All of this is aimed at what Mr. Boyd said he hoped would be a renewed commitment to the company aspect of a theater company, namely the development of actors, writers and plays.
Mr. Wolfe has spent nearly a decade trying to build on the fierce commitment of the theater's founder, Joseph Papp, to new playwrights.
Many in the organization say that Mr. Wolfe, aside from his talent, is important to the organization as a personification of what it stands for -- as a black, gay man he is a strong symbolic leader of a theater with a commitment to reach out to diverse audiences.
James Houghton, founding artistic director of Signature Theater, which is producing "Orphans' " with Hartford Stage, said the challenges of transferring a show to Broadway should not overshadow the commitment of Off Broadway theaters to producing expensive or complex ensemble plays in a difficult economic climate.
The college, which has roughly 16,000 students and is part of the City University of New York, made the commitment to the theater despite a sluggish economy that has hurt arts financing and trimmed audiences.
Ours is a theater of invention, a theater of the individual".
She plays Fanny Cavendish, the oldest surviving member of an acting dynasty based on the Barrymores, and she uses the occasion to suggest a commitment to the theater as strong and pure as that of the Pilgrim Fathers to their Bibles.
In her first interview, at the time of the East Village "Seagull," when her paycheck was $170 a week and her ride home was the First Avenue bus, she spoke -- as many young actors do -- of her commitment to live theater.
"The house of Loti is like a theater, a theater he built for himself".
But to survey the ENO output across the upcoming season is to encounter a commitment to theater names unusual in the world of opera, which tends to have its own coterie of directors.
