IS THE NEA ALIVE? Yes it is. However, for us at the Workshop, after 25 years of support, the Expansion Arts, Theatre and Dance Programs of the National Endowment for the Arts, closed back in December, 1996.
Is this the end of "the Great Second WPA?" With the critical loss of federal funding support from the defunct Expansion Arts Program, the Workshop is now urgently seeking new donations from any and all private, individual arts supporters and theatre goers. With your financial help, the Workshop's continued vital new young emerging playwrights' development, will continue to grow new talented playwrights, as well as directors, and yes, producers also. Please be kind enough to send any tax-deductible donation to the Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop, P.O. Box 1791, Manhattanville Station, New York, NY 10027. Thanks for your support!
"Arts is Healing and Healing is an Art!"
If
one of our fearless leaders, the late great producer, Joseph Papp, were still
alive and with us today, what would he say? And what would he do in these
dangerous and horrific times? Yes, in the terrible face of the 911 bombing
attack and destruction of one the greatest symbols of American economic power,
the New York State World Trade Center, and the start a new "World Theatre
of War?
Our theatres and all expressions of the arts were shut down the moment the mad suicide bombing airlines stuck the Twin Towers and thousand of innocent people of all colors and national origins, met their tragic collective and individual deaths. Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions and dance performances of all types, screamed to a screeching halt. And a number of shows died too, instantly, and many works of art were on "life support" systems.
Well, indeed perhaps we should "speak" to the ancestral spirit of such as "the great Joe," of the Public Theatre fame, and who we might hear his message to say to us all these words of wisdom:
"Remember, my friends and fellow artists, that Arts is Healing and Healing in an Art!" So Let's go for it and fight for our God-given right, talent and obligation to create a "New World" of artful expression and cultural teachings for our children and future. One that is truly reflective of our thoughts and profoundly of the "Great Sacred Spirit" of the love of life and "the pursuit of happiness," in this fateful start of the New Millennium!
The World Trade Center buildings maybe gone physically, "Toast!" But this is our World, not the "Demons of Terror!" And the Times belong to all of us, whom are living. Yes, the "Children of the Light," who are well and brave enough to understand, that if you are indeed alive today, after these horrific attacks, tests, and can get out of bed in the morning, face the "Rising Sun," that you have "work" to do! And this work, you as artists and all hard working people must do, if our "World" as we know and want it to be, shall and must be!
Yes, indeed, "To be or not to be," that is still the profound question, according to "Willie, the Shake, who shook everybody!" So, as the great poet, T. S. Eliott, profoundly said: "Let us go, you and I while the evening is spread out against the Sky....." "Oh, do not ask what is it, let us go and make our visit!"
We at the Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop, Inc., will propose an "Arts as Healing" component, as well as we again coordinated the Readers' Theatre Series at the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC (August 3 - 8), as an expression of our Arts of all kinds, for the coming FY 2009-10. We must do this to survive and we will do so.
