Can Jacob G. Padron Save Long Wharf Theatre?
Jacob G. Padrón stands outside Long Wharf Theatre, located in the middle of the New Haven Food Terminal on the outskirts of the city. The building is closed and its large outdoor parking lot is nearly vacant. It’s oddly quiet on a sunny summer afternoon, the silence broken only by the hum of the nearby highway and the occasional squawk of a seagull. We are meeting to take some photographs and talk about his career, his evolution as a gay man, and these unexpected times.
Outside the theater, a poster promotes a season that was cut short in March by the pandemic. This wasn’t how Padrón imagined his inaugural season when he became the theater’s new artistic director. But Long Wharf’s dire financial struggles and the Covid-19 crisis decimated plans to transform the Tony Award-honored theater from one that was on the verge of collapse into one that would hopefully thrive as it became rooted in and reflective of its city.
“There’s sadness about not being able to be in the space, but I also look at the promise of what is to come, too,” says Padrón, a soft-spoken, measured man whose seriousness of tone is balanced and brightened by a glistening smile.
“He’s not an ostentatious kind of guy,” says Stephanie Ybarra, a classmate of Padrón’s when both were students at the Yale School of Drama and who is now artistic director of Baltimore Center Stage. “Not in his personal life and not in his artistry. He is thoughtful, reflective and deliberate in his leadership – and in his relationships.”
Like Ybarra, Padrón is one of many people of color or women who are part of a new wave of leadership at not-for-profit regional theaters across the country, one with a goal of systemic change towards equality, diversity, and inclusion. Padrón, 40, is a third-generation Mexican-American, a social activist, and a gay man who came out in his mid-20s.
“Jacob’s journey is one of understanding and exploring how that part of his gay identity intersects with…
