 Welcome to the Martin E. Siegel Theatre Center here at the Graduate Center CUNY and to Prelude 21. Start making sense. It is our annual Theatre and Performance Festival celebrating the work of New York Theatre artists of ensembles and it's hard enough in normal times to create work for the stage and for spaces inside and outside but in the time of Corona we all are faced with exceptional challenges and we are here to celebrate again the extraordinary achievements that come out of the New York Theatre community. It is time I think and we feel to start making sense to ask questions why are we making theatre but also how are we producing it and for whom. And this is a great investigation again into the mechanics of making art in New York City and we also invited theatre ensembles from around the U.S. from Detroit and Cincinnati, St. Louis and Philadelphia and New Orleans to join us and this will be an extraordinary look into what is on the minds of artists right now. And now we also have many panel discussions. We have an award which will be giving out to honor outstanding members of the New York Theatre community so I would like to all of you to join in and get an insight of what is happening. Welcome everybody back here to our Prelude Festival. It's our final stage five of the celebrations of theatre and art in New York City especially of course theatre and performance has been a great run. We feel we had so many panels, discussions, presentations, twelve New York artists, twelve curators put things together. We had contributions from Detroit and Cincinnati from New Orleans and Philadelphia and San Francisco of course we kind of reached out and we are continuing our investigations about vision and utopia for what can and should be done after this time of Corona or perhaps in this transitional time will be in this time. My name is Frank Henschka. I'm here at the Martin E. Siegel Theatre Center at the Graduate Center CUNY in Mittelman, Manhattan and I welcome my colleagues. We have wonderful colleagues here in our system, the City University of New York and it's the largest urban educational system in the country I think up to 300,000 students join every year places where understanding is taking place or should be taking place and many, many first time students, first time of the generations, first time also of Asian-American, African-American, Latino-American a great service to the city in that idea of a public school. Once it was really free, it was called Free University CUNY at the time as in 1864 it was started as a free ability for the kids of the workers to also go to school and learn something at a university level because they would never get into the big established university at Stanford and Harvard or Yale and it's been a remarkable journey in the 70s when the city really had to rethink its finances. It all got together all 20 colleges under one big umbrella and I think if I'm right from our meetings we have about 20 to 25 stages and all five boroughs and hundreds of thousands of people come it's a bit overlooked in that commercial landscape we live in but the service is enormous and today I have with us John Jankowski from the College of State and Island Eva Bornstein from Lehman College in Gregory Mosher who is at Hunter College and it's a beginning for us to meet again after this time of Corona we will also soon have internal meetings all of our CUNY stages so welcome all of you, how are you guys today? Well, happy to be with you, thank you. Thank you, thank you and are you all in your neighborhoods? John, where are you? Right this minute, I'm at Hunter College. Yeah, are you at home in Staten Island? No, I live in South Jersey. South Jersey, Eva, where are you? I'm in Alabari, Manhattan because I'm still working partially from home. I go twice a week back to Lehman Center but most of the time I'm working from home. Yeah, Gregory, where are you? I'm also largely working from home and at the moment I'm in Connecticut in Luchfield County. Fantastic, so thank you. So the idea is today to see what contribution have these theaters made. I think of course it's enormous, it's a little bit in the shadow, it's a little bit like in the supermarket, you have the potatoes, the lamb, the carrots, they don't stream at you, nobody makes commercials for them but they're essential, they're good there, hopefully they're there and they're between great, great service. John, tell us a little bit about you and yourself but also about your theater. I'm John Junkowski, born and raised on Staten Island and I got into theater in college. I was in production mostly for many years. I got into film and then I got an opportunity to work at the College of Staten Island 20 years ago and now I am the director for the Center for the Arts which we have four facilities. We have a concert hall, a theater, a recital hall and a lecture hall and there's also for the students of Black Box Theater all in one facility. Fantastic, so what do you show, what do you show, what do you present, how does it look like? Normally, not in Corona time. Yeah, I was about to say, normally, we really have a diverse season. We try to have some dance, music, children's shows, rock and roll and comedy. I mean, we really try to do the gamut to try and bring in as much of audience of Staten Island to find the niche that people want to see. And are you successful? Do people come? Yeah, I mean, it's getting a little bit more difficult to get people to come out. They're finding other forms of entertainment. I think if you ask me the way that, you know, same with films and movies are struggling because they're so much easier for someone to sit at home and watch a film. Now streaming, I think it's going to change the whole outlook of people coming live performances. You know, traveling from Queens all the way to Broadway could be something difficult for someone or from Staten Island, Broadway could be something difficult. And as we know, you know, all the stages are now have capability of streaming including, for example, the Metropolitan Opera that never, you know, had that at one time by streaming all their productions. And as we know, they're struggling also with the audience. Yeah, so John has four spaces. Eva, tell us a little bit about you and your space and your success. So I was born in Krakow, Poland, and I started my career as an actress. I was doing films and theater in Poland. Then I immigrated to London, England. I lived with granddaughter of Gustav Mahler for a while. From London, I went to Toronto, Canada, where I finished my studies at York University. And right after graduation, I was 24. I got my first job. And my first job was like John's job, running multi-facilities. 2300 seat theater, 370 seat theater, 700 seat theater gallery. So I was 24, straight out of school. Basically, I was learning on a job. This is going back to 1975. So after Toronto, I immigrated to the United States. And I was a director of Woodstock Opera House in Chicago. I started an old Mozart Festival there. From there, I went to all over. I even went back to Toronto to curate the premier dance theater for dance. Great. Next weekend, I'm leaving college. So now I'm in the Bronx, which is very challenging, because it's a very specific community. Our community is very poor. Our community is extremely diverse. Mostly Latinos. So I had to switch my programming a little bit because I'm a strong believer like John is that you have to represent the community. Whatever you program is for your community. You don't program stuff for yourself. So I had to learn a lot of Latino shows. And as a matter of fact, I started my job about 16 years ago at Lehman. And we started an old Latino series, which at that time wasn't so popular. It wasn't a mainstream series. But I took a different approach because instead of going to agents and booking whatever happens and whatever goes on tour, I went directly to different countries. I went to Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, all those places. Yeah, Eva, let's get a little bit later in how we do it. Tell us a bit, what are your stages? What stages do you have? And then we go to Gregory in the introduction round. I'm sorry. No, no, no. So now we have a brand new, you know, because we just restored $15 million we spent. So Lehman Center, if you're going on a website, you see, it's a beautiful 2330 seat center. 2300 seats. Yes. So we have to fill the seats. So, you know, so this is a little bit of a different. And you have more stages around it, or is this just one? No, we have another theater on campus, which is strictly designated for academia, you know, for professors, students. We don't deal with those productions too much. We are mainly community oriented. In other words, we have the largest performing arts center in the Bronx. And we need to bring the people from the Bronx to our performances. Great. So in a way, it's the public theater, the city theater of the... Yes. Because it's the only theater of this size in the Bronx. Amazing. Gregory, tell us a little bit about you, and most people I'm sure will know about you, but tell us a little bit about you and where you are at the moment. I'm a producer and a director, and I've worked a lot of different places. Eva, we were in Chicago at the same time. I started... No kidding. In 1975, just when stage twos were becoming a thing, everybody was figuring out that their main stage, they couldn't do what they wanted on their main stage, so they needed to start a stage two. So I went out there to do that. And from Chicago, I came back to New York and worked at Lincoln Center for a while. And then I ended up at Columbia after a gap running a program for the president of the Arts Initiative. And there are many of these arts initiatives in American colleges and universities now. I think it was kind of a pilot program if there were other ones I didn't know about it, which was a university-wide program to engage students in the arts, whether they were lawyers or biologists or historians or anyone. It wasn't just for kids who were in the MFA arts program. Excuse me, my dog is being very rambunctious today. And then I was at a party, and Jennifer Rao, the president of Hunter, although she did not introduce herself, walked over and said, I think you should leave Columbia and come to Hunter. And really, and then we talked for about 18 months. As I'm sure is the case with the three of you, the students are just profoundly compelling. And I had then and have now the feeling that these CUNY kids are the future of the American theater. You know, at Columbia, we used to sit around and say, what are we going to do? Create theater made by Ridge Kids? These young people have ideas. They have stories and we're trying to give them the skills and the knowledge and the attitudes and values they need to go out and make a better American theater. Because this one, for all its strengths, has a lot of problems, as we've all been discussing. I have two jobs at Hunter. I'm the chair of the theater program. And I started a professional company for my sins the fifth in my life. And a few years ago, we've done four productions. Most recently, Richard Nelson's final 12th out of 12 plays set in Rheinbeck, New York, three different families all struggling, living paycheck to paycheck, all trying to make sense of the world. We began rehearsal in very early August and Richard said to the company, who knows if we'll make it to opening? We don't know. We just have to try. Because the alternative is to do nothing. Or to stream. And Richard indeed did several streaming shows very early in the pandemic. And it went well. So that's my life. I go back and forth between these things. But I'm very focused on the students and the professional theater has a very strong pedagogical component. Yeah. Nelson's open rehearsals to the students, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you also work at Lincoln Center's theater. So it's amazing how much you carry inside you with the Columbia experience. A question to all of you. What do you feel? What is the role of a university theater? What role does it play? Or what role can or should it play in the city? Perhaps, especially after the corona. What do you think about, John, that we can start with you? Well, first of all, I want to mention, Gregory, that I am a graduate of Hunter College. So the graduates are out there working in the theater. Bravo. I think we are out there. We have a policy at the college brought, started by president, that we would have an access to the public. And that's what we always try to do, to make sure that they can come through the gates and use the facilities at the college, whether it be the sports and rec center or the soccer field or the research in the library. And one of the other stronger places would be the Center for the Arts. And we try to find at the Center for the Arts to make sure that people know that the space is available for them to use, whether they rent it for different events or, of course, to be part of our season and come and see the performances there. Also, we really try to make it strong for the students to be able to be part of the center and try to find some students who like to do theater and want to do it professionally and hope to help them guide them in that direction. Are you connected to the neighborhood? How is it in Staten Island? Do people come? Is it kind of whatever said? It's our public theater in the Bronx. Yeah, we mostly, my audience, mostly from Staten Island, New Jersey. And depending upon the performance and presentation, they also come in from Manhattan and Brooklyn. Mostly Brooklyn, Staten Island and New Jersey is where my audience comes from. So in a way, you have that function of a public theater, even so you are at the university and you're deeply involved in it. Eva, how is that for you? What is your vision? What do you want to do with your layman center? Well, my vision is very similar to John's, I'm afraid, because we are a public institution. So we have a similar mission. Our mission is to provide cultural programming for our community. Sort of, you know, the Borough President of the Bronx calls us Lincoln Center of the Bronx. So we more or less do what Lincoln Center does, not on a scale of Lincoln Center, because we don't have the funding available to us at such a big scale. But we try to bring ballet companies from Russia, from all over the globe. We bring modern dance for all. For example, we're going to have a follow-up dance company. This spring, we bring very famous artists, such as Smoky Robinson, you know, Annie Montaniers, Gilberto Samparosa, because we have a very large theater. And 90% of our income comes from, guess what, earned income. Yeah. So we have to, right John, we have to put bunnies into the seats, correct? Yeah. It's our big challenge. We have to spread the word. I do a lot of interviews in all the newspapers, you know, I was interviewed practically by every newspaper in town, including New York Times, because I want to make Bronx with a better, you know, better perception because people think, oh my God, Bronx. As a matter of fact, I have to tell you a funny story. When we brought Johnny Mathis, there were a lot of people that came from the village, from East Manhattan, and there was this gentleman that was like very close to me and said, oh my God, are we safe here? We would kill to go see Johnny Mathis anyway. But are we really safe? Are we safe? Yeah. The perception of the Bronx was that, you know, it's not a safe place to go. Yeah. No, you really make a big contribution to the city together. Tell us a bit, you got an award, right? Or you got, you were able to secure in the time of Corona resources for your theater. I was insane, I suppose, because, you know, on our state salary, I worked day and night to get that SVOG grant because it was a very competitive grant, you know. It was for all the presenters, all the agents, everybody. So you had to really be focused to get money because it was all over the country. The money was going to every theater, every bar, every venue. So I don't know, it was a miracle. You got 700,000 or something. Actually, we got over a million. Over a million, you know, which is remarkable. Let me tell you, if we didn't get this money, there is no way we could reopen. No way. Because to reopen the center for us, right now, we opened October 2nd and we're close to spending half a million dollars already. My goodness, yeah. No, that is great that this is recognized. Yesterday, they gave an award to the National Black Theater in Harlem who also said Shadeh who got it, our credo award that she runs this theater. The coalition of theaters of color, like 40 or 50 theaters, and they got a very big, almost a doubling of the funds from the great politician who we also support who said this is important. So there are some encouraging signs. Thank you, Gregory. You moved into many fields also in the theater, of course, but in different realities of theater, let's put it this way, you know, and often they don't like each other, the academics and the theater people, even though they should be full-fledged. We love the academics, Frank. We love the academics. It's true. I personally would prefer to do experimental theater every day. I often what's done in theater, that you know there's this kind of, this is commercial, this is public, this is not there. So Gregory, what is your vision? What do you want to do? What keeps you going? What motivates you to do your own company and everything? Well, two things. The students, I mean, we end every meeting that we have saying, well, is it good for the students? It's, we're just profoundly student-centric. And the other is just access for the 100 Theater Project and the four shows we've done, the average ticket price intentionally has been less than $30. It was the only good thing I ever got out of Facebook was what I left years ago, but I crowdsourced a price that people wanted to pay to see some good theater. And I had no idea. Everybody started organizing what I should charge, but I wasn't asking what I should charge. I was asking what you would like to pay. And it came to $37. And so that's what the top price was for 100 Theater Project. They've moved up to $39.50 for the last one. And that includes service charges. I hate these service charges. The ticket is $160. Oh, look, it's $192. Someone in Germany sued, actually said, what is the service charge? I put it in, I do my own booking. I put my card in and it's a lawsuit and they had very good chances that service charges might be taken away because it's an additional price. That money is going back to the producers and it doesn't count as part of the earned income. So the artists are not getting a royalty on that extra $20. It's unfair. Anyway, 100 Theater Project was a chance to take everything I learned at the Goodman and at Lincoln Center Theater and the National Theater and working on Broadway to bring to tiny little spaces, prison and schools and AIDS hospices to take all of that knowledge and say how, always remembering that you have a pedagogical purpose as well, what's the kind of theater you want to work at and what's the kind of theater you want to invite people to. And that's not perfect, but we're trying and that's the goal. I say to the students all the time, stop asking for permission for God's sake. Stop being up for a show. What good is it to be up for the show? Get six friends and make some theater. So a lot of our classes are oriented towards this and getting them used to the idea that yes, they can rail at Broadway, they want to rail at Broadway and rail at capitalism if they want to rail at capitalism and God knows they did. But it's not moving their lives forward. So this semester I've had an extraordinary group of guests including yesterday Ralph Pena from MAI who was beyond inspiring. Just thrilling. The lesson of all of them is the same. If you make the theater you want to make. If you have an idea and have an idea who you'd want to do it for, you have a pretty good shot. Gregory, how do you get your funding? You get your funding from CUNY? Not yes. Of course we have CUNY funding. We have a lot of soft money. We have a major donor in Patty and Jay Baker who bought a building for our theater department and an amazing woman named Susie Sainsbury, Lady Susie Sainsbury. She was very active with the RSC for many years and is an extraordinarily generous person across the board. Has been supporting Hunter Theater Project. It has other donors. The late Mbass is a donor. Jody and John Arnhold have been donors. But it is primarily supported by one person who believes in this mission and who wouldn't believe in it if we were charging $80 to see Richard Nelson play. She believes in it because the average ticket price is $27. This is very interesting because I don't know about John but we get very little funding from CUNY. Our majority of funding has to be raised and we have big donors in the grant. On grants, that's it. I should be very clear. No CUNY money goes towards Hunter Theater Project. That is all totally supported by our donors. I was referring to the department because of course CUNY pays professor salaries. Just to make it clear also for our listeners and we have also listeners from around the world the CUNY Theater is basically the CUNY has the grounds of the brick and mortar and we're never able, it's a poor system. It's chronically underfunded. We think it's politically motivated. Public universities don't get the subsidies they should for faculty, for students, for everything but also for theater. But universities in the United States often take over the role of the city theater, the neighborhood theater. At least there is a space but it's very hard. It's not reported in a way it should be and I think in this time of corona we have learned how important it is, how significant this is what we miss and we all hope that it opens again. For the question to all of you, do you feel that time of corona made you think about the world, do you represent what you can present or do you feel let's just try to get back to you which was already hard enough or are you doing something different? Does the community ask something different from you? We just reopen actually. I don't know. We could be the only CUNY theater that actually reopened to the public. I'm not sure. Are you open in Staten Island, John? No, we are not. Yeah, we open. We're open for classes but the lack of support that the college has for the Center for the Arts financially, we are basically independent financially from the college. So to bring it back on the line, it's kind of a catch-22. How do you bring it back online with rentals? First of all, there's not many of them out there. To support staff that we had to let go. How do you have someone doing contracts and box office and all the things that are necessary if you can't support them financially at this time? So at the moment, besides other issues that we're having with the physical building, as you know Staten Island had a hurricane come through and it flooded my concert hall and the stage is now warped and they're working on fixing that problem. I thought I had it hard. Yeah, so we're really trying to figure out how to come back and I'm assuming that the audience certainly want to come back. I'm hoping that they do. I'm just trying to figure out how the college is going to make this turnaround. My experience is that they're cautious. Nelson's play opened on September 9th. It got 10 just rave reviews. We only had 74 seats in the theater, four sides in the round, extremely intimate intentionally. Normally those reviews would have cleaned out the run. Done. We did end up playing at like 95% of capacity in a 74 seat theater, but it was slow. It was day by day, week by week. So that was a big question mark. Our people going to come out. We had vaccine obviously required and audiences were masked, but there is still real caution in the air. Yeah, I just attended a coalition of all the venues across the country. The average drop in attendance right now is 30%. That feels right. That's the average drop. 50? 30. 30%. 3-0. I'm finding it difficult, I'm sure you are too, to make the place feel welcome to the public when you're stopping them at the gate on the campus and saying you have to prove your vaccine or your testing or they're going to turn you away. We are having great successes because the obstacles that we're facing are huge. Like you mentioned, the gates, the lists, the tests, the masks, CUNY invented this special form so they don't just accept, you know, excessively. They have their own app. That app didn't work for our people. And then they had to wait eight days to get accepted. So how do you sell a ticket to a patron eight days in advance? How do you have walk-ups? We don't. We have to have appointments. So it's been a horrendous October but we got through it. We even managed few capacity, capacity performances. What's the capacity in 2000 seats? I know, it's amazing. No, we have 50% capacity? No, we had few sold out. Full capacity. Of 2000 seats? I don't know how it did it, honestly. Who was it? That's exactly right. Who was it? Well, it was Andy Montanez who is very famous with Puerto Ricans. He's an old sorcerer with zillion Grammys and the other artist was India who is like a Jello, unknown to us, but known to Puerto Ricans. So she packed the house. But now we're having Jose Feliciano. It's a different story because Puerto Rican audience, they like to hear artists that are very popular in their countries not in the United States. They have to be packed in Puerto Rico. So we bring them here from Puerto Rico, from Dominican Republic. We just don't know that we could afford Jello or Marc Anthony. That's out of the question. But we do the second best. We go to the countries where these artists originate from and live it. That's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Gregor. So truly, this is not an easy task. It's for us. And honestly, I worked so hard to join on that SVOG grant because I knew without it, forget it. Like our security is down. You know, we have, we not only have to have the security of Lehman College, but we have to have additional security, private security. We're spending fortune on private security, fortune. Because the college, you know, CUNY is very cautious. They don't want any infections. So they're super cautious. Everybody has to have masks. Everybody has to be vaccinated. Check, double check. They have to have two vaccinations, not one. So it is horrendous. It's also a legacy of a time where people thought it's a good idea to have 2,000 seats in a university setting. That's what students, theater makers said. Give me a barn. Give me a basement. Give me a loading dock. You know, it's something, you know, and you're struggling with the legacy of bricks and mortar, you know, and no support for staff, no support for programming, no support for workshop, no support for residencies. That's what you really, so we really admire you that you do that great service in a way to the neighborhood. But what do you guys, the ideal world, you know, what do you think, what is the mission of a city university theater? What should it be doing or what, in case you would have the reason? I think that city university, Frank, has dual function. One is what Gregor is doing, you know, which is to get students all excited and build future generation for theater, which means that he's doing an extremely important job. And two, people like John and I are focusing on the community. You know, what can we do for our community, you know? Gregory's mission is completely different what John and my mission is. Because we have an academic unit that has its own theater. It has 500 seats, they have their own director, and they do a lot of academic programs. That's what Gregory is trying to do, you know. So in our case, our mission is to keep big guns off the street, so to speak, right, John? Yes. Get them into the theater, focus on dance, focus on something else, you know, lift your spirit. The main thing after the pandemic, I think what our function is, is to make people forget the pandemic. Even if it's for two hours. We are all sick of the pandemic. We can't wait for it to end. So we allow our audience, you know, what was so moving is that for these two hours, people were acting normal. Because this is what people do. People social. People want to talk to their neighbors. People want to see live art. They don't want to sit at home in front of a computer. You know, they want to be part of the action. So what we do is taking them out of the house into the neighborhood so they can greet their neighbors, you know, and be human again. Well put. Thank you. John, is that, you know, Staten Island has the nickname Gun Island. Is that really... Gun Island? Gun Island? Yes. Gun smuggling and shootings and all of it. Welcome to Staten Island. Do you feel... Too many people. Yeah. Do you feel, as Eva said, is that something you contribute to the peace and freedom on the streets? Or do you feel... I certainly think that the college is open to... And one of the goals of the administration and the president is to make sure that the college is open and safe for them to use the facilities. And certainly, we have 225 acres. So we have, you know, soccer field, baseball field, softball field, full gym pool. Beyond that, there's the theaters that we have, the library that we have. So there's a lot of activities at any given time. We have walks. It's just the past weekend. There was a walk for, I think, I don't remember who it was, but there was, you know, a couple of thousand people on the campus for a fundraising walk. And I know that the president wants to make sure that people don't just stop at the gates and try. They want to make sure that people know that the campus is open to them and the facilities and the different programs that we have are open to them, not just in classes, not just the academic center, but there's a lot of things that go on at the college when we are in a normal working situation that would bring a lot of interesting things to people to see. Thank you. It takes incredible history if I might interject. I think William Cody, or it also knows Buffalo Bill, you know, that the world first, what is supposed to be the Wild West Circus in a way, if I'm right, started even on this grounds with Snow the College where, you know, first buffaloes were exhibited and people from the city would come and then popular theater came out of their popular entertainment, whatever we would think of it today, you know, it was, of course, thing today. Staten Island had multiple theaters that were working both through the Voidville era and further on, but today we're actually bringing back smaller theaters. There are small theater companies on Staten Island. There's a storefront. It's called the Victory Theater and it's actually literally a storefront theater. I think it's 25 or 30 seats but they're putting on shows. Yeah. I would like to add one more thing, Frank and Gregory, that our function is also because we have the poorest borough of Manhattan. I'm like Gregory, we keep our tickets very low, as low as we possibly can. We also offer like $10 tickets to children and their families to a nutcracker, for example, with the National Ballet of Russia. I mean, where can they see a professional nutcracker for $10? You know, but we do that because they can't really afford to go to the city, pay parking and all that stuff. We fulfill another function that we make the cultural events affordable to our patrons. So that's another value, added value to what we do. But I must say, students at Lehman don't take advantage of these shows. They have to be forced to come, Gregory. I agree. These kids are working so hard and everyone on this stream knows most CUNY students have they're all working. Most of them have full-time jobs. So to say take two hours out of your life to come see an art event is a tough ask. Right. But I must also tell you that you know, my Latino audience, I call them my Latino they're not my Latino. Our Latino audience used to come just to the Latino shows. That's it. And I would go and say hello, hello because I go in front of the audience for every performance and talk to them. So if there is a feeling of intimacy and this is a house this is not a road house. This is your theater your center. So I go and say to the fathers and grandfathers just because you Latinos doesn't mean that you don't know not crack about it. Okay. Your children are being brought up in this country and they have to take all the basic classes Swan Lake whatever you have to come and bring them because that is your responsibility for the new generation that is growing right here. Okay. You're not in Puerto Rico anymore. Okay. You really in New York. So you have responsibility to your children to educate them and you know the responsibility is tremendous. In this way it's important to remind everybody it's a global world and it's significant in your own culture as you know read books from around the world and of course there is no mandate that the European one is more significant there are many many things. We got together because the idea of a festival and the idea is in the summer perhaps we were thinking of 2023 how theaters can participate and we just learned. I just learned before we opened on from Eva that Lincoln Center is having a very significant outreach with over 15 institutions who have signed up we didn't know about it to create a big summer festival but what do you feel how if there is a summer festival whoever organizes it we help and it's done by a big large institution how should such a festival look like and what would work for your theaters for Gregory, for John and Eva that makes the difference for us what would you like to see how would you like to participate if someone has been part of that what would be of significance John maybe we start with you Sure well with my audience is our children's shows whether it be educational show or an entertainment show always does well because you're basically selling 24 tickets at a time so it's very helpful that children and parents come and like what Eva said it helps grow the new generation of theater so that they get excited about it because a lot of times the younger children have never been inside a theater they know about television they know about videos they know about that and video games those kind of entertainment but for live performances it's something new to them and I can tell you this it gives me chills when we do a children's show and a dragon comes out onto the stage and you hear the whole audience go all at the same time and you think oh my gosh they get it it makes it exciting for them and it makes them want to come back to the theater you say if you do a festival think about families think about kids think about teenagers think about families going together in sharing that as a memory of lifetime so if any festival this has to be a major part of it and it would also help the college itself because if you bring teenagers and parents onto the campus they see the facilities and see what's going on when the time comes for a child to go thinking about going to college they can go no I was at a city university college and you should look at what's happening in the Bronx and what they have to offer it's not just about the big universities but the ones that are convenient for them to get to that would certainly pan out for them it happened to me that's a good reminder and I do agree especially also in America children's theater, young adults theater which has taken very serious in many places in the world Italy, Germany, France so much more could be done it's an ideal audience and also it shouldn't be just the musicals which are of course very expensive and guide you but the world is bigizing this is something to really keep up what do you think what would help you what would you like to say to people who create such a festival what does your neighborhood need what does the Bronx want well first of all I want to change the image of the Bronx so I would show the real talent of the Bronx and the real real people of the Bronx so this is your salsa music this is your bachata this is your hip hop this is what we are famous for you know we started hip hop Brooklyn and then Bronx we started Cubans we have lots of Cuban artists we would like to highlight the community our artists in our community you go to Lincoln Center you go to Carnegie Hall at Carnegie Hall you hear the greatest orchestras of the world you come to the Bronx you can hear the greatest Latino artists alive okay and there is plenty of them you won't believe how many Grammys these people have they just are not known to the wide population but you know I went on television on Chuck Scarborough's show with Paquito de Rivera and Chuck asked Paquito how many Grammys do you have and Paquito says well I don't know and I said Paquito you have nine Grammys be proud you know these people are very talented so I would like to showcase what Bronx has to offer so so John says keep companies in mind entertainment for every popular entertainment for families people live in circus also you know and people who live in the neighborhood don't just import someone from Italy, France, wherever you know in England showcase what we have what are you using in a festival setting what you have such a vast experience how should a festival look like what should be what should people really deeply think about such a festival well I think both ideas are great so far fantastic you know these festivals tend to be big famous companies right if you think about the Lincoln Center Festival bless Ariane Mnouchkin and the Royal Shakespeare Company but there's other brilliant work being done in France and the UK just to take those two countries and I don't know why they're the ones who come in I suppose because they're the most easily promotable but a festival that's celebrated both American New York City there's amazing work going on in the country in our own country that New Yorkers know nothing about and go to the most exciting countries in parts of the world that we're interested in in Asia and Africa and Central Europe and Eastern Europe these are not companies that the New York Times are writing about but for the American companies again just my yee yesterday because it was on my mind I mean they're really struggling they're like a month to month year to year operation doing amazing work to give them the certification of having being part of a festival and you're included on all the brochures and the websites and all that stuff would be a fantastic lift for them Do you remember in Poland underground theater in Poland? I am of the generation that had a copy of the empty space in one jeans pocket and towards a poor theater in the other jeans pocket Yes I grew up on a little of course so exactly there must be so many interesting trends in the theater you know that we are not even aware that's right and I could focus that with unbelievable under your leadership I'm sure you could find some weird stuff going on that it's world famous there are people who are very well known and the film does amazing work out at St. Anne's for instance you know she has a smaller space she's one of those theaters where if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me I'll just go out even if I've never heard of the company a festival organized along these lines would be very interesting to me and I hope it goes without saying 52 minutes into this discussion not affordable for young theater artists not just students but working people can't pay $80 $150 a ticket so it's just preaching to the choir it's silly you want to knock the American theater over a few clicks you have to make these connections between aspiring theater artists regardless of their age and interesting absolutely and also pandemic people don't have big bucks to spend either especially on entertainment when they lost jobs whatever it's been difficult times for people so I think it has to be reasonable it would have to be subsidized for whatever reason so that it could be beneficial and you either have to get the times behind it which is months and months and years of work and working connections or you need to ignore it and do it absolutely neighborhood based the hell with the New York Times we don't care about you because the focus on Broadway in that paper is disconcerting to me Broadway's back they're my friends I love them all but there's more to the American theater in New York City theater than Broadway is back I know it's a huge economic engine I get it but there are other ways of looking at this you're right Gregory not everyone is back not everyone is back by any means and especially also institutions that serve neighborhoods unique institutions even if Eva wouldn't have the energy to write the application to get the money the world Frank's stupidity and super ambition and being a complete idiot that I was because I sat day and night at that computer so the Bronx which is the mythical part of New York City would be without its public theater if Eva wouldn't have written that one was probably on her own in the night it should not be like this I think it's so wrong and I think CUNY theaters 21 of them or 25 theaters we have we have to find a way to be more visible and also demand I think support in this changing landscape away from commercial theater that is just about stars actor comes on stage people applaud I think what Gregory said this small company from maybe Lithuania that makes us think it's not sugar it's not soda drinks it's good food it's healthy food it's sustainable and theater as John said for young audiences where families can go the ticket is $100 family with two kids go the grandpa goes along with transportation and food it's $800 a day an evening it's wrong it's not sustainable they kill the arts also a net subscription for an entire year is $90 and you can share it with three people so we have to react we have to do something different and away also from blue chip companies and they should also be there but a new focus especially after the time of corona where everybody celebrated the bus drivers the supermarket workers the people who helped us to survive the hospitals the nurses where's the theater for them it's a human right it's a right to education healthcare and the right to access to the arts they should also get the support they need and I think statistics that Per had in the Bronx it's $4 and Manhattan $60 you know what's spent on it's also what you now say so racially motivated and this needs to change and I think if anything comes up maybe say a little bit I didn't know about it you just got an invitation from Lincoln Center the International Festival I didn't know about it I don't think it's international I think it's the New York festival they want to make it five listen I only read one email and I immediately jump on it because me you know I have energy or whatever so when something is happening I'm on top I'm on it so I joined the coalition because I think it's a good idea that all the boroughs will be involved and we're going to showcase what we can do for the city whatever so it's not a stuffy thing I don't think it's a stuffy thing it's something that they want to highlight New York arts good that's a great thing whatever it's happening doesn't matter it's happening in Bronx fine it's happening in Staten Island great so maybe we have a big meeting with a little bit more time up front with all our CUNY theaters and see how we can participate perhaps with some of the academic leaders you know find something how the city can get involved you could spear the whole you know coalition of CUNY theaters you could represent the CUNY theaters be part of it yeah or maybe sign up I don't know how you want to approach for two years we did actually a festival CUNY theaters it was in October we said to every local show the best what you have we put it together on a program no funding the CUNY central wouldn't even give us money for the postcard it was a bit disappointing and also this maybe we also weren't smart enough but as now on this time of Corona there's a new urgency and perhaps people will listen we have to organize ourselves like everybody else does and highlight the achievements the CUNY system does it's a little bit in the dark John Jay College always Lincoln Center but they won't even mention it as a CUNY theater it gave them favorable rates for shows that were paid by other people outside Lincoln Center anyway so let's see what we can be doing so I would like to thank you all for joining we said we keep it to an hour it's a beginning of a dialogue so the first time that we meet after Corona in a couple of years perhaps not paying enough attention to our system I will organize a big CUNY meeting and see how we can join existing things or create things John, Eva and Gregory thank you I know how many Zoom meetings you had in the last year and a half I know this is just one more on the list so it means a lot to me that you said yes we come to your little prelude festival to think about the contribution we can do I would like to thank HowlRound the great national broadcast non-profit theater organization that provides a platform for voices like ours which is tremendously helpful to think things through publicly to speak also in front of witnesses in a way and we are going on today at 3pm we will talk to New York cultural institutions we will have the Goethe Institute the Asia Society the French Cultural Services what are you guys doing how could you support an international festival with our CUNY theaters we are very interested actually and head of the Goethe Institute changed the meeting to be a part of it so let's see what we can do that a festival also have some kind of an intellectual dramaturgical global impact in the sense of Gregory what it said that we work with these centers and then at 5pm we have some of our prelude curators as you know we have 12 curators suggestions plus one or two others to think about how should a festival really like and what should not happen what is already so wrong that we don't have Dilla islands and perhaps you know big big big things of the sheds like whatever you know where people make over $700,000 a year to run something we feel why don't you support what's out there what already exists where people have experience so we also discussed that tonight is our last performance this festival will still be online thanks to our Seagal team Andy Tanby in Mumbai CactusJewels we have to make that happen on a true string it's a very very ambitious program we put together but we got it done I'm so thrilled it's one more confirmation why such alternative public discussions that really don't happen are out there and as Gregory said the New York Times and other and all the other village voice closed you know they are no more time out New York the real estate when it's getting smaller and smaller we need places public places to discuss the significance of it and I believe America needs theater New York City needs food theater it's essential and it's a city the only city in New York New York is the only city compared to other all the disciplines are the number of artists in our city is so big compared to any other city in the US and people come to this city because it's a city of culture because there is theater arts visual arts film but it has to be supported also we should make right decisions now and perhaps correct what it's wrong so thank you all I hope you join us later and for you guys we're trying to get a live preload party together so we invite you to come we have a restaurant and a little club to host us so I'll see you all in person thank you Andy, Jackie and everyone bye bye