Center Stage with Carol Ostrow
Carol OSTROW ’73 does not like to wait. It’s not that she’s impatient or in a particular hurry, it’s just that she wants to get on with it—whatever it may be. After graduating from Ellis, she was more than ready to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. It was something she had wanted from a very young age. “My family fully embraced a life in the arts,” Carol says. “It was expected.”
With that very real sense of purpose, she left Pittsburgh for Vassar College and then the Yale School of Drama. And things seemed to be going according to plan, at least in the beginning. But after several years of on-again, off-again work, she realized that the life of an aspiring actress is, in large part, about waiting—for the next audition or the phone to ring.
So when one of her former drama professors from Vassar asked her to fill in for him while he was on sabbatical, she didn’t hesitate. During that time, the school’s president challenged the drama department to create a program that would wake up the campus throughout the typically sleepy summer months. Not surprisingly, Carol answered the call.
For the next two years, she worked as the behind-the-scenes catalyst that would bring Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater to life. Making its debut in 1985, this professional repertory and training program remains a force to be reckoned with to this very day.
“Yes, it took some chutzpah,” Carol recalls. “But I knew what I didn’t know, and asked for help.” The program’s success can also be attributed to the fact that she never lost sight of the ultimate goal: “to make incredible art.”
“Being a good producer is the most creative thing,” she says, “because I am responsible for so much more than my own performance.”
Not one to rest on past accomplishments (no matter how recent), Carol left the Vassar campus in 1985 and started a whirlwind journey. For the next decade-plus, she worked as the producing director of New York City’s Classic Stage Company; moved to London with her husband, Michael Graff, and their then 15-month-old twins, Anabel and Emily; started her own theater-focused financial consulting business and had two more children, Candace and Jesse; moved the family back to Pittsburgh where she taught drama at Chatham College (now University); moved everyone to Montreal, Quebec; and finally moved the entire family back to New York in August 2001.
In the wake of September 11 when the entire city was trying to find its way, Carol happened to bump into a friend from her Yale drama days. Jim Simpson told her about his theater group The Flea. Located just seven blocks from Ground Zero, the small, off-off- Broadway company he founded in 1996 was struggling just to keep its doors open.
Carol immediately signed on as The Flea’s original (and to date only) producing director. And Carol and Jim’s first joint project spoke to the very heart of the city’s anguish. The Guys tells the story of a fire captain talking to a writer as he prepares eulogies for the men he has lost. Performed by Sigourney Weaver (Jim’s wife) and Bill Murray, the play opened December 4, 2001, and ran for more than a year.
The Flea has emerged as a place where exciting and innovative original works of art—theater, dance, and music—are performed. The Tribeca complex features two stages and its own resident company known as The Bats, hosts a number of smaller companies (like the TriBeCa New Music Festival, The New York Goofs, and LAVA), and welcomes some 17,000 theater- goers each year.
The Flea is in constant motion, and so is Carol. “There’s no such thing as a typical day,” she says. And that’s especially true now that Jim, the company’s artistic director, has announced his retirement. In addition, the theater is in the midst of a major capital campaign and preparing for next year’s move to a new $18.5 million facility on nearby Thomas Street.
“I’m busier now than I’ve ever been,” Carol says. “We’re opening one show and rehearsing for another then I put on a hard hat and go to construction meetings and talk about wiring and boring holes and then Jim and I have these mind-blowingly intense conversations as we interview people all over the country and across the sea for the artistic director position.”
But she wouldn’t want it any other way. On second thought, maybe she would. “I’m coming up on a milestone birthday,” Carol says. “I’m old.”
It’s not that retirement is imminent; she definitely sees herself making the transition to the new space with a new artistic director; it’s just that she doesn’t like to wait. “I want to do what I can before people stop listening to me,” she says.
In that spirit, Carol offers this bit of advice to her Ellis sisters. “Pay little or no attention to anyone who doesn’t inspire you or frighten you. Being a little scared isn’t a bad thing.
Take that still, quiet voice within you and make it shout.”
Carol did, and credits Ellis for helping her pay attention to what her voice had to say. “Ellis absolutely changed my life,” she recalls. “At Ellis, thinking was required and that made me aware of the power of having a brain.
“I have a great life,” she adds. “I’m passionate about what I’m doing and in that regard it’s exactly what I imagined when I graduated from high school.
“I can’t possibly predict what’s next.”
Back
So when one of her former drama professors from Vassar asked her to fill in for him while he was on sabbatical, she didn’t hesitate. During that time, the school’s president challenged the drama department to create a program that would wake up the campus throughout the typically sleepy summer months. Not surprisingly, Carol answered the call.
For the next two years, she worked as the behind-the-scenes catalyst that would bring Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater to life. Making its debut in 1985, this professional repertory and training program remains a force to be reckoned with to this very day.
“Yes, it took some chutzpah,” Carol recalls. “But I knew what I didn’t know, and asked for help.” The program’s success can also be attributed to the fact that she never lost sight of the ultimate goal: “to make incredible art.”
“Being a good producer is the most creative thing,” she says, “because I am responsible for so much more than my own performance.”
Not one to rest on past accomplishments (no matter how recent), Carol left the Vassar campus in 1985 and started a whirlwind journey. For the next decade-plus, she worked as the producing director of New York City’s Classic Stage Company; moved to London with her husband, Michael Graff, and their then 15-month-old twins, Anabel and Emily; started her own theater-focused financial consulting business and had two more children, Candace and Jesse; moved the family back to Pittsburgh where she taught drama at Chatham College (now University); moved everyone to Montreal, Quebec; and finally moved the entire family back to New York in August 2001.
In the wake of September 11 when the entire city was trying to find its way, Carol happened to bump into a friend from her Yale drama days. Jim Simpson told her about his theater group The Flea. Located just seven blocks from Ground Zero, the small, off-off- Broadway company he founded in 1996 was struggling just to keep its doors open.
Carol immediately signed on as The Flea’s original (and to date only) producing director. And Carol and Jim’s first joint project spoke to the very heart of the city’s anguish. The Guys tells the story of a fire captain talking to a writer as he prepares eulogies for the men he has lost. Performed by Sigourney Weaver (Jim’s wife) and Bill Murray, the play opened December 4, 2001, and ran for more than a year.
The Flea has emerged as a place where exciting and innovative original works of art—theater, dance, and music—are performed. The Tribeca complex features two stages and its own resident company known as The Bats, hosts a number of smaller companies (like the TriBeCa New Music Festival, The New York Goofs, and LAVA), and welcomes some 17,000 theater- goers each year.
The Flea is in constant motion, and so is Carol. “There’s no such thing as a typical day,” she says. And that’s especially true now that Jim, the company’s artistic director, has announced his retirement. In addition, the theater is in the midst of a major capital campaign and preparing for next year’s move to a new $18.5 million facility on nearby Thomas Street.
“I’m busier now than I’ve ever been,” Carol says. “We’re opening one show and rehearsing for another then I put on a hard hat and go to construction meetings and talk about wiring and boring holes and then Jim and I have these mind-blowingly intense conversations as we interview people all over the country and across the sea for the artistic director position.”
But she wouldn’t want it any other way. On second thought, maybe she would. “I’m coming up on a milestone birthday,” Carol says. “I’m old.”
It’s not that retirement is imminent; she definitely sees herself making the transition to the new space with a new artistic director; it’s just that she doesn’t like to wait. “I want to do what I can before people stop listening to me,” she says.
In that spirit, Carol offers this bit of advice to her Ellis sisters. “Pay little or no attention to anyone who doesn’t inspire you or frighten you. Being a little scared isn’t a bad thing.
Take that still, quiet voice within you and make it shout.”
Carol did, and credits Ellis for helping her pay attention to what her voice had to say. “Ellis absolutely changed my life,” she recalls. “At Ellis, thinking was required and that made me aware of the power of having a brain.
“I have a great life,” she adds. “I’m passionate about what I’m doing and in that regard it’s exactly what I imagined when I graduated from high school.
“I can’t possibly predict what’s next.”
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