 This is the house that Zelda built that made the garden of American theater grow. Executive Director Edgar Dobie and I would like to thank all of the artists who came in to sing for us today on their day off. Thank you, artists! Sons Howe and Mark Fitzhandler and their families, her sister Joyce and her family, and all of our friends, colleagues, fans and admirers who are with us today. What a distinct pleasure to have all of you gathered in this space, named after Zelda and Tom to celebrate the spirit of this pioneering, determined and luminous leader. As Zelda said, just think of it, nobody was looking for us peering through the window, watching for us to come to relieve the boredom and unawareness of their lives. It was we who had to teach and persuade them to want what we wanted to give them. And we had to insist on it for their own good, really for our own. If we were honest enough to admit that, sometimes it still feels like we're selling them a bill of goods to an over-scheduled public, texting and emailing away, but mostly we've been successful. Nobody called us what we came. This is from the stage directors and choreographers' society presentation of the Zelda Fitzhandler Award October 24th, 2011. How lucky are we to have lived during the time of Zelda? Zelda's the mother of us all in the American theater. It was her thinking as a seminal artist that imagined creating brilliant theater in our own communities outside of Broadway, along with Margo Jones and Nina Vance in Texas. As one of the major architects of the not-for-profit resident theater movement, she lives on in every single theater in America, now over 1,500 strong. And she wrote it all down. So many speeches coming out of her head almost like Zeus. Her thinking and writing forged the creation and the very nature of our movement. Her legacy stretches from coast to coast. Arthur Miller wrote in the preface to a renaissance 40th anniversary Keepsake book, and we're now 67 years old. That arena had the makings of a national theater for the U.S. Without Zelda, Margo Jones and Nina Vance, would not be this robust American theater landscape. So it was Zelda's vision that enabled the time when our vision had arena for American work and thrive. She had a remarkable openness to new ideas, and most of all, to always, always support the artist. She remains with us, speaking fiercely from her speeches about the roadmap for our ongoing revolution for the theater. Always questioning like a scholar, she has to get to the heart of the matter. I have a small white ship riding outside my window in my office here, and I put it there to remind me of Zelda as a mothership. So I see her every day outside my window. When I was a young artistic director and training almost 40 years ago, I came to arena stage on a mini subscription. Now Zelda was also a wonderful director. I was fortunate to see her absolutely brilliant death of salesman with Bob Frosty. And Inherit the Wind, one of the productions that went to Russia, the first theater to travel behind the Iron Curtain. While I was at arena stage as artistic director, Zelda returned to direct the breathtaking production of Awakening Sin. Her ideas in her speeches fueled me, and encouraged my passions to aspire higher when I founded my own theater in Alaska Perseverance Theater. She did this for so many of us, marching around the country like young Johnny Appleseeds, believing in this dream to create brilliant theater in our own communities outside of New York. She talked to us about boards and audiences and the art form itself and companies and the unique repertoire of every theater. We were thirsty, and she gave us water to drink. We were hungry to be inspired, and she asked the right big questions, and sometimes she told us the answers too. Today, many of the speakers will read a quote from Zelda. We were all deeply influenced by her. She will continue to be a major inspiration for our entire field. I'm lucky. I walk in her footprints every day. I reminded the revolution she fought, and one for artists and audiences alike. Her partner in this endeavor was her husband Tom, as executive director. Their relationship forged a template for us to follow. She was absolutely unique, and we carry a bit of her star in each of our theaters. As she said in a speech titled, Roles and Relationships, given at the TCG Symposium Theatre Communications Group Symposium in June 1983, we exist for our audience. They are the terminists of our work. Otherwise, we wouldn't turn on the lights every night and we could save some money. But in order to serve them, we have to have something to say and show that is astonishing to them and that speaks to what they can't articulate without us. We have to address the subconscious or the pre-conscious of our audiences. We have to be of them, but in the perception of the world around us and the world that is inside of them, we have to be ahead of them. They can't do our fieldwork for us. I don't hold much by questionnaires about what audiences want to see. How do they know until they see it? Zelda's a great friend to every artistic director in this country. How lucky are we to have lived during the time of this remarkable woman. Thank you, Zelda, for making all of our gardens grow. Their stories in some more orderly form than life provides, until they have been to the form of drama, a form that began a long, long time ago when the first storyteller said, gather around, let me tell you about it, other deeds and other places and other times and other circumstances. And so, I think out of their curiosity, out of their confusion, out of their desire to understand, they invented the stage, a space called the stage. That's all that it is really, out of imagined space. And they invented actors, something called actors, doers. Doers of deeds who could stand in for them, perform deeds on their behalf. And so give clarity and colour and meaning to the life we live outside of this space. The need for theatre is so deep and so urgent that it seems almost logic. This Zelda sweet voice saying, in thinking about my own life, has decided my greatest talent has been receiving criticism. Incorporated it into my attend-to list and moving on. I learned somehow that criticism is a gift or at least a commodity that can be very useful and, after all, comes free. Zelda's speeches were works of oratory art. I always collected them when I had the chance. I remember once having the opportunity to give a talk about Zelda. She warned me, you know, you'll have to say nice things about you. I said, Zelda, I welcome the opportunity to say nice things about you as long as I do not speak after you. At first we had Zelda personally when I scared her. It wasn't Halloween and I did not mean to frighten her. To be honest, she frightened me also. We've met backstage at the bend of the steps going down to the creepy dressing rooms. After we turned the corner and we met one another, she asked me, may I help you? I answered, hi. I'm Alan Hughes and I work here. And I've been here for about a year. She did not have known who I was but I certainly knew who she was. She was a co-founder and a strength of benevolent, producing artistic director of Arena Stage, a job she would end up holding 40 years from 1950 to 1990. Since that day, my life in Zelda's have been intertwined. Zelda and I have collaborated on a number of rewarding and successful projects. Her production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible took Washington, D.C. and Israel by storm. During the wake and sing, I remember how Martha Knight, the stage manager, returned a cell phone message as she ate dinner in theater. Martha was eating dinner. She told her friend how all of us, quote, youngsters were trying to keep up with Zelda's seemingly endless energy. Most of you know that Arena Stage was born in 1950, 1950 when the National Theater, then the only equity theater in Washington, was shut down because block were not allowed in. So from the very beginning, Zelda had a special concern about racial fairness. Throughout Arena's history, this concern was evidenced by, among other things, experimentation with an integrated company, production of the controversial but highly successful production of The Great White Hope, and supporting artists like Sam R. Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Ronald Julia, Ruby Dee, R.C. Davis, Amy Brooks, Morgan Freeman, Freeman, Tazwell Thompson, Paul Tazwell, and others. The quote I gave comes from a Zelda philosophy that I think is admirable. And I quote it again from an American Theater article, The Lion Game, subtitled, So You Wouldn't Be an Actor. The first step is figuring out why in the world you would do such a thing. She states in the article explaining about my own life, I've decided my greatest talent has been receiving criticism and incorporating it into my attend-to list and moving on. I learned somehow that criticism is a gift or at least a commodity that can be very useful and, after all, comes real. I saw Zelda put that principle into practice. Zelda and another artistic director received criticism at the TCG conference about the lack of diversity at the theaters. Zelda incorporated the criticism into her to-do list. She went out, raised money to change the acting company, diversify the audience, and to begin the fellow program which is kindly named after me. She's an amazing woman and we are fortunate to have known her. I still hear her calm, sweet voice in my head. From the Valentine Tea at the National Theater February 14, 1990, she started the talk with of course, my dear friends, I will be your Valentine. All you had to do was ask. She went on to answer Sigmund Freud's question what does woman want? She ended with the words that I think she might repeat today. I thank you, members of my human community, for the opportunity to learn something of myself, to have had a role in making something of value, to have opened the way for some of you, for the opportunity to have gathered in your affection and respect a richer Valentine's Day I never had. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, Guy Berquist. Working with some of you and hoping the rest of you would buy ticket seats. In 1986 we were facing in the middle of the season we were facing about a $100,000 deficit. Zelda was asked to address the Board of Trustees on the topic of artistic risk and money. The time when the artistic director is asked to talk about artistic risk is the time when there is a deficit on the board. Interest about artistic risk tends to be fanged until aroused by a deficit. So the implicit request is to explain, defend, investigate, reassure, reassure, explicate whatever where the deficit is coming from. Artistic risk comes into the light when the financial picture clouds up. The first law of the theater is success. The theater has to meet its audience. It's a public arc. 800 seats have to meet 800 faces and 800 bottoms to go in the seats. There's a joke you know about a producer asked his partner what should we cover the seats with? Should we cover them with bus or with that nylon like they use on airplanes? The partner says what difference does it make? Let's cover them with bottoms. The partner was right. And by the way finished that year in the black. Yeah, why not? I feel privileged to have made a life changing journey with Zell from job applicant to employee to colleague to friend. And I'm probably as nervous right now as I was at that first interview. Preparing for one of my early meetings with Zell I asked my predecessor Nancy Quinn what she and Zell talked about other than work. I wish I could do the accent. Nancy said, well we usually talk about shoes and shopping. Zell would sometimes come into the production office no real purpose just hanging out. Carl Mueller our first company manager in the early 80s remembers the time she beat us all to a ringing telephone answering, Joe's pizza! We were doing a show Man and Superman directed by Doug Wager Zell always watched previews from Box K right up there. The show was long very long especially long on first preview. It was 1130 maybe a little later we still had a few scenes to go and there was a parade going past Box K and Zell was lean over smile and go your goodnight Joe one man I remember one man singing in a full voice you cut Shakespeare why not Sean I think the series of events that sealed our bond came in the late 90s Arena was contemplating construction expansion and possibly a move away from this sixth in main site abandoning the arena and creator theaters after so many distort performances Zell was strongly opposed to move as did I and I remember Joanne Overholt and I spent New Year's Eve and Day 1999 helping Zell write copy and post letters to board members urging them to reach the decision that kept us here we probably shouldn't have used the posting to meet with both of you and I eight years ago Zell retired from NYU and moved back to DC where she found herself without institutional support without an assistant for the first time in decades couple of former fellows tried to help but as anyone who's ever worked for Zell knows when she said part time she means 24-7 available and turned into more working for me on the construction project I asked if she had a little time to ask to help Zell who was starting to organize her papers in preparation for the book doing a few little things led to an ongoing friendship an extraordinary working relationship and at times it was hard to know who was really working for whom one of the last times I spoke with Zell I was telling her about a mentorship award I received and it's all your fault I said and she says no no no you earned it and then she paused and corrected herself and said well maybe half of it is my doing as construction on this facility reached finishing stages Zell was ready to take a look we toured the entire the entire complex finally I opened the doors to this to fit the stage Zell stepped in looked around deadly silence finally she said it's better than the original thank you Zell for making us all better Ladies and gentlemen Laura Penn a service of something that is tender tied and terrified as a naive box office staffer and still later when I was with Living Stage I would pass Zelda in the maze of concrete hallways that linked the arena to the Krieger to the old bat and back again hoping to catch her eye while praying she wouldn't notice me as my office I was in awe of her intellect reading and re-reading her words desperately trying to keep up in staff meetings retreats, first rehearsals not wanting to miss a word of the next phrase that would be the one that would unlock a whole world I was graced by her friendship particularly in this past decade when we weren't sharing stories of children and grandchildren or talking politics, history world events she was inspiring me compelling me I guess demanding that I not waste a moment of my time I must harness and direct my ambition in the service of the soul of the theater I must be tough in the service of something that is tender in 2008 I arrived to the stage directors and choreographers society on the eve of the 50th anniversary founded by a tight group of Broadway stars SDC had grown to become a national force in support of directors working across the country we challenged ourselves to find a way to mark the moment it was decided that the SDC foundation the not-for-profit foundation of SDC would establish an award to recognize an outstanding director or choreographer who was making a unique and exceptional contribution to the theater in their work regionally and it would be named for Zelda Zelda was a leader among leaders and she loved directors directors with expansive vision with unrelenting passion who pursued their craft with tenacity always setting the bar higher and higher directors with drive and determination to bring something into being Zelda was deeply committed to inspiring those who followed in the footsteps of the founders and with all her heart she wanted to shore them up as they faced the daily challenges of their chosen ministry requiring that they as she and her peers had demand the best of themselves and those around them over many months working close we developed the criteria the award would not be for lifetime achievement it would be to honor an artist for both accomplishment to date and promise for the future we would witness an artist in the center of their artistic life working with the same passion and dedication as the founders of the regional theater movement founders such as Margot Jones Bill Ball Tyrone Guthrie Gordon Davidson the award would recognize remarkable artists dedicating themselves to a community the award would be for work that is hard for work that is necessary and it would encourage these artists to carry on to ensure that dynamic extraordinary directors can thrive and create great work all across the country and an honor in Zelda would be for courage and bravery and her or not mine it would not be for sissies since its inception in 2009 there have been eight winners 21 finalists out of hundreds of nominations some knew her well and are with us today others are artists that may not have had the opportunity to sit with her to speak with her and in the years ahead there will be many more who through this award will take with them a bit of her spirit and the responsibility to carry on it brought her great joy to know these artists and that she would appreciate knowing that SDC would join with many in this room to carefully steward her legacy she changed our hearts and minds in the world she altered our DNA to meet her was a visceral experience she was a force you were changed I knew she's here in ourselves in the walls in 2009 Zelda wrote a speech that was to be delivered by Jane Alexander at our gala announcing the award the speech was way too long way way too long and it arrived at the 11th hour I know that's shocking I was struggling to get into my gown Tom Moore an SDC executive board member and the champion of the award was on one side with a red pen on the other was Jane Alexander and Zelda was on speed dial when I look back a few weeks ago through my Zelda files to try to prepare for this moment I found a fax with a few suggested cuts only if we had to but we had to in these nuggets of pure gold one paragraph stood out it felt like she left it there for me to find to share with you today we are originals we come into this world at the cost of alternate ovulations alternate lives really the chance of our being our parents son or daughter is in the vicinity of 1 in 10 million the fundamental identity that we are born with may or may not at all soon the identities of our mother or father we may even be born in the wrong house or even into the wrong destiny but if we have the talent to create a beautiful thing that wouldn't be there but for us we are blessed and in addition to repairing the world we have the opportunity to repair ourselves make ourselves whole a project that can engage us for a lifetime and for which I believe we have landed on the earth thank you ladies and gentlemen Teresa Irene and some of my favorite encounters were visits with her at her apartment after I started as executive director of TCG she would reminisce about TCG's founding in 1961 how she was one of a few folks who were invited to the Ford Foundation to discuss the idea of starting this association of theaters that would exist nationally and what a big deal it was she also reminisced about the red dress she wore to mark the occasion I got my start here in Washington DC in the early 1980s at the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company which was recently formed as a new kind of theater that would shake up the nation perhaps the very fact that there was a perceived need for such a shaking up meant that the resident theater movement had done its job it had arrived and established itself enough over three decades to inspire a next generation of theater makers who would set out to challenge it to try something new to start another revolution just as Zelda and her colleagues had done when they founded Arena Stage and fueled the resident theater movement what Zelda set in motion was not a static gift for the benefit of a single community or era she carved out a model that others of her own and future generations could replicate or at least approximate an engenerous ecosystem that others could participate in and draw strength from through her constant assessment critique and unending passion for the work she gave everyone in this field an artistic and intellectual compass that reminded us why our theaters exist along with a reality check that there may never be a time when the challenges endemic to this work will finally be overcome in the long revolution Zelda said quote we wanted to create a form for theater that would enable us to insert meaning and beauty into our culture so that people could reach out and touch it simply and directly despite hazards and harassments we have in our various ways done just that it was a miracle of sorts for not only did we have to construct the methods to carry out our idea but we had to train our audience to know that they wanted to have what we wanted to give them and that was not an easy struggle and of course it still goes on unquote Zelda wasn't kidding about the miracle of the movement she often paraphrased a quote from her hero and movement co-founder you've been hearing about Margot Johns who said in the 1940s imagine if there were 40 theaters across the country what a rich land we would be how the experience of life that all those theaters could afford the lives of its citizens Zelda along with Margot and Nine of Ants of the Alley Theater are our founding mothers all starting theaters within a few years of each other now in 2016 we stand in a national theatrical landscape that includes not just 40 but thousands of nonprofit resident theaters hundreds of thousands of theater makers millions of audience members and billions of dollars of economic impact by the way I don't think impact was one of the driving forces in Zelda's mind which envisioned the founding of theaters outside New York but I thought it was worth noting because we live in a world where the contributions of our theaters and artists are vast and the challenges of staying afloat are sometimes vaster and if there is any unfinished business one of the pieces is how to accomplish greater economic resources for our field combined with greater equity within the field and I am proud that we are working on that together and indeed following Zelda's lead as she believed in this among the hazards in the early days was getting audiences to care about both classics and new work creating a whole new funding model including making 501C3 status available to theater eventually it was dealing with the culture wars alongside the challenges of increasing competition from technology and new media all of these making it more difficult to generate and maintain that simplicity that Zelda talked about the moments when artists and audience come together in real time in space for the experience of something beautiful on a stage and yet none of it stopped her those of us who were part of the national theater community and audience today are the beneficiaries of what Zelda created from the very first minute she had the notion that it was important to create a form for theater that would enable us to insert meaning and beauty into our culture to her resilience and ability to question assumptions articulate purpose restructure broken systems and reinvent her vision brought about the widespread employment of theater artists nationwide a wider platform for new work a bridge between the commercial and non-profit worlds and technicians and especially she brought something of beauty to the community whether or not that community knew they wanted it while we stand now on the shoulders of a giant and reap the benefits of her creation we are of no position to rest on those laurels or coast on the successes rather in Zelda's honor we in future generations must look at what the world is asking of theater makers today we must build on what exists while carving out new theatrical life the response to the artistic, economic and political present we inhabit and recognize that our journey is about making the world better not just for us but because of us in so doing we may have to construct new methods and train new audiences and communities to want what we have to give along the way we may navigate new hazards and harassments by taking constant inspiration from Zelda's memory from what she accomplished and what she gave us we will go on and we will make her spirit proud Ladies and gentlemen, Stephen Wade her son's Mark and Hal hosted an open house of her apartment in Northwest DC her presence still luminous warmed the afternoon gathering of colleagues, family and neighbors as we left parting visitors who take home a book or two from Zelda's shelves my eyes fell upon this much-page tome the complete works of Shakespeare Zelda used this volume during her graduate years at George Washington University its pages marked with marching notes and underlining she penned her name in a dress inside the front cover but it wasn't until that evening that I realized something else about it something I found a bit startling and certainly gratifying a name written on its spine Harvard's legendary professor George Lyman Kintrich had edited the collection born in 1860 this tall white bearded scholar who died in 1941 had become during his lifetime a dominant figure in the humanities leaving behind a bibliography of 383 writings a body of work spanning Shakespeare to Chaucer to Mallory teacher to both Franklin Roosevelt and William S. Burroughs he was also the most influential American folklorist of his time Kintrich not only completed the last of his mentors' work at final volume on Francis James Child's canonical The English and Scottish Popular Balance but he also pivotly encouraged and instructed collectors who fanned out across the country to document its informal traditions without these individuals in their efforts I'd surely not have had the contents for my banjo dancing show Kintrich encouraged his acolytes to pursue what he termed the many phases of our strangely multifarious life and manners in Zelda's apparently infinite capacity to variously describe the actor's ability to represent the human condition she too embraced many phases of our strangely multifarious life and manners both the warm curve of faces answering flicker of eyes set of the head the lift of a shoulder the way hands spread and clench from the street scene prologue to the USA trilogy these gestures speak as much to theater as they do to custom both Zelda and Kintrich reckon with behaviors that touch the immediate and the enduring one need only look at Zelda's notes penciled throughout this hook Zelda engages line by line with the plays in their intent she even writes glosses and Kintrich's head notes responding with questions as well as comments Kintrich Fluent in Latin, Greek, Old Norse, Middle English and Icelandic and who graduated with highest honors from Harvard never pursued a doctrine a story admittedly apocryphal recalls when he was asked why not he replied but who would examine me likewise Zelda a figure no less redoubtable assertive that art is not a democracy surely circumstances require nothing less of her yet she unswervingly cleaved to an inclusive social vision she described this very room as the most democratic of spaces one that allowed the audience to see itself to the screen of the actors their words and gestures reinforcing the democratic humanity of shared experience back in 1997 when Tom Finchander died Zelda asked me to play at his service held also in this theater I reprise that tune now but add one more for her a piece historically and musically related to the first two tunes different but entwined like Tom and Zelda or like this Venerable Opus in its compass Zelda, Diamond Finchander and George Lennon Kittridge become companions in memorial I stand with credit to them and their large souls thank you standing before you for 40 years since the day I thrilled intern from Boston University Zelda's casting has been something of an epiphany for me as I imagine it may have been for many of you I was asked if I could perhaps share with you one of my favorite Zelda stories so here we go Zelda and I began working closely together not long after my arrival at arena beginning with my stage managing for her moving on to serving as primary manager and eventually as associate director however my relationship with Zelda extended well beyond the boundaries of my professional life and as anyone who worked directly with her can attest to there was an unspoken 24-7 devoted expectation to be of service when called upon Zelda called one day to ask me if I would mind accompanying her as she had been invited by her sister Joyce to go sailing and she didn't want to go alone as I remember Joyce was then dating a gentleman a self-confessed neophyte sailing enthusiast who had recently purchased a 30-foot sailboat and boarded an ambulance while we boarded the boat Zelda fashionably attired in a one-piece bathing suit and beach jacket ensemble replete with sunglasses and a large full of written straw scuttle patch I was drafted by our captain in his first mate though I at the time had zero sailing skills I helped us direct it we motored into Chesapeake Bay as there was little breeze and raced sail once we were in open water we were drifting along and suddenly the wind picked up filled the sails and we were off and just as suddenly we stopped abruptly as the boat keeled and apparently hit a shallow submerged sandbar no one on the boat knew quite what to do except to hope that the tide would eventually rise to set us free when the wind caught Zelda's straw sun hat and blew it into the bay I looked at her, she looked at the hat and back to me her hair flying in the breeze and I said I'll get it swimming to retrieve her hat when I finally reached it I put it on my head I turned to swim back and saw Zelda and the boat briskly sailing away flying below eventually had the presence of mind to lower the sails and motored back to me however he had not yet acquired a ship's ladder to hang over the side to assist in my retrieval so he joined some Zelda all pitched in to unceremoniously haul me back on board and gratefully the rest of the day was a pleasure today much of the time since her passing was a little bit like that trending water shaded from the sun by her big hat and watching her sail inevitably away the relationship with Zelda changed my life forever stop for a moment close your eyes and take a second to try and recall the incident in your life your career the moment when the dream came true for you I came here to do a 10 week internship staying 25 years and in the most profound sense never left a rather arena has never left me when I arrived here the company had just returned from a triumphant tour of the Soviet Union with Zelda's production of Inherit the Wind and Alex Schneider's Our Town I started as a production assistant on Livy Chewley's American debut production of Bukner's Layouts Atlanta and assisted Alan on the world premiere of Helly Weasels and Madness of God 10 weeks little did I know at the time that I would have the miraculous privilege of working and collaborating together daily show after show year after year with so many extraordinary gifted actors craftspeople technicians and administrative staff some literally for decades you only have to multiply my story 100,000 times to even begin to fathom the impact Zelda's visionary work has had on the lives and careers of countless theater artists and practitioners young old and those yet to be conceived all across this country it is crazy from the sheer volume of creative potential she unleashed a personal tsunami of creativity born from one simple idea the desire to create a space where both artists and audiences could continuously and regularly share the intimate and active imaginative exchange of live storytelling Zelda had no notion at the time that she was founding a movement that she was creating what would become known as the artistic home in 2012 howl around interview series entitled in search of the artistic home Tom London postulated a menu of essential elements criteria for building the ideal artistic home for others and he concluded with this following statement to make an artistic home for others you have to make a place of love for the art in others that's it you have to love the art in others more than you love yourself in the art to twist Slavsky and you have to remind yourself day after day to do this is because you want to live in that love you want to live in the feeling of the world becoming art and art speaking back to the world for me and for all of us who have the privilege of being an ongoing part of the arena community that love was real a precious unprecedented growth opportunity to make work together as a company on a daily basis to stretch and test our wings with world class artists ever striving to work at the height of our collective creative potential when Zelt approached me in 1980 about taking on the position of associate director she prefaced it by asking me if I wanted to learn how to become an artistic director advising me that I would likely have to curtail my career as a director to invest in the process of learning how to best guide and nurture the work of others and embrace the challenge of mastering the fine part of institutional leadership in her own words Zelt said referring to the 1959 reformation of arena as a not-for-profit entity that thing acquired a name a rather awkward name I must say the not-for-profit regional theater the Ford Foundation had first suggested residential theater but we protested with young girls whatever the name we loved it because it was where we have found an opportunity to work, to grow to experience the deep pleasure of making a contribution through the art form we're committed to and to avoid spending our brief candle searching for a place where we could be of use the deepest need of every human being Zelt relished nurturing the artist of his relationship treated it as a provocative ongoing conversation about the confounding and often contradictory mysteries of existence in the human condition at the October 1960 groundbreaking ceremony for this building Zelt said our aim is no less than this to bring life to life and by this aim we are urgently and indecisively connected to the world we live in we are a fear of audiences we are not an idol or esoteric experiment we live to illuminate life and make it more meaningful and joyful Zelt was my stage mom she was my mentor a dearly cherished colleague whom I both respected and loved she was also a loving personal friend last night because my wife was unable to come today due to some personal circumstances and work she queued up a home video clip of Zelt sitting on our patio 17 years ago playing this little piggy went to market gleefully tweaking the toes of my that six month old daughter Miranda and that was hurt to me I last saw Zelt for several weeks before she passed and spent the better part of the afternoon with her along with her son Mark I hadn't seen her in over a year by then she was quite frail and fading periodically drifting in and out of vicinity but we were able to communicate and as I was prepared to leave I knew it would be the last time I would see her I didn't know quite what to do so I impulsively grabbed her hand and told her I loved her her eyes suddenly lit up and she smiled gripping my hand with unexpected strength and said I love you too and then a few seconds later we made a lot of people love us didn't we I said yes thousands, hundreds of thousands millions she smiled and said without missing me you mean more than 12? not getting it I leaned in and I kissed her forehead and said goodbye a little comment on the drive back to Philadelphia that suddenly struck me she must have heard my millions as minions perhaps a final a federal wink of levity in light so here I stand metaphorically trading water still shaded from the sun by her big straw hat watching her sail haplessly away and that metaphor perhaps from my grief my love for her for the seminal influence she had on my life right now standing here with you I feel however fleetingly in this moment home once again so dear Zella one last goodbye and thank you for teaching me the simple truth that you can come home again that wherever life leads me home will always be where the art is right here I have to tell you this I grew up in a family when my father had a sweater Marshall Irish named it Men Don't Cry I used to say when I had taken it to the doctor of the dentist, no tears Men Don't Cry well, many years later when I was working here on the radio stage I got tickets he was living out in Reston at a retirement home in my mother and I got them tickets to see the 1940s radio in the Krieger Theatre and my father spent a good deal of his life in radio he was an entertainer he and his partner Maxi Zeidt a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn a nice Irish boy from South Boston formed a singing duo and they were very very popular in vaudeville in the 30s the 20s and 30s and so it was personal for him I met him in the parking lot afterwards the Men Don't Cry guy and I said well how do you enjoy it and he had his head sideways looking down my mother said oh he cried through the whole thing I came down here strangely enough actually when I read on the little thing they said it would be preferred to have 5 minutes right 5 minutes I can't even say good morning in 5 minutes so whatever time I need I got here in 1972 it was after a rather traumatic period in my life I got very successful as a young actor I was then making a lot of money in a nationally syndicated show to show called Earth Lab and doing Jean Braille for two years musical Jean Braille production in Boston and also doing a lot of voiceover making a lot of money and having a fine time I bought myself a little airplane a partnership airplane which I managed to in that period in my life crashed and I was in the hospital for quite a while the play ended the bra ended the show was cancelled and I found out how fast the money you save can go when there's none coming in so I decided with my degree from Harvard in English and literature to go back into what I originally wanted to do was to be a journalist I decided to try my head at freelance journalism I was married with four children and I needed income coming in so this is how Blind Chance plays a role in our lives I came down here to cover a story on children's television for the FCC a Boston newspaper hired me to do an article for them on the FCC here on children's television and during the boring hearings during the lunch break I decided to come over here to arena stage I had a student of mine who was Zeldas' assistant at that time and see if he was here and chatting and I did it I came over and he was here and he said hey come on in and how are you talking and it was great so we talked to chatting told him I was through with the theater I was going back into journalism that was what I wanted to do theater I just had to have steady work he said well Zeldas just down the way we were just talking we were having a hard time finding someone to play editor web in our town but if you're not interested he said well listen I have the script here Zeldas just down the hall we'll just take a look at it and I'll send it on so I did she listened and said you know the problem is tomorrow is the last day of auditions Alan Schneider is directing can you be in New York tomorrow morning before noon I said yes so I dropped the news story went into New York auditioned for Alan Schneider and at the end of the audition Alan said great can you begin in October so I had a job at arena stage little did I know that it was going to be 25 years I didn't plan to tell this story at all it just just happened oh you know one of the things my daughter when I called my daughter my daughter worked in the box office here one of my daughters worked in the box office here and I called her up and was chatting with her and I said oh by the way I've been asked to speak at Zeldas memorial service and I asked and she said yes yeah that's nice to have but just remember it's about Zeldas 2 years here with Zella that she was not good at small talk always uncomfortable in an unstructured social situation not good at just hanging out and talking but you put her in the director's chair or on a podium she was eloquent and brilliant and inspired she confessed to me that when she was a young girl more than anything else she secretly wanted to be a chorus girl I smiled politely sure and so one evening she asked me that if I were to entertain at a gathering of the angels so they still have angels here people who volunteer for the theater so she wanted to give them an evening's entertainment and she knew I played guitar and I said sure I love to do it so I did I brought my guitar along and I said oh by the way would you mind if I invited my father he's in a retirement home on the residence an old performer I haven't seen he said oh no that would be great so I did I called my dad and he said oh yeah I love to do it so when we came there were quite a large, it was down in the old vandal and quite a large number of people quite a crowd I was very pleased with that so I got up so he introduced me I got up and sang two or three songs and then I introduced my father and told him about his four-wheel career what an entertainer he was and he got on stage and I went and sat in front row while he entertained me for 40 minutes I got back I got back up on the stage 40 minutes later to do the finale number with my father which we had always done when we were asked to sing together we did Alexander's Right Time Man and he played piano he was quite a good piano player and I got up there next to my mother on the stage and we started going come on come on and I would say you know the song but about midway through the song and it's lights like this blinding you can't really see anything midway through the song I know there's someone in the aisle dancing it's doing it she was being the Zelda that we didn't know the Zelda who was not spoken of so in such eloquent terms the sister the aunt the grandmother the human side of the Zelda and I knew there was somebody under there who was not exactly like the Zelda that's at the office upstairs and she once said that she once told me in privacy the driving force behind her ambition was to win her father's love you know and I said well join the club I guess the final message that I have is that Zelda was a lot more than we ever imagined thank you Ladies and gentlemen, Deny Gwera It was one of those moments where it was affirmed to me that I was actually on the track she watched me perform and I was like I was like I was like she watched me perform in a hotel conference room in February in freezing cold Chicago and read my statement of purpose almost in a day and a second I was sure I was toast I decided to put it all out there in my statement of purpose to state that I planned to tell African women stories that I was as involved as well as an American and I felt a calling to give back to my homeland to invest in the artistic life there that it was an intricate part of my artistic watching her read it I was sure I'd be able to totally turn off what do you do with a girl whose heart is on a non-continent who wants to tell African stories for God's sake I was certain she was about to kindly dismiss me instead and to my great surprise she was intrigued asking why so much no concern happened when I shared my story she told me she had a stone sculpture from my country an unexpected point of interest but I was taken when I explained my need to contribute to African artists a moment I was sure I was going to turn her off entirely she nodded and looked me so deep in the eye her perfectly off tear framing her own intensely deep brown eyes and she said something on them forget some of us must go forth surprise that affirmation led to three years of amazing training under her leadership when I had my first year breakdown a rite of passage at any concert toilet she supported me and brought me through it when I created a piece for our annual free play an amazing mention of mischievous that allowed her artists to create their own pieces and perform them she watched the very first public performance of what turned out to be my very first play I remember doing was pouring out my heart and praying that the audience would get it the story I was about to learn realized that she's portrayed Zelda certainly did get it and afterwards she woke up to me and told me she believed I had a tremendous gift to tell story and said she could not imagine what I would do with it her brilliance as a leader a pioneer steering the ship since the 1950s in America in laboratory theater crafting of the nautical training program one that encouraged you to create a place of courage and conviction but also face your demons and be ready to as she always beautifully put it in private, in public she created a repertoire for living out of every class and taught us what it meant to create art it's about collaboration it's about beating your egos around the door and relentlessly seeking watching her served for me as a blueprint of how crucial a role women play in physicians life how very needed women leaders are when I graduated I went through the grueling agent audition process I remember catching up with her on how I was going in the ladies room and she listened and then gave me some of the soundest advice I've ever received to have to never stay too long always have another place to go and be gracious be present but then you have someone else to be she said I designed this program so artists would never sit by the phone you know what you can do nothing ever stops you those seven words resonate in the souls of all those she's touched over the several years she worked in this industry they resonate into all the work I do and as a model artist I'm now able to support and guide the arts and arts education it is her model that I hope to replicate when I do build a soul back home why improve on what is ideal and what works I am so sorry I did not get to see her before she passed and how sorely she worked in this but she lives on in me and in so many others the chain effect of her amazing legacy on that she is and was a true American she loved Remember the souls history through corridors of light where the hours are suns endless and singing whose lovely ambition was what their lips still touched by fire should tell about the spirit clothed from the head to foot in song and whose hoarded from the spring branches the desires falling across their bodies like blossoms it is very clear I am unlucky so and so I was born under a most propitious star the planets all brilliantly aligned Jupiter was ablaze somewhere in the mid heavens rising in my 10,000 great expectations as a comet's tail passed over to junk or tribe textile with mercury making me a student for life internally conscious of receiving and filtering good news and glad tidings birthed in double Gemini with a new moon in Capricorn this cosmic Milky Way formation would lead me on a life path journey that would connect me in the still formative period of my life to she who would shape mist into substance Zelda Fitzhandler Zelda was a dear friend mentor and because I lacked a mother in my life I latched onto her and she allowed that attachment she brought me to arena stage in 1987 it changed my life we wrote letters cards, notes to each other even though sometimes in the same building on the same floor for almost 30 years we spoke by phone endlessly or in short spurts on a wild variety of topics several times a month and in the last years two to three times a week she provided me with a reading list of plays and authors that I must want to know she entertained me with memorized lyrics of standards from the 1930s and 40s and I return a lyric to you now Zelda the way you haunt my dreams the way you changed my life she read drafts of my plays giving me incisive, perceptive and poaching notes she dramaturged all my productions while here at arena stage or in NYU or in the acting company from as far as Cape Town, Tokyo, Berlin Madrid, Vancouver in spite or despite a horrific argument many years ago over my wanting to work independently elsewhere and her insisting I stay within the company I'll encapsulate that argument she had been avoiding me for several weeks I had wanted to sit down and talk with her about my next steps leaving arena stage she came up with many excuses after making an appointment I have to have my hair done I need to meet with a board member I have to go grocery shopping finally I called her and she picked up the phone and we started to argue and we really in the midst of it she said I won't be treated like four letter expletive and I replied well I won't be treated like four letter expletive and it went on and it escalated and then finally I said and I can't believe I have a goal in the audacity to say even now I can't believe I said Zell I just want to be released I want to be free from the arena stage plantation four and five letter expletives on came like locusts curses and expletives that I have never heard before she elevated by going into Shakespearean curses curses from Trosa curses in Yiddish curses in Russian and then suddenly the phone dropped on the table and there was silence and I could hear the heels of her shoes clicking away until it faded and there was silence and I said in that silence I said to myself what do you think you've just been doing you have been hurling expletives at the Chanel suit wearing mafia queen of the regional theater movement your life is over she returned to the phone and she said I had to put the phone down because someone entered the room and I said who what do you mean just like this and I haven't had a fight with anyone since Alan we fought in the parking lot we fought in the office we fought over the phone and Alan would always say it's not personal and I would tell Alan oh no Alan it's very personal putting together a production outside of my family is the most personal thing that I will ever do and so we fought Zelda wasn't ready to let go of that argument she said to me I'd like to help you leave arena stage and perhaps after you visit the prop shop and they take off the chains and chapters come to my office and I can give you some thoughts right here in the district and in Virginia and in Maryland in the suburbs there's all these theaters popping up dinner theaters I think they're called the Beath and Boards I'd like to write you a letter of recognition you can always do the good person of statue on while serving sexualized or you can perhaps do dinner at 8 although their dinner starts at 5 and 6 so it's not to interfere with coffee and dessert during the second act of Death of the Salesman I'd love to write that letter for you I've been told that I have a very good turn of phrase and when I write a letter it's not from head to hand but I put everything I can head to because Taz you should have a career that you want and deserve I stayed on and I stayed on it was the best decision Zelda ever made the student designer months ahead before the first rehearsal she and I were not seeing eye to eye at all I would bring in research that had nothing to do with my research or the homework that I had given her it was not working I went to Zelda she said into the design department and we talked and talked and we tried to make it work with the design student and it was just not going to work I finally insisted bringing Zelda and the design department together that we all know this is not going to work and something must be done the student was replaced a week after that in rehearsals I was feeling very guilty and I visited Zelda's office and I said I feel terrible a design student a student has been fired because of me and she said it happens to most of us somewhere in our lives it happens to most of us and I said oh you've never been fired and she said Taz I'm not most of us Zelda complex tough tender inspiring imaginative inventive erudite difficult unique caring reliable renegade witty relentless stylish classy resilient empathetic fallible uncompromising vulnerable visionary vain genius clashed and the whole world has shifted out of a chaotic sky and the times teeming with lightning leaning in sorrow in the saddened aftermath of your passing artists are left dashed shocked and shivering fending for ourselves reaching for the internal dream and the transitory light you left us how are we to catch our breath again from Walt Whitman we receive you and with free sense at last and our insentiate hence forward not you anymore shall be able to foil us or withhold yourself from us we use you and we do not cast you aside we plan to permanently within us we fathom you not we love you there is perfection in you also you furnish your parts towards eternity great or small you furnish your parts toward the soul and finally from Shakespeare the soldier's pole has fallen young boys and girls are level now with men the odds is gone there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon Mark Fitzhendler so I'm Mark Fitzhendler I'm son number two and here we are in the Fitzhendler the Fitch I am never aspire to be a noun but my name is scoured on this place it did feel a lot to me my father Tom had no doubt he was very proud Zelda on the other hand she feigned a bit of nonchalance she was like okay but really she was very pleased with me today is about celebrating a life it's not about death but Zelda spoke a great deal about death with me, probably with other people her plans for it as if she could manage it the way that she managed her career with steely control she said to me often when I die I do not want a big thing at arena stage which of course I took to me I do want and how appropriate this was her space this was her living room this was her synagogue this was an extension of her mind I always knew that this was where we got it to remember her and Molly and Edgar and Kati thank you so much for making it happen because it's really the right thing she used to have an office right up there what used to be box K before they were the boxes were removed and at intermission we would hang out in her office and we'd drink coke and there was a squat box on her desk and it was 8-5 minutes please and we would sneak back out of the office and sit in her box when the theater had been reconfigured and I thought like I said, it's better and I said to mom, she officially it's better but they need the seats how can they afford not to have the seats and then she saw and she said yeah, it's better it became more intimate and maybe even more like what she had envisioned Zell used to say I want to live to be and then she would say I mean who would want to be president I mean they would want to be president which I sort of took to mean maybe she was considering being president but she got married just a few hours after Hilary was gone so I guess she really decided to let another woman take the job she had I want to recognize a few family members and friends who are here Peggy, I don't know where you're sitting Peggy, I'm a small business assistant she has been Zell's assistant for decades and Hal and I adored her and I tortured her a bit when I used to be parking in front of her desk after school and no one knew what to do with me and I would string all her paper clips together but she doesn't care at all young whitehead mom's dearest friend is here and I'm really delighted to see her as well and then in terms of family our one and only cousin we have a very small family Barbara Goldstein is here who's been really a great help throughout this whole of the time she's wonderful, gorgeous wife, Mora who always felt so welcome to the family of my Zelda when she became part of our little tribe and they're charming and very smart son Adam Harry our uncle Bill who Zelda really adored she loved his knowledge of politics and history and had long complex conversations on the state of the country my partner of 32 years, Paul Travis who Zelda also had great admiration and fondness for we've been to the laws of parents together and he will always be my love and support and finally here, Bill's wife, Rob's mother Mora's mother-in-law Adam's grandmother, our aunt Joyce Dynand when I was little I was a little bit in love with Joyce and I asked her to stop getting older so I could catch up and marry her that didn't quite work out for number of reasons but Joyce and Zelda were very close they spoke daily once a day Joyce held mom's hand through rough times, physical and emotional and she would go up to see her in New York sometimes I didn't even know this just to give her an embrace and take care of her when she needed a little support in some ways, Joyce, I think this has been hardest on you and how I just want to acknowledge all the support and sisterly love that you've shared over these many years ladies and gentlemen Matthew Finch-Andler a lot of letters didn't have to be a birthday or a holiday or a special occasion just if she had something to say so about three times a day when I was younger my dad would read these letters to me out loud because I couldn't be cursive yet and then I got older and I learned cursive and I learned that her letters were not in cursive, she just had really wacky handwriting and at first I responded to all of her letters in full I'd respond to all our questions ask her some questions and I'd tell her how excited I was to come visit her so we could make freshly squeezed orange juice in the morning and then as time went on I got busier responses got shorter and a little less personal but instead I started to send her my writing my scripts, my essays my stories, she wanted to read everything so she would send responses to these writings and I could tell by the fact that her responses were longer than my stories that she learned more about me through my writings than she ever could through a direct letter because she thought I was being more honest than what I was putting on the page so I thought it would be appropriate to not share a story but share one more letter that I would write to her so here it is do you agree with me? thank you for the letter thank you for the newspaper clippings, the trinkets and your gifts thank you for noticing when I got a haircut new glasses or a grown inch thank you for sitting perfectly still thank you for reading my script three times over and sending me a letter with your favorite line written on the envelope thank you for realizing things about me that I never even realized about myself and thank you for sharing those realizations with me good or bad because they helped me become the person that I am today thank you for being my biggest fan even when you didn't know exactly what you were cheering for thank you for caring so much about me and more importantly caring so much about everything because you taught me to be passionate about the things that I love oh of course thank you for the orange juice it was great good gentlemen Emily Fitzgerald Grammy who freshly squeezed orange juice and had my favorite ice cream in the freezer Grammy who had the pretty glass eggs and the endless nesting dolls Grammy who would ask me on a scale from 1 to 10 how happy are you? and never let me reply with a perfect 10 because I had to leave room for improvement my grandmother was so many things to me and I love her so much she has given me many things in life from sketch pads to memory written charts goods but most of all she has given me her love I know what wonderful work my grandmother did for the theater world but that's not why she is so special to me she cared so deeply for me and wanted to know everything I had to tell her about my life we would talk about relationships I had between friends about my teachers I would send her my writing that I did for school and she would read and reread it and we would talk for hours about what she thought she would read me pieces of it aloud and her beautiful rich voice which made even my worst writing sound so much better over the years I ended up with plenty of messages on my answering machine from her last night I realized I still have a lot of these messages so I listened to them some were reminding me that she'd love to hear my voice some just to tell me she's thinking of me and once she said I'd like to hear from you when you have another little burst of happiness and lately I've had a bunch of these little bursts I wish I could tell her about my first months at college I'd send her my first college essay and get comfortable with a cup of tea to listen to all she would have to say about it I would tell her about my completely out of character newfound love for swing dance and explain what it feels like to be making a brand new home for myself she'd listen and I'd share in the next few days I'd be getting a long letter in the mail about what she thinks about my college experience I know she would tell me to call soon and ask how well I'm doing on a scale of one to ten reminding me to leave room for her she would tell me to let her know if I have a burst of happiness and most importantly she would just tell me that she's thinking of me right now I wish I could go back in her apartment looking at Grammy with her beautiful style and loving eyes a woman who knows me better and tells me more than many other people I wish I could tell her about my life and tell her that I'm thinking of her share my thoughts with you the center of my little family by which I mean the four of us every family has a center and the center of my family is my wife Susan who's here today we all revolve around her sunshine in 1997 shortly after my father died I received a call from an old friend from college who read Dad's picture in the New York Times he said something to me that I'd more forgotten now is the time that you decide what to remember I was born about a year and a half after your Instagram was founded so I'm the second longest living reductionist so there's a lot to remember so let me start with the words of a very young person a 13-year-old teenager who had just graduated from a Alice Deal high school and lived with her parents Harry and Ida Diamond and her sister Joyce at 3226 North Hampton Street from Northwest Washington DC Dear editor there comes a time in every girl's life when she wants to become an actress perhaps this desire is born because of being a witness to a great performance and observing the applause, fame and recognition afforded to the performers most likely this desire is not the want to act but the wish to be an actress who is famous and sought out however I think that this is not altogether the case with me for although I have taken dramatic lessons for two years and participated in many plays I find that it is the love of the work that persists I do admit however that I enjoy to the utmost the very small bit of recognition I have received extremely pleasant during my years in grammar school I have been in quite a few presentations and performed on several programs besides having some experience in writing and presenting plays in the sixth grade I wrote a play and again in the eighth with the additional job of helping to manage it upon entering high school in the fall I hope to continue these activities and to further them with outside training I will no toward my aim for the future considering the fact that music goes hand in hand with certain types of dramatics I intend to continue this study which I began four years ago so with my high ambition to be a stage actress I hope to climb the ladder of fame and perhaps reach the top wrong so wish me luck I'll meet it respectfully yours Zelda dying words when she entered a contest sponsored by the Washington Star the newspaper record of the time as she won third prize and with that came a substantial reward of one dollar well she didn't need the luck and she didn't become a professional actress but in that letter already was the essential core of what defined mom I find that it is the love of the work that persists her work in the theater was her life it was her great and limitless passion and her great and limitless joy it is what we are all here today to celebrate the theater was her life, yes but so was her family and here's some of what I decide to remember as her son the name tapes it was time for my first summer camp four weeks in Massachusetts a model was determined that the clothes I went with would be the clothes I came by so she ordered name tapes and one by one hand sewed each one to my pants my shirts my towels my socks my underwear so many name tapes and when she proudly presented them to me I looked at them and we noticed together for the first time that each and every one of them said well, fish oddler all we could do was laugh I took them to camp as I grew up mom carved out the time to do so many parental things for me she helped me reverse my very first oral report in elementary school as I recall the topic was oysters she taught me how to organize all my research for my first major paper into topic specific piles five file parts Franklin Roosevelt in the New Deal I was at topic in the end, fish handler or fish oddler it really didn't matter the measles when I was nine I came down with the measles unfortunately I also came down with the dangerous side effect and cephalitis potentially fatal swelling of the brain I was lucky I woke up from a coma in the hospital a few days later and the first person I laid eyes on was mom who had been there almost the whole time and was holding a bottle of soda for years after we both remembered that the first words I said and the reasoning we knew I was going to be okay were something terribly profound can I have a slug back folk mom came through with a clutch she faced life head on and took the bad with the good if you were sick if you were in pain if you needed something if you were in harm's way she was there she rose to the occasion she never turned away never said I can't handle this it's too painful life wasn't a walk in the park for her it was a forest with dark places and light places and fascinating mysteries and infinite places the athlete the mainstream the neat thing about this for me was into the basement there was a ping pong table we would go down there and play it was a blast that's where I learned to love the game I played endlessly when we got our own table in our own basement mom was pretty good with a solid serve and a consistent deliberate backhand and when dad took me to Lafayette play ground to take tennis lessons mom and I charged a couple bucks an hour so everyone could afford them mom sometimes came along and took her own lessons I can picture her standing ready to receive a serve her racket poised in front of her exactly as instructed she was a trooper and she gave it her best shot the parachute as a parent mom worried about the risks I didn't know about the sailboat she would swim in the summertime but she refused to duck her head under the water she drove back and forth from home to the theater 10,000 times but I don't think she ever drove on a highway she sent us countless clippings about the dangers of this and the risks of that so I was a freshman or sophomore at college and one day a man came to the campus to invite anyone who was interested on the highway he was selling parachute jumps for novices no experience required several of my friends and I signed up and the next time I was speaking with my parents I mentioned his upcoming adventure big mistake all hell broke loose in mom's mind I was jumping to a certain depth she pulled out all the stops letters, phone calls sleeping my dad called your mother and is very, very upset she can't sleep she persuaded my brother who remembers this to write me mom was very good at getting her way her emotional intensity was formidable on the dial it goes up to 10 she was a 15 so I surrendered my friends on the other hand jumped and survived I think I'll never know the message the message sometime in my late 20s after I moved to Philadelphia I bought my first answering machine from Radio Shack which used a cassette tape to record messages it could hold up to 30 minutes of messages at a time which struck me as plenty these long messages I would get home the message light would be flashing and for the next 20 minutes or until the tape ran out I would hear the events of the day the events of the world whatever mom was thinking about it was an unconventional conversation as though I was there all the time I can't say I listened to every word but I listened to a lot she welcomed long messages in return I won't get this exactly right but any of you who called her in New York got her voice down Hello, this is Elle I can't come to the phone right now but tell me everything and I'll call you back she spilled over with a wish to connect and be connected we were not the same people mom had a voracious appetite to understand the human condition she read, she studied she analyzed she was a magnet to strangers on planes I don't know why they talked to me no point in borrowing her books they were destroyed with heavy underlining and comments in the margins sometimes it's got to me because the truth is I live on a slightly shallower plane sometimes the thing is just a thing and all it matters is whether the cubs will finally break the curse anyway, the world's serious so one day after mom had said something she was really probing and meaningful about who knows what I got exasperated and I barred at her why does everything have to mean something why do you always have to try to be so profound and she looked at me and she smiled and she said but I like to be profound and that was the end of that discussion she never stopped probing to the essence of humanity and I well I'll be watching Cleveland Indians as you've heard from Matthew and Emily and it brought tears to my eyes mom was a devoted grandmother and not in some slap-dash way letters, hundreds of letters balloons and carts every birthday many trips to Philadelphia on the train when she could barely walk because of her hip pain and when walking on uneven ground we would push her in a wheelchair at the edge of a tennis court so she could watch Matthew, Emily, Susan a never ending effort to know what was going on in their lives and inside their lives she devoured whatever they wrote and kept everything in folders that Mark and I discovered clearing out her department a howl and then tears of joy when Matthew would surprise her with his letter of admission to college and although this afternoon is about how exceptional mom was she was also a typical dotting grandmother mom, are you listening to me? I'm telling you, she would say and I'm not just saying this because I'm that grandmother your tins are special really special do you realize that? do you see that? silence mom had her deep fears and doubts but she was resilient and brave her body was not her ally however she experienced substantial physical pain for many years because of the two hip replacements for many years she had to sit a certain way walk a certain way to prevent a dislocation but at times that happened anyway for decades she fought and overcame her own fragility mom was adamant that she lived out her days in her home and she planned everything meticulously so this could happen doorways wide enough that a wheelchair could easily pass an eloquent advance directive that told us what she wanted mom care insurance purchased many years ago to help cover the cost of assistance so of course we honored her wish but we could not have done that alone in her last year it took the incredible help of many people some of whom we want to acknowledge here today we've already mentioned Angie but I want to mention you again Angie who basically helped mom manage her life paying up email accounts paying bills handling mountains of paperwork gathering and researching materials writing out instructions on how to use the TV and the toaster oven and accompanying her whenever mom needed emergency transport to a hospital you were an amazing friend to stay home mom needed the care of nurses aides at the end and we were so lucky to have four wonderful and kind people who worked in rotation and Eason helped on weekends Vilma Woolery worked almost every week night and some weekends and finally there was Janet Aiklin there every weekday and many days on the weekend as well giving our mother unqualified love and unlimited patience opening her heart and holding her hands in mom's last days words the words she loved to hear and use and play with failed her last now there is silence but as mom taught me silence the absence of words has its own rich meaning and so here is my single strongest memory from all the plays I saw at the stage the play was Arthur Miller step of the salesman which mom directed as part of the 1974-75 season in the scene I remember the stage was bare out from one of the wings there was a weary middle aged man carrying two heavy suitcases containing samples the burden of a traveling salesman Willie Lohman played by Robert Prosky home after an unsuccessful trip through his vast sales territory so tired no words his sagging shoulders spoke for him I'll never forget it when Mark and I were going through mom's papers I left a letter to her grandchildren that she never completed it was in contemplation of her own death and I'd like to close by sharing a small part of it she wrote I do believe that if one is remembered in the minds and hearts of others one is always alive remember me I feel privileged to have had a family that was giving me here's a hug one for each of you I love you there's a very good reason for taking a chance at something for having a hunch about something and connecting that hunch to the thought of a mission and to the details of executing that mission ladies and gentlemen Lee Rubenstein the other day you have always professed theater began with a quote gather around one of those stories well there have been many many stories today about you stories about vision stories about perseverance about the incredible gifts of the teacher stories about starting the first theater in Washington to an integrated audience stories about how a small theater was able to grow into this theater and become the crown jewel of this spectacular building stories about have a lone non-profit theater outside of New York City has inspired more than a thousand non-profit theaters around the country I stand here today at the house that you and Tom built aptly named the Fitzhangers stage designed by your favorite architect Howard Weiss it is not only the anchor for the Meade Center for American Theater it is also the anchor for the new Southwest redevelopment called The Peers remember when that Louie came a fourth foundation for many years with your soul source of income came and said to you arena stage has matured and I think you can support itself you and Tom said how and then you said we can do it we must do it step by step season by season you did it you and I have spent 15 very rewarding years working together from you I learned how theater worked the beautiful art of theater and probably more importantly how Zelda Fitzhangers mind and heart work everyone in theater in the arts knows of your innovation and perseverance and how you gave birth to and nurtured a totally new concept of theater I also learned that theater exists it must necessarily have a balanced budget you told me that you told me that the funds cannot only come from the box office if you try to raise the ticket prices you would not attend the you would not have the audience that you were willing to attract what a teacher what an understanding at one time I apologized for bothering you with budget talk then you answered me I love a budget a budget is the sculpture of the art one day I came to you and Tom said I think we need an endowment what who is going to give us that I said I think we could raise six million dollars with a capital campaign well they thought about it I heard Zelda say I believe that optimism an aspect of hope is in itself a creative force with that optimism we decided to go forth with everything we did and prepare the brochure and the case state for the endowment Zelda and all her wisdom and optimism stated like museums and libraries theater is an instrument of civilization which became a motto for the campaign we raised $1.3 million which was the first major endowment in the theater of this country in the last 30 years this endowment has contributed over $12 million to the annual operating budget the international renown Liviu Choulet once said of Zelda Zelda created something that is very hard to create theater she was responsible for the very air her footsteps were everywhere Zelda once said at a TCG conference a fair professionalist the theory of relativity tells us that time passes more slowly when an object in motion than one at rest and that sure explains to me how Zelda fish in that accomplished everything that she did in one life time I was privileged to have four or five visits with Zelda within the last six weeks and she would go in and out well one time she said we kind of do something about raising those ticket prices all the time but really rather I feel when a person buys their inward talent exists in the memory of others and I would propose that we only hear or witnesses to be clear Zelda fish in her is immortal the training can you come up the fish hammer family has requested that we take out a show of Zelda please join us if you will Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra Yisra And thank you, everyone, and thank you to the great Zelda Fitzhandler who watches over us and whose presence I feel so strongly here today. The memories are remarkable and powerful. And I'd love it if we continue sharing in the lobby. We have Zelda's favorite ice cream and cookies and savories and things for people to eat and drink and talk to each other. So many of you have come from so far away to join us today. I know that there are reunions of people who haven't seen each other in 20 or 30 years. So please enjoy this day. Zelda would like this little bit of fun as well. Thank you.