worthy of the attention of a queen. The two were committed to continue to strengthen the village's center. The theater should be in town. But Federal and Provincial Government insisted the new theater be built at the waterfront, out-of-town, near the newly restored Fort George.

Calvin made clear his thinking, even if it was counter to the promise of seven figure support from government. Calvin carefully told a press conference that "A major factor in Festival success is the character and history of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Building in the business district will maintain an important continuity by keeping theater squarely in the middle of town." And Doherty and Calvin kept on growing the Festival by adding a lecture series, covering the range of thinking about the humanities, for instance, with such as a talk on W.B Yeats and the theater, and next with chamber music concerts.

They had raised only $350,000 toward $2.5 million against a 1972 summer completion. A theater writer asked how they would manage without government help. Calvin responded: "We tend to be optimistic, but we still have the other site if things fall through." They missed their hoped for 1972 opening because government hadn't yet come around, but by June of 1973, the new theater opened in the business district, with Queen Elizabeth II on hand, Calvin Rand at her side, opening the stage. And here was the core principle to the Shaw Festival:

"This is not just a festival, but an environment festival,” Calvin told me, "Niagara-on-the-Lake is not picnicking, grass and trees, but it is...history, old buildings, character. It is very leisurely walking along its streets."

At the same time that Calvin was creating a new Shaw Festival, he was working as associate director for the University of Buffalo's Cultural Affairs office. With grace and good timing, he also in 1970, created Domus, a performance space in a leased floor in the old Pierce Arrow Factory on Elmwood Ave in Buffalo near the campus of SUNY Buffalo State. Domus leased folding chairs, a sound board and other equipment and borrowed other essentials from the arts community. It was meant to be a home for the many arts, for audiences of all ages and backgrounds, with student collaborators working with artists from around the world and from the university, or from the community at large. Domus was about receiving new ideas in a home that would be open to accept and develop ideas – not necessarily art - with audience, amateurs and professionals. Domus would be "home" for all.

Calvin dived into this idea of creative community. "What kind of community would it be if not creative," he asked. The 60s and 70s were rough and dangerous decades. Calvin saw a clear path to stand for the cultures the arts could create. He encouraged emerging playwrights at Playrights' Horizon in New York and brought artists here. He served as president of the American Academy in Rome, where he worked to cross disciplines with thinkers in residence. He also was chair of UB's policy and planning committee for Domus, meaning that he was in charge, arranging for funding and schedule. He ran it with $50,000 and in its first year, and he assembled a residential theater and dance company, called the Company of Man, and a second resident company, called American Contemporary Theater. Both collaborated with the legendary UB Center for Creative and Performing Arts. Guests brought in from away ranged from the radical Theater of Sao Paulo to the Meredith Monk Dance Company, from New York, both busy redefining dance, music and voice - and now, with Miss Monk at 74 years old, tackling "silence," according to a recent Sunday's NYT Arts Section. Domus lasted less than 10 years, but it made a healthy contribution to an embracing culture of innovation.

His contributions to Irish Classical Theater, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Buffalo Philharmonic and others was critical. His work on the Council of Advisors and then Board of Trustees for the Burchfield Penney Art Center was instrumental in counseling institutional risk for reward, particularlized with his work to convince State Government to be generous with a new museum, the first LEED art museum in the state and an award winning architectural masterwork during a period of precious little growth in Buffalo. For Calvin, borders were opportunities. Multiple sites could feed each other. The Niagara Frontier has been a center for innovation in the arts since the rush of artists of all types who came to experience the awesome power of The Falls in the 19th century.Then, a century after Cole, Church, Bierstadt, Barker, Notman and Babbitt, along with Olmsted, Richardson and The Niagara Movement, Calvin Rand led a mid 20th century reminder to the world that Buffalo remains, a center for cultural innovation and a city for good neighbors. That is a significant part of his legacy.

Anthony Bannon, executive director, Burchfield Penney Art Center.