John Hardy
John Hardy conceived of and started the Barter Players in 1993, but it was called Barter’s First Light Theatre at the time.
“I wanted to use‘The Barter Players,’ but there were some who thought it would be confusing because the banner that had hung in front of the theater for years read: ‘Barter Theatre; Home of the World Famous Barter Players.’ The Barter Players was the phrase they used to describe the artistic company at Barter Theatre who did plays for general audiences. It was thought that it would be confusing to suddenly have a company playing to young audiences that used the same name.
“The First Light summer seasons included a few‘summer only’ interns for a season of five plays and the tour (during the school year) was a company of five or six. The fall of 1993 was the first tour. It was the first extended tour from The Barter Theatre in years. Barter had occasionally toured, but it was more along the lines of sending a company to another venue, in another part of the state for a run of whatever play they were doing. Barter’s First Light Theatre toured to every nook and cranny of Virginia and the surrounding states. We toured September through May. I believe we did somewhere around 175 performances in seven states in that first year,” Hardy says.
The first years Hardy was working “an ungodly number of hours per week — somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 hours a week,” he says. At the time, he was the artistic director of First Light and a Barter Theatre associate director, directing, acting, writing and more for the Barter season as well as the First Light season.
“The early years were a great deal of work: administratively, artistically and everything else. Nick Piper and Susanne Boulle were company members of Barter’s First Light Theatre. They were the bedrock of the company. Both are fine actors, directors and students of theater. They both managed the tour on the road, which was a big job. I consider both of them to be, along with me, the founders of Barter’s First Light Theatre. It could not have happened without Nick Piper and Susanne Boulle,” Hardy says.
Hardy wrote the plays for the Players. All of the plays were original at that time.
“The artistic cornerstone of the company was my play, ‘American Tall Tales,’ which was performed nearly 1,000 times over the years. Other plays that I wrote for Barter’s First Light Theatre were ‘John Henry,’ ‘American Tall Tales Too,’ ‘Fabulous Fables’ and several others.
“In thesecond year of touring (1994-95), we jumped up to 275 performances or workshops done in 14 states. We went from zero to 275 in two years. I’msorrybut that statistic is amazing. In the second year we began doing Shakespeare in addition to the plays for young audiences. Because of that we began playing more high schools and colleges and general audiences. My play, ‘Poe,’ an adaptation of two Poe stories intertwined with an examination of Poe’s life, was another, very popular play, that we performed for all audiences,” he says.
The plays were performed, by and large, in school auditoriums or cafeterias or gymnasiums. Occasionally, for general audiences, they would perform in theater venues.
“Our philosophy was this: ‘There is no such thing aschildren’s theater acting/directing/playwrighting. It is all the same thing. We treated our work as if we were doing ‘King Lear’ on Broadway. Same thing. We were successful, in large part, due to this philosophy and the quality of work that emerged from that philosophy. To this day I maintain that Barter’s First Light Theatre — and later — The Barter Players, as it was re-named, was, and is, one of the best — if not the best — theater for young audiences on the planet. We believed we had important work to do, and we needed the very best professionals to do it. We used the rehearsal hall to train ourselves and everyone who came through. Our philosophy was centered around this idea: serve the audience. And secondly: learn. Constant and consistent growth was the way we did it. And still do.
“There is nothing like creating a fine work of art, from the ground up, and watching that work be joyfully receivedby audiences on a consistent basis over a sustained period of time. That’s what we got to do, beginning with Barter’s First Light Theatre and continuing to this day. It is glorious,” Hardy says.
