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Assault
on Culture
Look
up the word “culture” in Webster’s New World Dictionary
and you will find it defined as “the arts and other manifestations
of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.”
I fear for the loss of our culture. And the fear has increased
of late.
I was shocked when I heard of Gov. David Paterson’s draconian
proposal to cut the New York State Theatre Institute’s budget
to a degree that would effectively kill a national treasure.
One becomes accustomed to such salvos launched at arts organizations
in financially troubled times, but I wonder how many of New
York’s politicians really know what NYSTI is. I also wonder
if they are aware of the severe collateral damage that will
be inflicted on education in New York state. I am not overstating
the case in saying that our culture hangs in very tenuous
balance today, and that the threat to NYSTI and similar organizations
is but another deadly assault on an endangered culture that
is rapidly losing its rich artistic heritage.
As a theater teacher for 34 years in nearby Massachusetts,
I have seen the cycles of economic downturns that periodically
wipe out arts programs—programs that, incidentally, do not
return when the economy recovers. I am also acutely aware
of the destruction being wrought on the arts in a society
that has gone mad about high-stakes testing and preparing
children to take said tests in extra courses that prohibit
classes in art, music and theater. During these times, I have
always looked across the state border to New York and pointed
to NYSTI as a sign that at least one state had gotten it right,
that someone was keeping a vital beacon of culture lit.
I discovered NYSTI when I began working as a theater critic
for Metroland. At first I thought it was a theater
company that produced shows for kids, and frankly, I wasn’t
keen to go to my first NYSTI production. Nor, as it turned
out, had I even an inkling of what NYSTI really was. I learned
quickly. My very first impression was that if this was theater
for kids, I was very happy to be a kid again, for NYSTI has
always treated its young audiences as first-class citizens
deserving of high production values that would be at home
on any Broadway stage. Sitting in a theater filled with young
people, I experienced their collective sense of awe at being
transported into a theatrical universe that many of them would
otherwise never encounter. Have you seen Avatar? NYSTI
does something very similar, but with live performers in real-time—and
with a remarkable educational mission.
Before our travel funds were cut, I took student groups to
NYSTI shows, and it was then that I learned that NYSTI was
far more than simply a theater whose productions had enormous
educational value. NYSTI is, first, an educational institution.
A student trip to NYSTI is rarely limited to simply seeing
a show. NYSTI artists make preliminary visits to classrooms
to introduce the play. After performances, NYSTI actor-teachers
and technician-teachers hold residency classes that cleverly
tie the theater experience into any subjects in a school’s
curriculum. It’s during these interdisciplinary classes that
students make connections and have true “eureka” experiences
that are never forgotten.
Long before Broadway and regional theaters began offering
study guides to students on field trips, NYSTI was preparing
wonderfully creative and inspiring guides that integrated
the production at hand into virtually any classes the students
were taking, including math and science! I believe NYSTI created
the template on which other theaters based their own study
guides. It is important to remember that NYSTI was created
to educate and that its lessons and study guides were born
out of a sincere commitment to do this and not, as is unfortunately
too often the case, to merely have an educational component
to attract grants. The quality of NYSTI’s educational materials
is measurable in direct proportion to the sincerity of its
mission. It was founded to educate; other theaters were founded
to simply entertain, with education as an afterthought.
Nor does NYSTI’s education program end with school-based performances
and classroom lessons. It also offers internships, teacher
in-service workshops, teacher nights, weekend and vacation
programs, and youth productions wherein students perform for
their peers. It offers a staggering number of services to
some 60,000 individuals each year, and that doesn’t include
the services such as lectures and career-day visits that it
provides to public and private schools and colleges. In financially
troubled times, NYSTI offers tremendous bang for the taxpayer’s
buck.
In the past 35 years, NYSTI has produced seven productions
a year (not including youth productions); that’s 245 productions
(and study guides). That doesn’t include the audio books and
DVDs of such shows as the marvelous original, A Tale of
Cinderella (which played on national PBS for three years),
that have made their ways into thousands of households throughout
our country. Truly, millions of individuals, old and (mostly)
young have been positively impacted by this gem of a company
that has never had any but the most altruistic of purposes.
I could go on to rave about NYSTI’s highly effective ambassadorship
to other countries, and I could rattle off the dozens of accomplishments
and awards that the institute has accrued. But two say it
all.
While he was the theater critic for The New York Times,
Frank Rich wrote that NYSTI “may well prove to be one of the
most important theatrical institutions in the state, if not
the entire country.” Anyone who knows Rich knows that he is
not easily given over to praise.
Rich’s remarks, made in 1980, proved prescient. On Aug. 11,
2009, at a ceremony at Sardi’s in New York City, NYSTI and
its visionary founding director were awarded the prestigious
Lifetime Achievement Medallions by the Children’s Theatre
Foundation of America. It is the highest honor to which any
theater that works with children can aspire.
It is inconceivable that this worthy educational institution
should face demise. NYSTI can, however, be saved in the very
quarters where it was created, the New York State Legislature.
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Patricia Di Benedetto Snyder
and her students on SUNY’s Albany campus were experimenting
with the use of theater as a teacher. Concurrently, the New
York State Commission on Cultural Resources (a bipartisan
commission of legislators and people from the private sector
knowledgeable about the arts) was discovering a link between
the arts and education. In March 1973, its findings were published
by the New York State Legislature, which decided to implement
some of the commission’s recommendations by creating the theatre
institute in 1974.
Thousands of children, teachers, parents and adults who had
their first formative theater experience at NYSTI are praying
that the legislature will save one of its worthiest creations.
Not only are many hopes hanging in the balance, so too is
our culture.
—
Ralph Hammann
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