From the Executive Director
Storm Clouds and Silver Linings
By Teresa Eyring
On Oct. 15, TCG celebrated the fifth anniversary of its Free Night of Theater program. First piloted in three cities in 2003, by 2009 Free Night had 120 participating communities, with 700 theatres, 2,000 performances and 65,000 tickets distributed to new and infrequent theatregoers. The program was originally conceived as a way to develop audiences; today it far outpaces that mission, having generated a massive national collaboration among theatres, practitioners and audiences—along with national, regional and local arts service organizations. In order to plan for 2009 Free Night festivities and follow-up, hundreds of geographically separated individuals and entities worked together, exploring how best to attract and retain new audiences, but also how to celebrate the very presence of theatremaking in their respective localities.
Collaborating on Free Night helps forge national bonds, but it also unites people working in the same town. When the program was launched last year in New York, it brought together organizations that hadn't joined forces regularly in the past. In addition to TCG, those collaborators included the Arts & Business Council of New York, the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, the League of Independent Theater, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the New York State Council on the Arts and Theatre Development Fund.
In its first year in New York, the program kicked off with a brief lunchtime rally in Manhattan's Union Square. This year, the organizers were thinking bigger. With TCG staffers Phil Matthews and Ruth Eglsaer spearheading the proceedings, director Paul Bargetto and producer Jennifer Conley Darling conceived a visionary afternoon celebration at the same location, with theatres' representatives at outdoor tables sharing information and wares. Sia Balabanova's design for the event was gorgeous, and at last tally, hundreds of artists had signed up to participate as speakers or performers.
The weather gods also chose that day for a rainstorm. The winds were fierce, and it was reportedly snowing in New Jersey. It became clear minutes before the program began that we needed to take cover—and fast. Thankfully, the nearby Union Square Theatre was available, and the assembled revelers hauled piles of signs and brochures over to the space. As everyone gathered and regrouped, a show-must-go-on enthusiasm prevailed.
Theatre people, like no one else, have that special resilience gene, that built-in will to carry on with the spectacle that was promised. For this Free Night of Theater event, an impressive roster of artists had agreed to participate either by performing or by telling a favorite story from their careers. It would've been easy enough to simply call for a rain check. But instead, these performers hit their marks with every shred of warmth and enthusiasm intact. The cast of Repertorio Español's Captain Pantoja and the Special Service arrived in costume, accompanied by the Colombian pop icon Andrés Cabas, who had composed the music for the show—and though it ultimately wasn't possible for them to perform as planned, their commitment and dedication to the cause shone through.
Kathleen Chalfant remarked on the coincidence of being back on stage at Union Square Theatre, where she had performed Margaret Edson's Wit for 500-plus performances. Judith Malina talked about the ambitions of her Living Theatre over the years, and quipped that for their next project, "We have no budget but we are going to do it anyway." Eric Bogosian recounted the time he banged his head and was bleeding profusely during a show—at the emergency room, while he was getting stitched up, the doctor asked, "Does the audience know you're not coming back?" (Apparently they didn't, because they were all still sitting there in their seats.) Mike Daisey talked about the ad hoc nature of theatre and our uncanny ability to adapt and adjust, and also reminded us that the simple act of sitting in a room together to hear a story—or see a performance—is one of civilization's oldest and most powerful experiences.
Scott Morfee brought a pumpkin and told ghost stories, including one about the time the lights went out in the Union Square area 10 minutes before Edwin Booth breathed his last breath. Oskar Eustis recalled when Mother Courage continued on in the pouring rain, even after he warned the actors about being electrocuted. And Robert Zukerman of the New York State Council on the Arts was an outstanding emcee, fully attired in top hat and tails. There were many other speakers and performers. We thank them all.
As we enjoyed our New York celebration, 120 communities across the nation were also launching their Free Night of Theater events, large and small. It's interesting that in the same week, Tectonic Theater Project staged its international performance event featuring readings of The Laramie Project, Ten Years Later. The script was distributed to more than 100 theatres in seven countries; the readings took place live and simultaneously on Oct. 12. While different companies of actors came before different rooms of audiences across the nation, many aspects of the experience happened simultaneously through technologies such as Twitter and webcasting. Miraculously, this enabled audiences to benefit from both the immediate live connection of sitting with other people in a room, and the more global communing with far-flung fellow spectators connected through new technologies. Is that the best of both worlds, or what?
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