On Oct. 23, theater artists, managing directors, board members, and three government leaders from the region— Didi Barrett, Gregg Pulver, and Ron Hicks—converged on The Stissing Center for the first in a series of conversations about the state of the performing arts in the Hudson Valley. More pointedly, they discussed how to create a sustainable, engaged, and collaborative arts community here, enhanced by and inclusive of businesses.
Guest speaker Jonathan McCrory, artistic director of the National Black Theatre in Harlem (which most recently produced the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fat Ham on Broadway), regaled the crowd of more than 40 on the correlation between sustaining businesses and supporting the performing arts. In his words, they “lift up each other, and the communities they are in.”
“How are we a constellation?” McCrory asked. “Our existences are tethered to each other.” He spoke about creating spaces that are destinations for the arts, and the idea of each venue cultivating its own piece of land in order to do that, so that they generate an anchor, a home, a sense of purpose, and a sense of ownership by everyone in their community. A place where young people can dream of performing, building, running tech and learning management. He spoke of the grief people felt after the pandemic both for those they’d lost and for the loss of the way things were before Covid hit. Helping people recover from that might just be the job of the arts. He believes that those theaters in the nation which are thriving are addressing that.
But audiences here seem reluctant to drive distances to see plays now; businesses that were open after-theatre have cut back hours; and young people can’t afford to live here, let alone buy tickets. McCrory cited the need to shift the patterns theaters were in before the pandemic in order to reach the audience where it is now.
Executive Director Brett Bernardini of The Stissing Center hosted the event. The panel convened consisted of Ron Hicks, Director of Economic Development for Dutchess County, Assemblywoman Didi Barrett, Jeff Mousseau, Artistic Director of the Ancram Center for the Performing Arts, Michael Rhodes, Artistic Director of Tangent Theatre, and Lou Trapani of the Rhinebeck Center for the Performing Arts (RPA). All spoke about their experiences running theatres and trying to stay afloat.
Tangent Theatre lost the space they’d built in Tivoli and performed in for 15 years. RPA has seen a huge reduction in ticket sales. Covid brought new people to the Hudson Valley but many do not go out at night. According to Hicks, pre-Covid, the Arts generated millions of dollars of business revenues and salaries in the Hudson Valley.
The audience was just as accomplished as the panel. Members of the Stissing Theatre Guild, Round the Bend Theatre in Saugerties, Bridge Theatre in Catskill, Dutchess Community College and unaffiliated artists engaged with the panel. All seemed determined to engage in a rigorous discourse through which they hope to evolve a new way of being essential to their communities.
Bernardini is planning four similar conversations in 2024 to further explore how theaters can respond to the needs of their post-pandemic audience and become sustainable for the long haul.