1 2 3 4 5 "THEATRE: A CATALYST FOR TRANSFORMATION 6 IN TIMES OF CRISIS" 7 8 A public symposium in response to September 11 9 10 January 28, 2002 7:00 p.m. 11 CROSSROADS THEATRE COMPANY New Brunswick, New Jersey 12 13 ************************************************************ 14 MR. EDWARDS: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Crossroads Theatre. My name is Les Edwards and I'm the 15 executive director of the Crossroads Theatre Company. I want to thank each and every one of you for coming tonight 16 to support the New~Jersey Theatre Alliance in this most important symposium. As you well know, Crossroads Theatre 17 has been closed for more than a year, but please know, too, that with your help and my board of directors and many 18 volunteers and many funders who are here tonight, we are working very hard to reopen the Crossroads Theatre in the 19 near future. [APPLAUSE] 20 I'd like to extend a very personal thanks to the member theaters in the alliance for their support and also to the 21 executive director of the New~Jersey Theatre Alliance, John McEwen. Good evening, and welcome, again. 22 [APPLAUSE] 23 DR. PRICE: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Clement Price. And it is truly an honor, a deep pleasure to 24 serve as moderator for this very special evening at Crossroads. An honor, first of all, because it's at 25 Crossroads, a theatre very near and dear to the heart of New~Jersey. And it's also an honor to be with my colleagues 2 2 on the panel. I'll introduce them in a few minutes. 3 Not many days after 9/11 the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation did something which was at once bold and thoughtful. It 4 asked all of its grantees to respond to the repercussions of 9/11 in any way they saw fit. Works of art, humanities 5 programs, lectures. And they really opened up their generosity, and in doing so I think they nudged open the 6 imagination of their grantees. One response, one important response from a Geraldine R. Dodge grantee came from the 7 New~Jersey Theatre Alliance, which decided to mount this evening's symposium, Theatre: A Catalyst for Transformation 8 in a Time of Crisis. A public symposium in response to 9/11. I know I was in conversation with some of my friends 9 in the philanthropic community when the Dodge Foundation publicly announced this RFP, and it occurred to me then and 10 over the days that succeeded the announcement that the Dodge was asking not just its grantees, but people throughout this 11 metropolitan area, indeed, people throughout our country, to think very seriously about how our society has changed, if, 12 indeed, it has changed by 9/11. 13 9/11 ushered in a time of collective and individual grief. 9/11 underscored our vulnerability as a nation and as 14 individuals. 9/11 made many of us angry, not for the first time, but, perhaps, angry at unseen, unknown adversaries. 15 9/11 stirred up, once again, evidence of cultural profiling, which seemed to ride on the coattails of racial profiling, 16 something very much discussed here in New~Jersey. And, of course, 9/11 led us to a war, an undeclared war, but 17 seemingly a real war. 18 Tonight we want to look beyond theatre as a corporate entity, although we must talk about how 9/11 and the days 19 that have followed have brought about pain in the theatre community. The loss of income streams, the laying off of 20 artists, designers, and people who make theatre come alive night after night here in New~Jersey and beyond. So we want 21 to look beyond, we want to look at the corporate structure of the theatre, but beyond it, far beyond it to ask this 22 question: What must theatre do for and in a society surprisingly confronted, seemingly for the first time, by 23 its own vulnerability. In short: What can and must theatre do at this unique moment in our history? 24 Let me introduce our panelists now. They're well-known 25 people. And you have your programs and they are pretty good bios, but let me, just for the record, say a few things. 3 2 3 Emily Mann is in her 12th season as Artistic Director of the Tony Award winning McCarter Theatre in Princeton, 4 New~Jersey. She is a distinguished playwright, best known documentary form in which works were developed using the 5 words of real people to articulate actual, believable events. Her plays include "Having Our Say," "Execution of 6 Justice," "Greensboro (A Requiem)," and "Still Life." 7 Emily Mann. [APPLAUSE] 8 Next to Emily -- [APPLAUSE] 9 -- is the Reverend Al Carmines. He is well-known as a pastor of Judson Memorial Church on the south side of 10 New York's Washington Square. He established in the 1960s the Judson Poets Theatre. What a theatre that was. The 11 Judson sponsored challenging theatre experiments, many in musical form, including Carmines' "In Circles" and 12 "Promenade," and became known as "the conscience of Greenwich Village." 13 Al. 14 [APPLAUSE] And Deborah Brevoort, a playwright and musical theatre 15 lyricist from Alaska. She is the author of numerous plays and musicals, including The Women of Lockerbie, which won 16 the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays Award, and the Onassis International Playwriting prize in 2001. She is 17 the librettist of King Island Christmas, which had its area premier at Paper Mill Playhouse in 1999. 18 Deborah. 19 [APPLAUSE] And my Rutgers colleague, Israel Hicks, just recently joined 20 the Rutgers faculty as chairman of the Mason Gross School of the Arts theatre department. He has served for many years 21 in the same position at the Theatre Arts and Film Division at SUNY-Purchase. He has directed at regional theaters 22 throughout the country, including the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the 23 Seattle Repertory Theatre and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. 24 Israel. [APPLAUSE] 25 And a new friend and colleague, Kathleen Gaffney. She is the co-founder and president of Artsgenesis, Inc., a 4 2 not-for-profit arts-in-education organization that ignites creativity and accelerates learning. Each year Artsgenesis 3 programs reach tens of thousands of students, teachers and parents. As an actress she has appeared in more than 250 4 plays from off-Broadway, to regional theaters, to Broadway national tours. 5 Kathleen. 6 [APPLAUSE] In my day job I'm a college professor. So this is unusual 7 for me. And again, to repeat myself, it is a great honor. 8 In trying to get the program going let me raise a question for my colleagues on the panel. Some might argue that 9 theatre is reactive. Theatre responds to the human experience, turns it to light, reveals its ambiguities, its 10 contradictions, its beauties, its ugliness. Some may say that theatre is a proactive force, that theatre actually 11 leads us to the future by opening up our minds, our hearts, by exposing us in a protected, designated space to the 12 dangers of being a human being. 13 If either of these are true I would like for the panel to begin by looking at what theatre may look like in the 14 foreseeable future because of 9/11. What will theatre likely look like in the wake of 9/11? 15 As I say to my students, let's not all speak up at once. 16 [LAUGHTER] Deborah, why don't you start? 17 MS. BREVOORT: Oh, gosh. I don't know what it's going to 18 look like. My response to it is that -- it goes to a conversation we all had over dinner, which is how the artist 19 so often is prescient, I think is the word that you used, Suzanne, where many of the plays, for example, that Emily is 20 doing now at McCarter are about terrorism, but they were written three years ago. 21 And I certainly find myself in the position as a playwright, 22 having written a play three years ago called The Women of Lockerbie, which is suddenly very topical, but writing it 23 before any of this was in the air. 24 I guess my sense is that the way that artists respond to things are not so on the nose or so necessarily direct. You 25 know, we can't quite explain why we do things or why we're writing what we're writing. So I'm not quite sure how this 5 2 is going to flower in the future, except that I know that it will. I think we've all been changed, and even if we just 3 keep doing what we're doing our response somehow will be in our work. 4 I think that one thing that I'm sort of feeling in the air, 5 or certainly what I felt in response to September 11th, was this sort of feeling of being caught unawares, of being 6 really uninformed about so many things in the world. And finding myself having very almost simple responses to the 7 events of 9/11 and to everything that's been happening since then. There's been a growing realization, certainly on my 8 part, of the need to really come to terms with the complexities in the world that gave rise to these events and 9 to the very complex situation that we're living in now. I think it's mandatory that we all understand that. 10 And tying this into theatre, I think that's one thing that 11 we can do and something that I hope that the American theatre does. Because great theatre demands complex 12 thinking on the part of the audience, demands complex thinking on the part of artists. And if not thinking, then 13 at least a complex response. And I think that's true even in plays that are not political, for example, that maybe 14 will have nothing to do with 9/11. Whether you're talking about a play like "How I Learned to Drive," for example, 15 where you have characters, sympathetic pederasts, or "True Love" by Charles Mee, which just opened in New York, where 16 the experience is complex so that you are encountering different worlds that you normally wouldn't. And I think 17 that the experience of complex responding and thinking is something that the theatre requires and I hope in the future 18 will continue to require. I think that's a place where we can exercise that muscle. 19 I certainly know from among the playwrights that I'm talking 20 to that the conversations are going in that direction, people are thinking that, that way. 21 DR. PRICE: Thank you. 22 Anyone else? 23 Al? 24 REV. CARMINES: I'm a minister and also a playwright, a -- 25 composer. And from my youngest years my father was an atheist and mother was a devout Christian. So I've had this 6 2 ambiguity as part of my own being for as long as I can remember. 3 But in definite response to 9/11 I found a very simple thing 4 happening to me. I live in a building that is subsidized for artists. And for 18 years I lived there before 9/11. 5 And when I would take the elevator I always notice that I would be in one corner of the elevator and everyone else 6 would be in a separate corner, kind of leaving me isolated. And finally I asked someone: Why don't people talk to me? 7 And they said, well, they know you're a minister and they're afraid they'll say something wrong. So after 9/11 I began 8 to notice that people suddenly became very friendly. They began to say, "how are you, how are you doing, how are you 9 feeling?" 10 And conversations became general. And all of a sudden this kind of separation between me and them became erased. 11 That's a very simple illustration of what I think theatre 12 should be and can be doing. We should be thinking, enabling artists to find ways to touch each other. And I think it's 13 going to be a very long time before we can touch each other in words. And that's why I think that dance, and painting, 14 and mime are the closest things we're going to find to personal response to the events of 9/11. 15 And so I think that playwrights and those of us who write 16 for the theatre should look for guidance to dancers and to painters, and to the simple human people in our 17 neighborhoods. Because only by listening to them will we learn to tell the truth and will we learn to feel the agony, 18 and the joy, and the wonderment, and the bewilderment that playwrights should deal with and eventually will be forced 19 to deal with. 20 DR. PRICE: What is the historical context for my question? 21 In other words, prior to 9/11. Americans certainly faced crises, which in many ways have been overshadowed by 9/11. 22 9/11 seems to have become the beginning of a new epoch. Most historians would say more time will have to pass before 23 the true resonance of 9/11, importance of 9/11 will present itself as fundamental. 24 But historically how has theatre either helped or 25 problemitized American life during periods of crises, during periods of anxiety? 7 2 MS. GAFFNEY: What a huge question. I just want to say 3 something to the folks out here. The only difference between you guys and us is: We're on the carpet. As we 4 were talking over dinner all of us to a one in their own way said, you know, we're not up here because we have any 5 answers. Because we really don't have any answers. 6 Hopefully what we will do is help frame a couple more questions. And I'm going to go to the first part of what 7 you said. When you said: Americans -- I can't exactly remember how you put it, but what it made me want to say 8 was: You know, some Americans have always had tremendous tragedy around them. This is the first time that so many 9 Americans, who have not felt tragedy, have been touched by it. 10 And I forget which one of you geniuses -- I think it was 11 you -- who said -- no, but I mean he said this absolutely brilliant thing. He said: We in America think we can buy 12 security, we can buy safety. 13 Did you not say that? 14 MR. HICKS: I did. [LAUGHTER] 15 MS. GAFFNEY: And that is -- those are the people who have 16 been so touched. The people who were safe, the people who, you know, had large insurance policies and really took care 17 of themselves. As I look around and I see that what has been touched are those Americans, and therein will lie a 18 huge change because those are the ones who have felt safe. 19 We have heard the voices of those human beings who have not felt safe, you know, with the Laramie Project being one of 20 the beautiful. There are individual stories, but now, at this time, when so many human beings do not feel safe, so 21 many people who are younger, whose lives have not been touched, even by the events of the '60s, or the turmoil of 22 the Second World War, or the depression, and so they felt that this was it. And all of a sudden: They are now being 23 called. They have a clarion call. 24 And we, again, spoke about this over dinner, how they feel they want to throw away whatever rights there are and take 25 care of these things. There's an immediacy for them. They don't have a sense of history, is what I'm saying, they 8 2 don't have a sense of it. And therefore, they'll write their own. 3 DR. PRICE: Does the theatre as a phenomenon and as an 4 enterprise have a responsibility of making -- let's state for the moment -- Americans more historically conversant? 5 MS. GAFFNEY: Well, you're asking the right person, because 6 the plays that I've written are always about and within the historical context. Other people write plays for different 7 reasons. But, you know, I think the people that need to become more historically conversant are not the ones that 8 show up at the theatre, unfortunately, but, yes, I do think that that's one of the roles. 9 DR. PRICE: Emily, what about, since you were raised in a 10 family of historians, how has the theatre helped or not helped Americans get through periods of great crises and 11 great anxiety? 12 MS. MANN: That's such a good question, Clement, I've been thinking about it since you brought this up when we spoke on 13 the phone. And I suppose I have been more aware of how the theatre has helped cultures over the ages globally, than I 14 can speak actually to the American experience. Because I don't think that the theatre has been at the heart of the 15 American experience. I think it is now, oddly enough, more than it has been in the past. 16 Just as we in some ways have been an antiintellectual 17 country, we have been an antiart country. But if you look from the Greeks to the present, if you look at Greek 18 theatre, and we're talking about 2500 years ago, where we look at the great tragedies and we look at the great 19 satires, and they are about what was happening all around the people that were coming to those plays. 20 And again, if you look at Shakespeare's times, you look at 21 the great moments in history when you have great theatre, almost to the play and playwrights they will be political 22 plays, even if they're somehow shrouded in nice comic coating. Something very, very trenchant is being said to 23 the populous. And people go home and they talk about it and they debate it. And to me that has always been the appeal, 24 and I think with everyone on this panel, that has been the appeal for everyone here, why we do theatre, why we have 25 dedicated our lives to doing theatre. 9 2 So for me, I guess, because I was brought up in a home where intellectual inquiry and history was always at the heart of 3 every dinner table conversation, I feel, oddly enough, that what happened on 9/11, as traumatic and tragic as it was, 4 that everyone I know is talking about big global issues, they're talking about where we as human beings reside on 5 this planet, how America has to change and be aware of issues beyond the superficial, like what Tom Cruise eats for 6 breakfast. We're suddenly actually wondering where Kandahar is and what is going on with the women of Afghanistan. But 7 that's more the conversation. 8 I finally feel that out of the many as one that it has done a great deal of good for America. That Americans have woken 9 up and see what we all have in common and what we want to preserve. 10 My mother and I were talking, she said there were two times 11 when she considered wanting to die, one would be if she had to live under Hitler, and the other would be if she had to 12 become a woman under the Taliban. And I thought that was a very interesting dinner table conversation. 13 [LAUGHTER] 14 MS. MANN: I feel at home in America and I feel at home in our theatre, each one of our theaters here, I'm so glad to 15 be on the Crossroads' stage tonight. 16 And I think that audiences are hungry to have us give them plays that matter on a large level. We were actually in 17 previews of Romeo and Juliet, our first preview was on the 9th of September. And we closed on the 11th of September. 18 And then Jeff Woodward, managing director of McCarter, and I got together and said: We have to reopen the theatre, and 19 we did, with a play that was eerily appropriate to what was going on. 20 And as you said earlier, I chose the play because of my 21 grief about the Middle East and how the cycle of violence and hatred would continue to go on if you teach your 22 children to hate. It started with a little boy throwing a stone and then the rest of the tragedy unfurled. And I 23 cannot tell you how many people came up to me at intermission and after the play that week of the 11th crying 24 and saying thank you for opening the doors, we needed to be with the community, we needed to think about these things 25 and see it transformed into gorgeous poetry. 10 2 And it clarified why what we do as theatre artists matter, whether it's a new play or it's looking at Shakespeare 3 again. I'm, quite frankly, going back to Shakespeare and the Greeks a lot these days. 4 REV. CARMINES: One of the things that 9/11 did for me or to 5 me is increase my cynicism. Because the manipulation of human lives by a government, any government, the Taliban, 6 Europe, America, Canada, South America, the manipulation of human lives in order to get certain benefits for one 7 particular party is among the most cynical things that I can conceive of. And I think that the leaders of this country 8 and others have used the events of human blood and human life cynically to get certain bills and issues passed that 9 we will regret in the long run. 10 And what theatre's responsibility is, is to cry out against that kind of cynicism. To create a kind of theatre that 11 walls itself off from those kinds of manipulations and cries out, either in agony or in joy, but cries out against the 12 manipulation of human sacrifice to pass a political act. 13 DR. PRICE: Israel, we seem to be working here with a dichotomy. 14 Our colleague, Emily, suggests that our society because of 15 9/11 might be more self-aware and also more aware of the larger rings of -- 16 MS. MANN: I could also disagree with myself, just as you 17 said. I could also talk about the other side, but, yes. 18 DR. PRICE: All right. We'll get back to that disagreement. 19 And Al believes that we have entered a period in which governmental action is being taken at a time in which the 20 citizenry is not as watchful over the behavior of government. 21 MR. HICKS: At the risk of having my feet planted firmly in 22 midair, I agree with them both. 23 There was a period where I think that culturally and artistically in our society we simply fell asleep. We 24 became content and quite complacent with where we were and began to investigate introspectively why I disagreed with my 25 father when I was three years old, and I can blame him for everything, or why my mother didn't give me my porridge at 11 2 two. 3 And we forgot or simply moved away from investigation of global issues. And there have been those in other cultures 4 who have said that of us for years. Stop investigating your navels and look up and investigate the people around you. 5 So I agree that it was a call to our consciousness, if you will, to simply wake up and be who you are. Which I hope 6 means that we are people of this planet of a greater humanity, if you will. 7 In terms of theatre being a cry for those who cannot cry for 8 themselves or reaching out and hoping to cry for change, I think that, yes, we do that. Yes, that is part of who we 9 are. Part of the fabric of who we are, and that should be done. I absolutely agree. It is one of the few places on 10 this planet where we still can gather and have a collective thought, have -- communicate with ideas. 11 When I was very young my mother was very religious and my 12 father was not. So I grew up in the church and then moved away from it, the institutional church, that is. And then I 13 found theatre, which became my own church, my own way of going to church, my own way of communicating ideas with 14 large groups of people. I think it still is that: It is a place of refuge. It is a place of understanding. But more 15 importantly, a place where you can communicate those ideas which hopefully move us towards a greater humanity. 16 MS. GAFFNEY: When you were talking just a moment ago about 17 global issues were you including one of the best topics we had over dinner, was where we were talking about good and 18 evil? 19 And so "global" meaning not only around the entire planet, but those larger issues, like good and evil? 20 MR. HICKS: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it was you who 21 made the point, a rare genius here. That "evil" was a word that we've not used in our culture, really, in the way that 22 it's being utilized now, that it meant other things prior to 9/11, and we now have come to state it differently. 23 MS. GAFFNEY: I think that our theatre has become very 24 psychological or had become very psychological. And a lot of it in examining the human being excused the behavior 25 based on all this new knowledge we had about ourselves. 12 2 And I think that -- you know, if I'm going to predict something, this is the one thing I think I'll predict: Is 3 that I think we're going to exit that looking for all of the excuses of human behavior and go to the larger philosophical 4 questions, those existential questions, and look at them from a very different point of view. 5 DR. PRICE: Is that because of 9/11 or have we been involved 6 in maybe a generation-long process by which philosophical questions are much more readily available to us morally and 7 intellectually? 8 In other words, I'm very much concerned that we are overly underscoring the significance of 9/11, suggesting that there 9 was no previous trend in our society that may have inevitably led us to this kind of self-awareness, this more 10 sophisticated understanding of our role in the world. 11 What do you think about that? 12 MS. GAFFNEY: Well, you know, personally I think that we have just become the kings of triviality, just absolutely, 13 you know, when we are celebrating, however enjoyable it was to some people, a television show about nothing, that's 14 where we got, you know. That's where we got. 15 And so I believe that we were segueing to this -- what comes after nothing? 16 What comes after nothing? 17 Meaning must come after nothing. 18 DR. PRICE: 9/11 brought an end to the kind of complacency 19 that Israel spoke of. There was not a pre-9/11 trend by which the society was becoming much more mature? 20 MS. GAFFNEY: Certainly not, nothing on the scale of what 21 happened on 9/11. So I would put it right there. 22 We could look at a couple of events. Certainly the ambiguities that happened within the presidential election, 23 that was such a surprise that anything like -- we were set, we knew what we were doing: Everything works in America. 24 How can this happen? 25 13 2 Machines don't work? 3 There are questions here? 4 Who is really president? 5 We didn't have one for a while. How can that happen in this new millennium. So, yes, I think there were some things 6 that were leading up to that. And this, you know, this kind of arrogance that we have that we know so much. You know, 7 we know nothing, really. 8 DR. PRICE: Okay. Anyone else want to speak to this issue of the pre-9/11 realities of our society and how they -- 9 9/11, notwithstanding -- were taking us to a place of more -- a deeper self-discovery. 10 MS. MANN: Well, I think that we have in some ways woken up. 11 And in some ways we're just going right on back to sleep. 12 So I wish there were a sense that, you know, there was a pre-9/11 America and a post-9/11 America. In some ways 13 that's true we've woken up to some new ideas that were just thrown into our faces. We got, you know, clubbed in the 14 face by history and we had to wake up and go: Oh. 15 But now I think most people are kind of loosening up. I mean, there was a time when you turned on the news at 6:30 16 and you got national news of real importance, talking about what was going on in the rest of the world. And that's less 17 and less the case. People are getting more and more back to selling the news. 18 MS. GAFFNEY: I know, but I think that's somebody trying to 19 put on the clothes they used to wear on a different body. You know, it's going to take a while before you say, this 20 doesn't fit anymore, that doesn't fit anymore. Wait a minute, I think I'll take this whole thing off. I think 21 that arrives over time. 22 MS. MANN: Well, I would love to have you be right. I really hope you are. I don't have a crystal ball and I'm 23 certainly sure that we can't forget what it is we learned. 24 But what that should have been, I think, is an alarm -- it's like, you know, the alarm went off at 7:30 in the morning 25 and you have to go till midnight that night, and we decided to take a nap before noon. We were sleeping when it 14 2 happened and there's so much we have yet to find out. 3 MS. GAFFNEY: And the thing is that it's more than just 9/11. That is an event that happened in time. It is a 4 fixed thing upon which, you know, 3,000 and plus people perished. Where buildings that we held sacred were 5 destroyed, where four planes went down, that event with those planes, those buildings, and those people will never 6 happen again. That was an event. 7 Since then there is another series of events, which are the ongoing crises, the ongoing uncertainty, the anthrax, then 8 the Olympic games. Then the -- you know, I don't know about you guys, but every time I hear a plane get a little too 9 close I don't feel safe. 10 So I do think that when we look at one thing, yes, we are moving away from that event, but we are moving into a time, 11 a greater time of insecurity. And that is -- those are the things when I'm saying: The clothes aren't going to fit us 12 anymore. 13 MS. MANN: Oh, I agree with you. But I guess what I'm getting at is there was that event and then there's anthrax, 14 we might get yet another, God forbid, another attack or another attack. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, 15 that's just the small symptomatology of an enormously huge disease, if you will, or enormously huge issue and set of 16 issues about a part of the world that we have been ignorant of. And certainly I know I was and am, and as much as I am 17 reading now I feel about 30 years behind. 18 And that's going to take a lot of deep inquiry, and investigation, and research, and discussion, and possibly 19 travel. And all of those things. And those stories need to come home. Now, can we put those on our stage? 20 We might want to, we might not want to. And that's the 21 other thing about talking as artists and not as historians or people in government or intellectual inquiry into law and 22 ethics, and that is: We might not, as you said, actually, you know, hit the nail on the head. We might be looking at 23 larger issues of good and evil, of church and state, and the questions that we are seeing that were being discussed 2500 24 years ago on the stage and in incredible books. 25 So I guess what I am getting at is I don't know think we know what is going to happen on our stages in the future, 15 2 and what we want to be committed to is -- you know, Jacob Lawrence, I just saw his exhibit at the Whitney, and there 3 is a beautiful quote of his where he says, as an artist you have to have a philosophy of life that is spiritual, and 4 intellectual, and political, and when I paint a canvas I don't just put paint on canvas I put my whole life on 5 canvas. 6 And I think that's -- we don't know what it will be, we don't know what the paintbrush is going to actually draw, 7 but the commitment to create is there. 8 DR. PRICE: Deborah, with that said would you talk about -- 9 REV. CARMINES: Part of the ambiguity, however, is that I am called to be a minister of the gospel and at the same time 10 feel that I'm called to be an artist. Those things for 65 years have been in conflict in me. And they're still in 11 conflict. 12 As an artist I feel the responsibility to tell the truth, however grim it is or however joyous it is. Simply to tell 13 the truth in the way that communicates it. As a minister I feel my responsibility is to comfort, to preach, and to 14 caress. 15 Those two tracks of my life have never been unified. I'm 65 years old. One part of me says: Tell the truth. 16 Another part of me says: God is love. Maybe in eternity those two tracks will become one. But until that time I've 17 got to live with that ambiguity of telling the truth and preaching the gospel. And that is almost, not really, but 18 almost an impossible ambiguity to live with. 19 And I think since November the -- September the 11th that is a position we all find ourselves in: How to speak a word 20 that is absolutely true and how to at the same time speak a word of comfort. And that responsibility, I think, has us 21 all puzzled, and we're floundering around trying to decide how to do both at once. 22 DR. PRICE: Al, is it possible that there could be more than 23 one truth? 24 And that's what 9/11 has perhaps revealed, that our notion of truth has been brought into question? 25 REV. CARMINES: Yes, I think that's true, but I think as a 16 2 matter of living day by day one has to have certain leaps of faith minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day that inform 3 one's actions. 4 Aeschylus, Euripides, Shakespeare and particularly O'Neill. I find myself turning back again and again since 9/11 to 5 Eugene O'Neill, who lived one of the most agonizing lives of any playwright in America and yet he produced magnificent, 6 glorious plays. And how to -- how to deal with those plays in a way that is reverent and yet true, I think will give us 7 a clue as to how to deal with ambiguity. 8 DR. PRICE: Thank you, Al. 9 Deborah, would you talk a bit about The Women of Lockerbie and what the last four months has done to that work of art 10 and to you? 11 MS. BREVOORT: Sure. Yeah. 12 Just briefly for the audience, the play is loosely inspired by true stories surrounding the crash of Pan Am 103 over 13 Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. And after the crash of Pan Am 103 a group of elderly women in Scotland -- there were 14 11,000 pieces of clothing found in the wreckage. And they were contaminated with blood and fuel. And the government 15 was going to incinerate all of those clothing, pieces of clothes. 16 And you also have many families who have no remains, because 17 bodies were not found. And so the Women of Lockerbie basically were able to fight the government and get these 18 pieces of clothing returned to them. And then they set up a laundry project where they washed 11,000 pieces of clothing, 19 it took them one year, and returned them to the victims families. 20 And they said, when asked why they were doing this, that 21 when evil comes into the world it's the job of the witness to turn it to love. And they felt that evil had come to 22 Lockerbie and that they had a responsibility to convert this into love. 23 Now, this play, it was inspired by a documentary, and for me 24 my impulse in writing the play was not -- it didn't come from any sense of responsibility as an artist to respond to 25 terrorism, but rather I felt that I had truly witnessed emotions and actions that had the dimension of Greek 17 2 tragedy. Because in this documentary there were also mothers who seven years later were roaming the hills of 3 Scotland looking for their children's bodies which were never found. 4 So I felt like in a way I saw a contemporary of -- they were 5 Trojan women and Electras. And I felt like I really saw a Greek tragedy. So the writing of that play was for me a 6 poetic exercise in trying to find how one recovers, and how do you convert evil into love. How to right actions and 7 emotions of that magnitude. 8 And I met with a great deal of resistance. I could not get anybody in the U.S. to produce the play. It has been 9 rejected at every theatre, basically. [LAUGHTER] 10 And it's been submitted to them all. And... [LAUGHTER] 11 And one thing that was interesting, a question I kept bumping up against, and Israel and I were at the O'Neill 12 conference where the play was developed. People were saying, well, you know, now what are the women's 13 motivations? 14 Why would they -- you know, again, the psychologizing of character was this wall that I bumped up against. And I'm 15 like there is no psychological motivation for why one responds in this way. It's a mystery. How does love rise 16 from encounters with evil, that's the great mystery of evil, the great mystery of love. And these women responded in a 17 way -- human nature is so much deeper than psychology. And you can't psychologize what these women did. 18 Since 9/11 I haven't had that question at all. And people 19 reading the play completely understand that compulsive need to do something or to respond with love. I know being in 20 New York City during the events of 9/11 and finding myself running to the end of the street and buying water, socks, 21 boots, whatever somebody on some radio station said was needed, you needed to respond with love. I think I 22 understood my own play better from having gone through 9/11. So an understanding of it is sort of now very common. 23 Interestingly, where nobody would give the play the time of 24 day before it is now -- my agent jokes that her job all day is to tell theaters they can't produce it. It is now going 25 to be done commercially off-Broadway. And then suddenly sort of swept all the awards and now is the play that 18 2 everybody wants to do. 3 But I think that is simply because of a turn of history and where the story obviously is relevant. But I think even 4 more so, to go to your question: The understanding of those kinds of actions is something we now know. 5 MS. MANN: I was so thrilled when Deborah was describing the 6 play to me, because I have a quandary, an absolute quandary: Living right on the river, the Hudson River that overlooked 7 the World Trade Center and watching it go down, and certain days the dust and the ash would blow over into my apartment, 8 and it wasn't regular dust, I mean it was so thick. And so I took cloths, not paper towels, but cloths, and cleaned. 9 And then it came to: What am I going to do? 10 And I just put them in boxes. And I'm awaiting a time to get inspired for a ceremony. Because there are people, 11 people's ashes mixed in, and I have those. And that's a very real thing. And it's not just me, it's many people who 12 have possession. And to hear what these women did and the kind of incredible creativity, and, you know, the 13 ordinariness, and the fact that the elders had something to teach us in encountering mystery that has nothing to do with 14 psychology. 15 We are hungry for this, we are hungry as a civilization. I am hungry for my elders to show up and tell me what the hell 16 to do now. You know, I am, I am. And even if it's something, just to wash the clothes, I'll do that. You 17 know, save the ashes, I'll do that. 18 MS. BREVOORT: Another thing in response to your question, then we can move off of the play, but one thing that has 19 been noticeably different in response to the play before and after 9/11, the women, the real women of Lockerbie used the 20 word evil a lot, saying that they had encountered evil and had to convert it. 21 So in the early drafts of my play I used that word. And 22 this is going back to a discussion we had over dinner where I noticed, because I travel a lot internationally, that the 23 word evil is a word that I encountered everywhere I went, Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Australia, but it's not a word I 24 ever heard here. 25 And when I wrote the play the word "evil" was in the women's language. And it was another one of those things, not only 19 2 did everybody want to psychologize the women, a lot of people took exception with that word, because it had a 3 different meaning, I think, four years ago. It had been a word that had been appropriated by certain right-wing 4 religious groups, for example. It's a word that as good liberals we were afraid to use. It was a concept we didn't 5 have. 6 And I ended up taking that word out of the play because it just kept red -- it kept, you know, sending audience, and 7 dramaturges, and directors, and actors sort of off in the wrong way. 8 Well, I'm very happy to say that I've now like put it right 9 back in. And everyone is like, oh, yes, yes. 10 And I think, you know, 9/11, if anything, I mean it was witnessed by everyone. I think we had an experience of 11 evil, whatever that is. I don't presume to say that I know what that is, but I think the word is in our vocabulary 12 again and I think before 9/11 it wasn't, and response to the play on that word has shifted. 13 DR. PRICE: Let me ask a related question. It seems to me 14 that since 9/11 our society has become all the more watchful and mindful of the antiterrorist bill which passed Congress 15 without debate. I'm reminded of the proliferation of symbols of the military at airports, the blockading of 16 public buildings. 17 And a lot of this is justified, I suspect in our hearts, because we are fearful. But what will a more watchful 18 society, such as ours seems to be becoming, do to theatre? 19 MS. MANN: I thought you were going somewhere else with that question? 20 MS. BREVOORT: One thing it might force us to do is to start 21 working and thinking metaphorically, which I actually think is a good thing. I was actually trained by a 22 Czechoslovakian designer in Alaska, who was trained by Sloboda, who said, well, in my country before democracy came 23 I could make a leaf fall on the stage. 24 And it was a radical act, because we had a language -- that was another language that we had. I spoke through metaphor, 25 people came to the theatre that could read the metaphor. It was almost like a code. 20 2 You see in a democracy it's ruined the theatre, because now 3 everybody is out on the street saying everything they think and the theatre has become literal. 4 Not that I ever want to advocate for repressive government 5 measures, I'm not saying that, but I do observe that really great theatre comes out of cultures and times where artists 6 are forced to work in metaphor. 7 DR. PRICE: Emily? 8 MS. MANN: I think that is true and I think there are a few other truths. 9 One of them, our great friend and colleague, Athol Fugard, 10 who was writing and working as a real theatre worker in apartheid South Africa, believes that because he got the 11 stories out that people told him or that he was able to witness, or when he just dug deep into his own heart, and 12 again, on a more metaphoric level, certainly on a poetic level, to put it out there, whether it was theatre of 13 testimony or whether it was poetic drama, the stories got out. And he is convinced that by getting it out to the 14 public in South Africa, but also the international community, that he and his colleagues were instrumental in 15 bringing down the apartheid government. 16 He's not bragging, in fact, he's one of the most modest men I've ever met, but that's a good example of how political 17 theatre actually has had, I think, impact. I think he's right. I think the eye of the world then came back to South 18 Africa. 19 And I think we have a -- can have a form of that here. You're talking about the loss of civil liberties, we're 20 talking about people who are incarcerated, having been accused without any help of a lawyer or without any 21 evidence. There's a man now spending his fourth year in jail because he happens to be a Muslim. So there's a lot to 22 look at, there are a lot of stories that are screaming to be told. 23 I find this young man who joined the Taliban extremely 24 interesting, I must say, Mr. Walker. I mean, I do think that on just a very simple level we are storytellers, and we 25 need to find those stories that are calling to us to be told, and I think we will. 21 2 DR. PRICE: Ladies and gentlemen, the panel agreed that we 3 would not overindulge a very important issue facing theatre, and that is the plummeting fortunes of theatre as a way of 4 life, as a corporate entity. But we want to address it because it is a problem. 5 Israel, if you don't mind, let me start off with you. 6 How extensive is your worry about the survival of theatre 7 companies, playwrights, design people, all the people who make theatre come alive? 8 Are we looking at a very long period of crisis in the 9 corporate community of theatre? 10 MR. HICKS: Let me answer you this way. When I was in graduate school the filmmakers used to paint on the wall in 11 white paint: Theatre is a decaying art form, signed "the filmmakers." 12 [LAUGHTER] Theatre has been decaying for 3,000 years. 13 [LAUGHTER] I think if, in fact, metaphor becomes a way of existence in 14 the theatre, if, in point of fact, we attain a more global perspective, if, in fact, we open our hearts and our minds 15 to that which we have not included in theatre prior to 9/11, then I think, yes, it will be a decaying art form, but it 16 will survive. 17 I think that also what's happening -- excuse me -- is that there are a number of people who have been, obviously, 18 displaced, put out of work. Every year there is less and less work in the theatre. 19 Maybe, just maybe it is a natural growth, like fire does to 20 a forest, that it is the way of life in the theatre, and maybe, just maybe it is a call for change. 21 If that's true, then -- and we learn from it -- then I think 22 that theatre will be here. We are storytellers. Nothing in this medium survives without good stories. And Lord knows, 23 we've got a lot to tell at this point. 24 The problem very often is, particularly in this context, modern day, is I think that many people in our culture are 25 fearful of humanizing the enemy, which hopefully theatrically we need not be. We should do that so that we 22 2 can see past it. And very often we stop short of that. 3 DR. PRICE: Thank you. 4 Let me ask one more question, then I do want to bring all of you or as many of you as possible into this conversation. 5 Kathleen, you and Israel work in and around young people 6 interested in theatre. Would you share what you've been seeing over the last four months, in terms of how 7 youngsters, students, young actors have responded to 9/11 as people interested in a future in theatre. 8 MS. GAFFNEY: First of all I have to -- I kind of have to 9 separate some things. Those students that saw it live are very different than the ones who watched it on television. 10 For the people who saw it live it's about October 10th. 11 Time passes much differently for them. And so the students who watched it on TV have some more perspective on it, not 12 that they weren't deeply affected. I find that they are questioning themselves. I find that they are -- and again, 13 I have to separate. 14 The students that I work with, that Artsgenesis works with, many of them are severely economically disadvantaged. And 15 many of them have family problems. 16 All that being said: They also have better coping skills. They are used to having to develop coping skills. So they 17 see this as the world has caught up to them. And their world is not as rocked as some of the other children who 18 have become shattered by it, that have been very protected all their lives, and everything around them has been safe, 19 even at the playground, you know, there are rubber mats, they don't scratch their knees. 20 So what I'm seeing is I'm seeing an intellectual awakening. 21 I'm seeing people who are becoming a little more interested in history. I'm not seeing complacency and they are much 22 more involved in their own neighborhoods. 23 That's how I've perceived it. 24 DR. PRICE: Israel, what are you observing? 25 MR. HICKS: Again, I must say the same thing, two worlds. There are those who look at it as if -- it's almost as 23 2 though they've seen it as a television event. It has a certain life span and it's over, and maybe it will be back 3 next week. 4 There is another group who cared deeply and are moved by the event, have -- obviously were moved by the event. Who at 5 Rutgers, at least, there was a huge cry for doing their own piece in response to the event. And they did, and it was 6 actually magnificent, a beautiful piece. 7 I don't know, however, and I guess it's left to be seen, if the event and doing that particular piece was the end of 8 their moment of feeling. We've mourned, now let's go on? 9 Or is it: Fine, we've done something that's a theatrical event in response to it, now it's almost as though it didn't 10 happen. Even though there were those people who were greatly moved by it. 11 My fear, as we spoke earlier, television has -- which is the 12 greatest teaching tool we've ever had -- has been used in a way that an event of that magnitude can almost be dismissed 13 simply by turning the channel. 14 DR. PRICE: Ladies and gentlemen, please join in with us. If you have a question, or a comment, or a concern. We're 15 at your call. 16 Yes? 17 MALE SPEAKER: I heard a lot of -- you guys were speaking a lot about how the theatre can address September 11th. And 18 I'm wondering how necessary you think it is to get people to come to the theatre in order to have it affect them. 19 Do you think it's necessary to get people to come? 20 DR. PRICE: Would you mind repeating that question? 21 You were not miked. That's my fault. Thank you. 22 MALE SPEAKER: Well, I heard -- you guys were addressing how theatre can address 9/11. And what I was wondering is how 23 necessary it would be to get people to come to the theatre in order for the theatre to affect the people. 24 MS. MANN: I would love to answer that. 25 DR. PRICE: You're on. 24 2 [LAUGHTER] 3 MS. MANN: As an artistic director, as someone who leads a theatre, I mean I'm also a playwright and a director, but 4 I'll speak for a moment as an artistic director first and foremost. There is no theatre without an audience. It's a 5 conversation, always. It's almost, you know, as if a tree falls in the forest metaphor. If there is no audience, to 6 me there is no play. 7 So it is utterly crucial to get an audience to come to the theatre, because they are what finish a theatrical event. I 8 mean, we tell our stories live. You can put out a movie and that movie still exists. You cannot put on a play unless 9 you are having that live connection between the performer and the audience, that, to me, is the definition of theatre. 10 So we have a big job ahead of us, because, in fact, most 11 theatres found that -- at least our theatre, for example, lost 20 percent of its audience for quite a while. It's now 12 coming back. I think the shock and the depression is beginning to wear off a bit. People are coming back out of 13 their homes, they're buying tickets, they're coming back to the theatre. 14 But we were hit very hard, as most arts institutions were. 15 As at the Whitney, I told you about the Jacob Lawrence exhibit. I was there actually at an evening, the first time 16 that museum has ever hosted a party, because they could make money in the evening by renting out the space. It was 17 wonderful to be there and be able to look at the events. But many art institutions are looking for new ways to get 18 people to come in at different hours, because they've lost a lot of audience. 19 DR. PRICE: Because of 9/11. 20 MS. MANN: Because of 9/11. 21 DR. PRICE: They have put their thinking caps back on. 22 MS. MANN: Which I think is thrilling, actually, because it 23 could make us very, very creative. 24 DR. PRICE: Give us some of the novel strategies that you know of to get more people to come to theatre, because I 25 think that is the premise of the question. 25 2 MS. MANN: Well, I think that what we are doing at McCarter is looking at what it is that we are presenting. And making 3 very personal calls and mailings to people we know will be interested in what we're doing. We've always done that, but 4 we're having to do more of it, we've got to draw people back. 5 Actually, the people who do our -- what is it called -- 6 telemarketing are fabulous, because they say they're almost acting at times as a friend or a therapist. I mean, they 7 actually will call. When you look at we're 1 and 2 degrees separated from the actual event or not at all separated in 8 our audience. And one of our marketers did, in fact, call a woman who said I don't know if we can subscribe this year, I 9 lost my husband on September 11th. A lot of people in our audience, as I'm sure -- well, I see a lot of theatre people 10 in this room. You know, we all see those empty seats because people are gone. 11 Another women said she didn't know whether she could come 12 back, her husband had lost his job, she didn't know what was going to happen to her. So the question of money was a big 13 issue. 14 What we've been doing is helping those people who are in need. And we've also been very active in the communities, 15 talking to people and talking about what we are doing, because what we have to say we think is going to help people 16 a lot in going forward in their lives. 17 We had to cancel one show because of the attacks, because of the subject matter, which we felt would be destructive to 18 our audience. And we care so much in giving them a way to go on, especially after the 11th. And so we changed it to a 19 play called Lackawana Blues, by Ruben Santiago-Hudson. And Bill -- we did this with guitarist Bill Sims. And it's 20 really just how one good women who brought him up, what she can give and what she gave to all those around her, how the 21 force of good and love can actually triumph over evil and oppression. 22 And we got standing ovations every night. And people went 23 out saying: Thank you, we believe again in human beings and the possible goodness of human beings. So we are -- our 24 mandate is to speak to our audience and to give. That's what we're trying to do. 25 MR. HICKS: Can I ask a question? 26 2 MALE SPEAKER: Yes, sir. 3 MR. HICKS: To go back to your question, to return to your question for a moment, did you mean how important is it for 4 people to come to the theatre, or is it more important for the theatre to go to the people? 5 MS. MANN: Oh, that's a good question. 6 MALE SPEAKER: The second. That was more my question. I 7 mean I was asking the question to see the response, but I was considering that as a viable option. 8 MS. MANN: That the theatre go to the people? 9 MALE SPEAKER: Yes. 10 MR. HICKS: What's your address? 11 MS. MANN: Yeah, we're doing that, too. 12 MS. BREVOORT: So the question that your question raised in 13 my mind was, well, is what he is really talking about is theatre, you know, is it like preaching to the choir, 14 already to the converted, are we, you know, just within a small little world speaking to ourselves. And, you know, 15 does this give theatre an opportunity to sort of get beyond the, quote, "theatre crowd" to reaching a broader audience. 16 And if so, you know, what do we do, how do we do that? 17 MS. MANN: But we were all asking that -- we've been asking that for a long time. 18 MS. BREVOORT: Uh-huh. 19 MS. MANN: You think that the events of September 11th has 20 changed that? 21 MS. BREVOORT: I think there's a different spiritual and intellectual need in the culture that -- I think in a way 22 there's an opportunity for theatre to address a need. 23 MS. MANN: I want to be pugnacious for a moment. Here we are at Crossroads Theatre Company. Now, there was a need 24 for this theatre. And what was the year it was founded? 25 Anyone have an idea? 27 2 DR. PRICE: Around 19 -- 3 MS. MANN: '70 something, early '70? 4 DR. PRICE: Around 1978. 5 MS. MANN: '78, late '70s. 6 I mean, there have been always needs that the theatre has addressed and continues to address and they may shift and 7 change. But I also think that at different times at issue we have done fantastically brilliant, a brilliant job at 8 connecting with an audience and building an audience. This theatre is a good example of that. 9 MS. GAFFNEY: Yes, and the theatre is not just a place. 10 It's not just a building in which events happen. It's also more fluid than that and needs to retain that kind of 11 fluidity and happen everywhere. 12 DR. PRICE: One of the things that I believe came out of the Dodge Foundation's RFP initiative is that it encouraged the 13 grantees lucky enough to be included in the funding, the special funding, it encouraged them to think out of the box 14 and to -- because one of the premises of the initiative was to use, in this case, the arts and the humanities to help 15 communities heal and reknit themselves in some new ways. 16 Some of those ways have to do with -- and Al you spoke of it earlier over dinner -- the new diversity. I mean, we 17 Americans have gotten so accustomed to thinking of diversity as a white/black equation. We have completely ignored that 18 once you get beyond the United States that equation doesn't get you very far. 19 Also there is a new attention, I think, given to history. I 20 mean, the world -- the problems of our society, the vulnerability of our society, it seems to me, did not begin 21 on September the 11th. 22 MS. MANN: Thank you. 23 DR. PRICE: So, you know, it's -- this is a convoluted way of asking a question, I guess: Do you find in your work 24 that you are more intellectually and morally courageous as a result of 9/11, but you are -- I know I'm beginning to think 25 that my understanding of U.S. history is fundamentally flawed because it was disconnected from the Atlantic 28 2 civilization, out of which America really does emerge, and the connection between what is known as the United States 3 with the Caribbean and Brazil. All of that was just not taught at the graduate level when I was in graduate school. 4 So I find myself more and more trying to locate the narrative of the American people in a bigger narrative of 5 Atlantic civilizations. 6 Do you find that you are reaching out of your respective boxes, you know, becoming a more multidisciplinary -- 7 working in a more collaborative fashion with other artists and practitioners? 8 MR. HICKS: I think we all have had to do that, I think 9 probably the United States has had to do that. 10 Here we are defending against something, looking for high-tech solutions, and it's a low-tech solution that 11 caused us our problem. 12 MS. GAFFNEY: Certainly within Artsgenesis, since we work so often with students in the school about their creative 13 expression and helping them gather the tools of their own creativity to solve problems in their own life. This has 14 given us the opportunity to take on the issue of democracy. And democracy itself, you know, as a form of government, you 15 know, has a lot of problems. As a theory, it's a pretty good one. 16 And the idea that, you know, that the government and the 17 theory of democracy are two separate things. And, you know, we find that the students when asked to describe democracy 18 they say, well, you get to vote, and they don't go beyond that. There's no cultivating the innards. There's no, you 19 know, stripping it apart and looking on the inside. The most fundamental part is to show up. In a democracy you 20 have got to show up. 21 And we call that responsibility. And the kids, you know, wither with that word. But showing up is a better way to 22 talk about it. The showing up and the tolerating, you know, somebody's opinion who you absolutely can't stand the 23 person. You can't stand the way they look. You don't like what they eat. But you abide in the same space and you 24 absolutely tolerate that. And this idea of "yes, and" in America. 25 So what we have done, is we've taken a program in theatre 29 2 that was called techno-free virtual theatre and we've turned this into a virtual community where the students are in a 3 play. They're all members of our community. They draw cards at random and they have to show up. 4 So, yes, it's changed that. 5 MR. HICKS: Thank you, Kathleen. 6 Al, is there a need for a burnished view of diversity in the wake of 9/11? 7 REV. CARMINES: I think one of the things we forget, when 8 we're talking about theatre, is the fact that the creation of theatre is finally not a democratic act. 9 Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, Ibsen, Guttenberg, 10 O'Neill, Williams, Wilder -- 11 DR. PRICE: Name-dropper. 12 REV. CARMINES: You can go through it, Jeremiah, Zachariah, the prophets, Buddha, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Susan B. 13 Anthony. None of those people were comfortable in the societies in which they found themselves. 14 So it is something about artistry that transcends democracy, 15 fascism, communism, anarchism, isms, any ism. There's something about Strauss that will live when his political 16 opinions have been damned by everyone in the world. The same is true of Wagner, the same is true of Heidegger, the 17 same is true of people we ethically despise. There is something in their art that continues to resonate in our 18 lives. 19 And simply the acceptance of that diversity in our hearts makes us open to the unspeakable, to the unnameable, to the 20 ineffable. 21 And that is what art is. And we must find a place for that, which ethically we despise, we must find a place for that in 22 our hearts and in our lives in order to grow up. 23 DR. PRICE: Al, is that the minister speaking in you or the artist? 24 REV. CARMINES: It's both the minister and the artist, and 25 it's a conflicted human being. 30 2 MS. MANN: Speaking of conflict, don't we think we have to just say that theatre also is entertainment and theatre also 3 is about humor. And sometimes it's just about being funny and letting people laugh or letting people go "oh, it's just 4 beautiful." 5 I mean, there's also that. Yeah, we have got all these issues and big, hard, difficult heart-rendering things and 6 tragic things to deal with. But if you look at the Greeks, there was Aristophanes as well as Sophocles, you know, and I 7 just wanted to mention that. [APPLAUSE] 8 FEMALE SPEAKER: I have got a story or a comment, and then I 9 have a question. 10 I live in a town in northern New~Jersey, Ridgewood, New~Jersey. And I know, Deborah, you lived there. And we 11 lost 12 people in our community on September 11th. 12 As a response to that, I collaborated with a few theatre professionals, a choreographer, and a couple of theatre 13 professionals and we put together a piece called "Off Balance," which we performed on New Year's Eve. The real 14 stars of the show were five Ridgewood firemen who never acted in their lives before. And basically what we did was 15 we told their stories and we told the stories of how people's lives were affected and how they've changed. 16 And these men, you know, these nonactors, were willing to 17 take this chance just because of this event, that they wouldn't have done before that. But they were willing to 18 take this chance and participate in this production. We performed it one night. We have a return engagement on 19 March 11th, which is the six-month anniversary. We'll perform it at a different space. 20 I guess my question is, as theatre experts what is your -- 21 what do you think the lifeline of this kind of play is? 22 It's about a very specific town, a very small -- what we call a bedroom community. It's a very small piece, but it's 23 very poignant, and the response from the audience was tremendous. It was like nothing I've ever experienced 24 before. Because we performed it to an audience that could -- they related to everything we said. 25 So I guess the question is: What is the lifeline, what will 31 2 happen with this show? 3 Where should we -- what should we do with it? 4 What is your advice? 5 MS. MANN: Well, I just congratulate you for doing it. And I would like to say what you're doing is often called 6 theatre of testimony, or that is what has been -- it was called in South Africa by Athol and Barney Simon and Bugini, 7 and Gaima, and I've been doing that for 30 years. So I hope it has a very long life. 8 And if you're moving people and those guys are doing what 9 they need to do, there are two ways to go. That there are places that they will want to give their stories, and I hope 10 you can set that up for them. 11 But also you can publish it, and actors and amateurs, professional actors and amateurs can also do those words. 12 And you can make a play out of it that can be done by other people. It can have a long life. I have many plays that 13 are written that way. 14 So I just say: Bravo! 15 DR. PRICE: Anyone else on the panel? 16 MS. BREVOORT: Just the observation that really what is often most universal are those works that are the most 17 specific and most local. So just because it's about a specific group of people in Ridgewood, New~Jersey doesn't 18 mean it's not going to speak to Iowa or New York. 19 FEMALE SPEAKER: I think it's very important, I think the words are very important and that people all over should 20 hear these words. 21 MS. MANN: Yeah, theatre is global. 22 DR. PRICE: Right. I was going to say that. 23 FEMALE SPEAKER: It's very simple, it's a very simple piece. And it's -- I feel -- we all feel very strongly that people 24 should hear this and hear that, you know, 15 miles away how people were affected by this and how our lives will never be 25 the same. So, I don't know... 32 2 You know, it's one day at a time, one step at a time, I guess. We'll see what happens with it. 3 DR. PRICE: I'm hardly a theatre person, but I'll take 4 advantage of my role as moderator. 5 I think one of the things that 9/11 has done for us as a society is to remind us of the small details of our lives, 6 our families, our loved ones who may or may not come home, our locale. 7 I read The New York Times article on the loss of Ridgewood. 8 And Ridgewood, like so much of Bergen County, had been kind of constructed socially as an affluent place for faceless, 9 nameless people. That will never happen again, at least not from my vantage point. 10 I live in Newark, New~Jersey and over the last 33, 34 years 11 since the riots, that city has commemorated the five days of destruction, and death, and stupidity to the point where 12 commemorating the riots has actually enabled Newark to coalesce as a community. 13 So I agree with Emily: Memory, institutionalizing a sense 14 of local loss is the stuff of theatre. 15 MS. MANN: Absolutely. 16 DR. PRICE: That's what theatre is all about. 17 Yes, in the back, you'll have to wait until the microphone makes its way to you. 18 FEMALE SPEAKER: In response to what you said, we're from 19 New~Jersey Rep and they're doing the Laramie Project right now. And the audience -- I mean, it's getting sold out. 20 It's a beautiful production, but people want to hear that 21 story about Laramie, Wyoming again, because in hearing that story of that town it relates to their own personal stories. 22 And I think that could be the potential for the piece that you did for Ridgewood. You know, I happen to be from that 23 area, so, of course, it's very dear to my heart. 24 But I think that the idea that is specific can also become very general and very global, because we all live these 25 lives. So I would like to say good luck with it. 33 2 And come to see the piece that New~Jersey Rep is doing. I mean, I'm not in it, but I have to tell you, it's fabulous. 3 It's just a beautiful piece. 4 MS. GAFFNEY: Maybe some really wonderful, forward-thinking theatre in New Jersey, along with the funding source, would 5 sponsor a weekend commemoration of all of the projects around, because I know that there are several others. There 6 are some in Hoboken, they lost 32 people, and Jersey City lost a number of people. 7 Where there could be, perhaps at a time in the future, where 8 there would be a weekend where all of the works would be run and we could collect more and more of our stories. 9 MS. MANN: Well, that is why I wanted to commend the Dodge 10 Foundation, not just for this evening, but with the opportunities that they gave to all of the theatres that 11 were contacted, and we were one, to find a way to make a work of art out of the events of 9/11, and also to have an 12 educational component. 13 And we have our people here tonight who are both going into the schools with this idea of how to have the children talk 14 about, think about, and create from that source and that understanding. 15 And also that Marc Wolf, who is a documentarian as I am, is 16 taking what he calls the long road home. Taking a long trip from where he had done his piece under another American, 17 asking and telling about don't ask, don't tell in the military as a gay man. He's gone from Seattle Rep all the 18 way back home to New~Jersey, New York. Asking people all over this country how they are feeling, what they are doing. 19 He's making a theatre piece out of, again, theatre of testimony, people's testimony of what they have been 20 through. 21 And we're very excited about being able to take this event and possibly make poetry, beauty, and art out of it. 22 DR. PRICE: Yes, ma'am. You need to wait for a microphone. 23 FEMALE SPEAKER: Utilizing the arts in general for healing 24 purposes takes in many different aspects. It takes in the community theatre. It takes in -- people go to the theatre 25 not only to hear what the theatre story has to say, but also sometimes, like you said: As an escape, as a way to avoid 34 2 what's going on in their daily lives. So theatre in that respect, as part of a healing process, takes in that aspect. 3 On any another aspect it takes in the point of initiating dialogue. 4 Theatre, in and of itself, deals with collective human 5 behaviors. So as we respond to it we're responding to it not as I am going through it, but we are going through it. 6 So that it takes the individual out of it and brings in the collective aspect of it. 7 We've been doing, in fact, this morning we just held at 8 Rutgers a program called "Healing New~Jersey Communities through the Arts." And we had a group of people from across 9 the state that came down to discuss how we can go about working with youth in the communities, how we can go about 10 bringing the arts into the whole healing process overall. 11 And part of the healing process is not only responding and seeing the responses, either visually, or through poetry, or 12 through the theatre, but it's also in understanding the events that led up to this tragic event, just as there have 13 been other tragic events that have had underlying causes of hatred, and discrimination, and intolerance. 14 One of the things that -- one of the programs that we have 15 done was on December 7th we invited high schools from across the state to participate in a play-back performance. And we 16 had a group of youth play-back performers come down and do a morning of play-back with the kids. And then we had 17 volunteers from each group that literally put a spontaneous skit on in response to the question: What is going to 18 happen to our freedoms in the future because of 9/11? 19 And it was an amazing experience for the youth that were in the audience, for everybody that was there. One of the 20 things that we had found out, as we were marketing this workshop to the communities, was I had a teacher -- and I 21 find this fascinating -- I had a teacher call me up and ask me what were the reasons behind the workshop, what were we 22 going to do there, what -- you know, what was the ideology behind it. 23 And when I went into discussing with her the fact that we 24 want to get into the issues through the arts of the hatred, and the intolerance, and the discrimination, all of those 25 issues that led up to the tragic event, not the event itself the teacher said to me: What did hatred and intolerance 35 2 have to do with what happened on 9/11? 3 That, in and of itself, I found a very telling response and frightening coming from a teacher that was in the school 4 system. 5 But the arts can tell these stories in every shape and form of the arts, whether I can, whether it's theatre, or visual, 6 or writing, in ways that we can all deal with on different levels. 7 And I think there is an amazing abundance that people have 8 to -- a resilience that people have and we're finding it in some schools, and, you know, some kids are desperately in 9 need of help. 10 But through the arts, the programs that we've been doing and talking to other people about, there are so many different 11 programs going on across this state, across New York, and across the country that -- but they're all so fragmented, so 12 that we wouldn't know about it here, but the next town over doesn't know what's going on. And I think there's a need to 13 bring more information together so that we do know, across the board, some of the events and things that are happening 14 in response to... 15 DR. PRICE: Does anyone want to respond to that? 16 MS. MANN: Well, I have a question for the audience it would interest me to talk about. 17 And that is, I have not yet as a writer found out how I'm 18 going to respond to 9/11 or even if I am. I know in some ways I've changed, and that will come into the work somehow, 19 but I'm not sure how yet. 20 I've, though, made my life's work about dealing with traumatic events on a collective level, whether it was 21 Greensboro, North Carolina, the massacre by the Klan, whether it was execution of justice, where the mayor of the 22 city of San Francisco and the first gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk, were assassinated. You know, I have a whole 23 long list of plays I've written. 24 And I guess I wonder how much we -- you know, putting too much stock in the question of art as being healing. I want 25 to talk about: What about art being irritating, challenging? 36 2 You know -- 3 DR. PRICE: The anti-balm in Gilead. 4 MS. MANN: Yeah. You know, I don't think we're social 5 workers. If we're artists, then I think also we might need to just, you know, get us all thinking and not feeling 6 better. Does anyone know what the balance is, that people agree -- 7 DR. PRICE: Does anyone want to respond to that? 8 Art as an irritant? 9 Art as a... 10 MS. MANN: As a galvanizing force, rather than a quieting 11 force? 12 MALE SPEAKER: Yeah, is anybody on the panel interested in why this happened, or who did it, and how it happened? 13 MS. MANN: I sure am. 14 MALE SPEAKER: Where our intelligence was, and where our own 15 government was in all of this? 16 MS. MANN: Yes. 17 MALE SPEAKER: As an irritant, I think... 18 MS. MANN: Thank you. That would be good. 19 MALE SPEAKER: We don't even have the pretense of a Warren Commission at this point and there's no grand jury been 20 convened. 21 MS. MANN: Correct. 22 DR. PRICE: I don't know what to do with that question. 23 Actually, I do. 24 MS. MANN: As a reminder. 25 DR. PRICE: One of the programs that will grow out of the Dodge's initiative is a program that tries to provide a 37 2 context for understanding 9/11. 3 So as we say in the media business: Stay tuned. 4 MS. MANN: Also read Bernard Lewis, he's really good. 5 DR. PRICE: And Benjamin Barber, his books from years ago. 6 MALE SPEAKER: One of the things I've heard many people speaking about here is the spirituality without actually 7 talking about the fact that we live in a monotheistic society, in which, for the most part, we believe in God. 8 And I believe in God and I believe in our savior. And I think that one of the things that you commented about 9 earlier was the fact that people have gotten into being so selfish that the only thing that matters is watching crazy 10 people on an island, or masturbating, or what have you. 11 But the fact is that it's a selfish society that we have become. That is, we got away from being an agrarian 12 society. We were tied to the earth, we were tied to the community for health, tied to the world for support. 13 We've gotten so far away from that that we have gotten too 14 selfish. And I think that if one looks at the theatre and says: Well, bringing it back, what 9/11 did was it did 15 galvanize the community to say: Look for an answer. Where are we going to get our answer? 16 And most people went back to church. They didn't throw 17 themselves off bridges, they didn't commit suicide. They went back to church, they went back to a community, a 18 community of help and a community of sharing. 19 And so one of the things that I thought that might come out of this seminal date would be perhaps a more spiritual, 20 perhaps a more religious, perhaps a more grounded presence of writing. There could be people that bring a different 21 experience and try to bring a different experience, both to the screen as well as to the theatre, of what things should 22 be like instead of what they are like. 23 DR. PRICE: Deborah, did The Women of Lockerbie go back to church, immerse themselves in a more sacred perspective on 24 things? 25 MS. BREVOORT: I don't know the answer to that question. 38 2 It struck me that the women certainly came out of a sort of Scottish Presbyterian perspective, which I recognized only 3 because my mother's family is Scottish Presbyterian. They felt a lot like the women in my family. But in terms of 4 going back -- I don't know the answer to that. I do know that there was a spiritual impulse in them to wash the 5 clothes. There was a moral impulse. 6 And they certainly, you know, appeared to have conceptions of evil and goodness and the need to convert hatred into 7 love, which may -- probably in their communities had a religious basis, but I don't know anything more than that. 8 DR. PRICE: Okay. 9 REV. CARMINES: The problem with religion is that it can 10 hide a multitude of sins. 11 MS. MANN: Yeah. 12 MALE SPEAKER: That's organized religion. 13 MS. MANN: Did you say organized religion? 14 MALE SPEAKER: Organized religion hides a lot of sins. 15 REV. CARMINES: Unorganized religion can hide even more sins, because any system of thought that gives you any cut 16 and dried answers is inimical to the transcendental spirit of human beings, which always, even in the face of God, must 17 stand in awe and wonder and mystery, not in gloating self-satisfaction, but in humble, absolute mystery and 18 glory. 19 That's why a composer like Messiaen and painters like van Gogh -- and I'm name dropping again -- but people of 20 spiritual transcendence never give us answers. By their example lift our questions to the highest limits. 21 DR. PRICE: I'm going to take one more question and then -- 22 all the way in the back. I have great respect for people in the back, yeah. 23 FEMALE SPEAKER: Hi. This evening you've talked about 24 getting people involved again, getting them back into the theaters because they stayed away, so that we can teach them 25 about history, and about politics, and about spirituality, and about philosophy. 39 2 So if you're picking a season for next season what plays do 3 you pick? 4 What kind of plays do you pick that might accomplish this? 5 We don't have time to create plays this quickly. 6 MS. MANN: Right. 7 FEMALE SPEAKER: What can we do? 8 DR. PRICE: If I can just put a slight spin on that. 9 FEMALE SPEAKER: Absolutely. 10 DR. PRICE: I'd like to know what play each of you would recommend the audience, both this audience and the larger 11 audience of the future, to read at this moment. 12 If you don't mind that amendment. 13 MS. BREVOORT: I'll start. 14 Since I watch the evening news, you know, today there was a suicide bomber in Jerusalem as a revenge killing for the 15 assassination of an Israeli, and every day it is back and forth. I would stage the entire Oresteia, the Greeks. I'd 16 go back to the Greeks. 17 DR. PRICE: Israel? 18 MR. HICKS: All My Sons. 19 MS. GAFFNEY: Yeah. Someone Who Will Watch Over Me. And that's about the three men who were incarcerated and the 20 only hope they had, and all they had left, was their imaginations. 21 DR. PRICE: Al? 22 REV. CARMINES: I would think King Lear. 23 DR. PRICE: Why King Lear? 24 REV. CARMINES: Because a man who thought he knew it all and 25 had great power is reduced to a person who knows that the touch of one woman, his daughter, is the most precious thing 40 2 in the world. And that kind of reductionism is what our society needs most today, I think. 3 DR. PRICE: Emily? 4 MS. MANN: The Tempest. 5 You want to know why? 6 DR. PRICE: I thought you'd never ask. 7 MS. MANN: Because he or she, depending on how you cast the 8 main role of Prospero or Prospera, if you know where I'm going, has the capacity to, with all of her powers, to stir 9 up a huge tempest and storm and bring her enemies to her feet. 10 And instead of reeking revenge for what they have done to 11 her, took her life from her, exiled her to this island, instead she takes a step back and lets them go through a 12 series of transformations and changes. And at the end realizes that the greatest form of -- the highest 13 intelligence, I'll put it that way, and the best choice is forgiveness rather than revenge. 14 And by seeing a way to let go of her rage and her need to 15 destroy her enemies, she transforms herself, her enemy is transformed, and she lets her artistic spirit fly around the 16 earth free. 17 DR. PRICE: Does that satisfy your question? [LAUGHTER] 18 It certainly satisfies mine. 19 FEMALE SPEAKER: It certainly begins to, absolutely. 20 Thank you. [LAUGHTER] 21 DR. PRICE: Okay. Let's begin to bring closure to our 22 evening together. 23 Let me ask a question which I tried out over dinner: What kind of transformation might theatre serve as a catalyst 24 for, which is obviously inspired by the title of our symposium tonight? 25 What kind of transformation might theatre serve as a 41 2 catalyst for? 3 Kathleen? 4 MS. GAFFNEY: Oh, I see throughout the world, especially in the United States, a time of increasingly complex moral 5 questions. With cloning, you know, with all the abilities that we have, I see this entire century as that -- that 6 call. We must rise to the occasions of those questions, we absolutely must as a civilization. 7 I believe that language is the precision tool of thought. 8 And I believe that the theatre is the very best place for that language to occur. And so I am hoping that this time 9 is the clarion call for those involved in language and in those thoughts to come and examine with those precision 10 tools what we are called upon as a civilization to respond to. 11 DR. PRICE: Thank you. 12 Israel? 13 MR. HICKS: You know, there's the age-old question: What 14 price freedom? 15 And as I look at where we are today I think that what theatre can really do is help us to investigate: What is 16 the price we pay to stay where we are? 17 What is the price we pay if we do not change? 18 And I think that that investigation can lead us to some positive steps in our journey, in terms of our humanity, if 19 you will. 20 We are continuously trying to jump off this little ball called earth to another ball. I guess I have a slightly 21 different perspective, and that is: Looking out through the telescope, what if all those balls out there, that's where 22 we've been, not where we're going? 23 DR. PRICE: Thank you. 24 Deborah? 25 MS. BREVOORT: Oh, gosh. I'm a practical person, I always sort of like to end things with a sense of something I can 42 2 do. And I think -- I think... 3 We can contribute to an increased global awareness. And I think -- and I like that because there are practical things 4 we can do. I think we can maybe start staging the plays of foreign playwrights. We don't see too many foreign plays. 5 We have cut off funding for international exchanges, along 6 with everything else I know, because like if there's an international exchange, I go on it. And I've like used them 7 all up and I want -- you know, but the funding has gone away. There's been -- we haven't been global in our 8 thinking in America, in our foreign policy, in just our thinking. I don't think our theatre has been global. 9 And I think we can work in those areas to expand our 10 artistry by throwing ourselves into other cultures and other theaters to make us better artists. And I think we can 11 bring that to America and help with the sort of globalized expansion that I think needs to happen, so... 12 Practical. 13 DR. PRICE: Yes. 14 REV. CARMINES: I really don't have an answer to that 15 question, except to say that the more intimate kinds of theatre that we can accomplish, the more poignant pain and 16 joy we can evoke, the more important the theatre that we create will be. 17 And if we, for the next five or ten years, concentrate more 18 on our ears than on our brains we will eventually learn what kind of theatre the world needs and respond by creating that 19 kind of theatre. 20 DR. PRICE: Thank you. 21 MS. MANN: What was the question? [LAUGHTER] 22 DR. PRICE: What was the question we talked about over 23 dinner? 24 Using the title of our symposium, what kind of transformation will theatre serve as a catalyst for? 25 In other words, it's essentially a question of: What role 43 2 will theatre play in a particularized kind of transformation? 3 It's a question that gets to one's vision of transformation 4 and its discontents and its beauties. 5 MS. MANN: Well, you're asking us to think in a way that is playing with "infinite" here. And it makes me think of a 6 beautiful line of speech that Kofi Annan gave in Stockholm when he won the Nobel prize, that we have entered the 7 millennium through a gate of fire. 8 And I think that's a beautiful image. And I think it's a challenge to all of us that if we have passed through that 9 gate of fire and we have lived through the flames and we stand on the other side, that we've come through changed. 10 Our awareness is changed, our sense of ourselves and our abilities has changed. 11 And because the theatre is utterly handmade and it is about 12 simply performer with audience in a space, using one's own imagination to go to all the different worlds and all the 13 different places one can possibly imagine, that where we will get to, hopefully in the new millennia, is as far as 14 the human imagination can possibly take us, which is limitless. 15 DR. PRICE: I'd like to thank Emily Mann, the Reverend 16 Al Carmines, Deborah Brevoort, Israel Hicks and Kathleen Gaffney for their contributions to this evening's 17 proceedings. [APPLAUSE] 18 I also want to thank the New~Jersey Theatre Alliance for conceptualizing this program. 19 John, where are you, sir? 20 Would you please wave? 21 The executive director. 22 [APPLAUSE] And we also have to very generously thank the trustees, and 23 the administrative staff, and the family writ large of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. 24 [APPLAUSE] This is actually the beginning of a conversation. It will 25 continue just outside the theatre. We invite you to a reception so you can greet and meet the panelists. 44 2 Thank you very much. 3 [APPLAUSE] 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25