TRU Community Gathering via Zoom – Politics and Art: Current Efforts to Revitalize Live Performance in New York

A dependable haven for artists in isolation, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is now into its second year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings this Friday, having offered to date over 100 conversations and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts their Community Gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of COVID-19. These crucial conversations will continue going forward as theater reopens. Ask questions, bring answers, be part of a community – it’s an opportunity to network with theater professionals and talk about keeping theater alive during shutdown, and what we are doing now, going forward.

To receive the Zoom invitation for future meetings, email TRUnltd@aol.com with “Zoom Me” in the subject header. These gatherings are free for TRU members, non-members are asked to make a tax-deductible donation – or consider joining TRU – to support the organization during these challenging times.

Friday 4/22 – Politics and Art: Current Efforts to Revitalize Live Performance in New York. In the room: Erik Bottcher, councilperson for New York City’s 3rd district (Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Greenwich Village, West SoHo, Hudson Square, Times Square, Garment District, Flatiron, Upper West Side); and Julie Menin, councilperson for NYC’s 5th district (Upper East Side’s Yorkville, Lenox Hill, Carnegie Hill, Roosevelt Island, Midtown East, Sutton Place, El Barrio in East Harlem), former NYC commissioner of Media and Entertainment; and Aimee Todoroff, managing director League of Independent Theater. While government support for the arts is a given in many countries, why has America been slow to actively support our cultural voice? Is it inevitable that other social issues be prioritized over the struggle of artists? In our educational system, why do sports outperform the arts in the arena of funding? Currently what is New York doing to support the return of theater and what are the most effective channels to go through to initiate necessary changes? And how are a politician’s well-meaning goals affected by the realities of the political world? Click here to register and receive the zoom link: https://truonline.org/events/politics-and-art-2/.

UPCOMING:
Friday 4/29 – Thinking in Zoom: Adjusting to (and Conquering) a Hybrid Medium. In the room: writer David Beardsley (Every Creeping Thing), writer John Busser (Obstacle), writer James McLindon (The First Anti-Vaxxers), writer Kristy Thomas (Only Black), writer Ian Patrick Williams (Slave Trade). A zoom reading can be as simple as talking heads in frames, but what do you do when you need to generate the sense of a real production with interaction and production values, and still adhere to the restrictions of shutdown? Though we’re coming back to live performance, in order to use the Theatre Authority Benefit Agreement, TRUSpeak needed to be shot virtually with actors in isolation. What happens to a play conceived for stage when it has to be rethought for virtual presentation? What did the writers learn, and what might they take with them into the future? What was it like having to think in film terms? Click here to register and receive the zoom link: https://truonline.org/events/thinking-in-zoom-2022/.

Check back at our web page for the 2022 schedule: https://truonline.org/tru-community-gathering/ Videos of past Community Gatherings may be viewed on TRU’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/channel/UC43rsChi4fA23dNLeloaF_A/.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a twenty-nine-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies. TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, goods and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab. Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation. For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.