On Monday, June 1, HERE honors Mary McCormick, President of the Fund for the City of New York, and Donn Russell, Director of The Peg Santvoord Foundation, at its annual gala. The gala, entitled FutureCity, begins at 6:00pm with the Taste of Tomorrow Dinner at City Winery (155 Varick Street) featuring VIP Cocktail Reception, dinner, performances and live & silent auctions, and continues with The HEREafter Party, beginning at 8:30pm at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue), with cocktails, hors d'Oeuvres, silent auction, performances and dancing.
HERE's FutureCity gala, hosted by Daphne Gaines, features performances by Michael Cerveris, David Greenspan, Mila Henry, Arturo O'Farrill, Bombay Rickey, DJ Sammy Jo, Kamala Sankaram, Sxip Shirey and Third Rail. Proceeds support HERE, the award-winning producer and presenter of contemporary hybrid work for more than 20 years, renowned for the HERE Artist Residency Program, the Dream Music Puppetry Program, and the PROTOTYPE festival.
Tickets for the Taste of Tomorrow Dinner include VIP cocktail reception beginning at 6:00pm, seated dinner at City Winery (155 Varick Street), and access to the HEREafter Party. Individual dinner tickets are available at $500 or $1,000 levels, with tables available for purchase for $5,000, $10,000, and $25,000, and are accompanied by a range of perks. Full details at
www.here.org/show/futurecity.
Tickets are also are available for the HEREafter Party at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue) with doors at 8:30pm, performances beginning at 9:00pm, and from 10:00pm onwards, dance the night away! HEREafter tickets are 1 for $100, or 2 for $150 using the code HEREAFTER, and can be purchased online at
www.here.org/show/futurecity. To buy tickets over the phone or via email, contact Emily Kaplan, Development Associate, at 212.647.0202 ext. 326, or emily@here.org.
Honoree Mary McCormick, President of the Fund for the City of New York, is recognized as an innovator in nonprofit and government management, social entrepreneurship and adapting emerging technologies for the benefit of communities and families. The Fund was established in 1968 by the Ford Foundation with the mandate to improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers. The Fund's Cash Flow Loan Program currently makes about $90 million of bridge loans annually and its Partner Project Program has 70 organizations. The Performing Arts are a special interest of the Fund's. The Fund has made both operating and capital loans (at no interest) to arts organizations totaling about $25 million; it managed the Open Society Performing Arts Initiative that made $12 million of grants to help groups recover from the 2008 recession; and it raised $2 million for loans and grants to arts organizations most affected by Hurricane Sandy. Because of her special interest in the arts, Ms. McCormick served as Chair of the Board of Bargemusic, on the board of
Elisa Monte Dance and on the Advisory Board of Ensemble Studio Theater. Ms. McCormick is currently a member of the Hudson Square Connection BID, The Mayor's Fund to Advance New York, and Peace is Loud. Her work has recently been recognized with a 2013 City & State Above and Beyond Award, the Charles Marshall Robertson Award for Outstanding Contributions to Art Education in New York City Public Schools, and the 2015 inaugural Civic Fame Award presented by The Center of New York City Law School for her "...exceptional service to the civic life of New York City." She is an honors graduate of Radcliffe College and has a MBA and PhD from Columbia University.
Over the last half century, honoree Donn Russell has dedicated himself to nurturing the performing arts in lower Manhattan and elsewhere with donations and grants mainly for non-traditional theater endeavors. First as a co-founder and director of the Peg Santvoord Foundation beginning in 1965, which donated seminal aid to a number of the talented individuals and groups who are well known in Off and Off-Off-Broadway circles today. On his own, he has endeavored to seek out and provide support to the most gifted experimental innovators in the field. His book, AVANT-GUARDIAN: 1965-1990: A Theater Foundation Director's 25 Years Off Broadway, attests to it. He will be celebrating his 50th and final year at the HERE Gala on June 1. His successor will be announced in mid-June.
The OBIE-winning HERE (
Kristin Marting, Artistic Director and
Kim Whitener, Producing Director), founded in 1993, is a leader in the field of producing and presenting new, hybrid performance viewed as a seamless integration of artistic disciplines -- theater, dance, music and opera, puppetry, media, visual and installation, spoken word and performance art. Standout productions include
Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues,
Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique and Arias with a Twist,
Hazelle Goodman's On Edge,
Trey Lyford &
Geoff Sobelle's all wear bowlers,
Young Jean Lee's Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven,
Corey Dargel's Removable Parts, Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Kamala Sankaram's Miranda, and Robin Frohardt's The Pigeoning, among many others. In 2008, following an extensive renovation, HERE re-opened the doors to its long-time downtown home for the arts, where it continues as a vibrant, welcoming haven for artists and audiences alike. In addition to commissioning, developing and producing innovative new work from artists in the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), HERE co-produces the acclaimed PROTOTYPE opera-theatre and music-theatre festival, with
Beth Morrison Projects. Through its popular SubletSeries@HERE, HERE also proudly hosts adventurous artists, companies and productions - whether emerging or acclaimed -- from New York and around the country.
The HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) has been HERE's core program since 1998. HARP commissions, develops and premieres new hybrid performances. Productions developed at HERE challenge existing boundaries between disciplines -- theater, dance, music, opera, puppetry, media, visual arts, installation, spoken word and more. Through HARP, the Resident Artists are given the unique opportunity to develop their projects for up to three years through free works-in-progress showings, workshop presentations in HERE's annual CULTUREMART festival, culminating in full-scale productions. Each season, HERE premieres several of these Resident Artist productions as mainstage works. These innovative projects are grown in a diverse artistic community where artists receive career development resources and hands-on training. HARP has been widely recognized as a unique model for artistic development for the field to emulate. In honoring HERE with the 2009 Ross Wetzsteon Award, the OBIE Committee noted, "it's become increasingly hard for artists to find a place to take risks, a safe haven where they can develop daring new work. One theater has regularly bucked the trend, making its mission to ensure that artists have a home for their research and development, and that theatregoers can sample the exciting results."
