Rift Progress at the Bowery Buoys Spirit : Theater

There’s only one sure way to brush off the spooky feeling engendered by a dark theater, and that is to think about the lights coming up on the next show.

The Bowery Theatre, which has been dark since it ended its extended run of “Independence” on Saturday, hasn’t been able to confirm its next show because the Bowery’s resident associate artistic director, Ginny-Lynn Safford, and the president of the theater’s board of directors, John Howard, say they are having artistic and management disagreements.

The standstill has led to a hurried visit by Kim McCallum who, though having moved to New Mexico to work with playwright Mark Medoff and the New Mexico Repertory Theatre two years ago (he subsequently became artistic director there), is still the artistic director of the Bowery as well.

And evidently, to Howard’s relief, McCallum intends to take a more active role in the Bowery in the near future, choosing the shows and overseeing their overall direction with regular--possibly weekend--visits.

“We’re trying to choose eight shows now,” said Howard, who explained that the plan is for McCallum, who was scheduled to be back in New Mexico on Monday night, to send him the scripts under consideration for Howard’s opinion.

“The ultimate decision is, of course, Kim’s,” Howard said.

McCallum’s beefed-up role seems like a response not just to Safford’s stewardship but to the march of acting artistic directors--Ollie Nash, Robyn Hunt and Steve Pearson--through the revolving door during McCallum’s absence. It was this phenomenon that Safford alluded to when she said the theater “has a history of this sort of thing . . . Some people are scared that others are going to steal their limelight.”

For Howard, though, it has simply been a case of not being able to find anyone to match McCallum’s “energy and insight.” While Howard said he could not confirm any of the plays at this time because the rights to them have not been acquired, he said the Bowery’s next play should open in early February at the latest, but that they are trying for January.

Also, starting in April, he said the Bowery will begin a new season, which will consist of about six plays--the first time in its six years that the theater will have planned and announced a year’s worth of plays in advance.

As for Safford, who started her brief tenure as the theater’s associate artistic director with “Independence,” she said she knew that there was trouble brewing when Howard shot down her proposals for the season (He didn’t like her idea of doing “Tracers,” along with about 15 others, she said.) and that things weren’t exactly looking up when McCallum had some bones to pick over her direction of “Independence,” which he caught Friday night.

Howard said he hopes that Safford, who he describes as a “fine actress” and a director in whom he sees potential, will continue to be associated with the theater on a free-lance basis. Safford said she hasn’t abandoned hope of continuing in her position.

“I’ll be disappointed if this doesn’t work out. . . . There’s such a wonderful energy about the place. It’s unfortunate that we can’t all work together.”