Theater Resources Unlimited Will Host 'What I Am Thankful For: Focusing on the Positive (in Spite of It All)'

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is now in its fourth year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings this Friday, having offered to date over 200 conversations and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts these Community Gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, originally presented to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of COVID-19, and now to ensure that these crucial conversations continue going forward.

11/29 - What I Am Thankful For: Focusing on the Positive (in Spite of It All). In the room: TRU board members including Margot Astrachan, producer (The Roommate, Water for Elephants, Diana, The Prom, A Gentleman's Guide..., Ghost the musical, Around the World in 80 Days, Nice Work If You Can Get It, On a Clear Day...); Patrick Blake, producer (The 39 Steps, Bedlam Theatre’s Hamlet/St. Joan, My Life Is a Musical, Play Dead, The Exonerated), founding artistic director of Rhymes Over Beats Hip Hop Theater Collective; Scott Sickles, playwright and Emmy-winning TV writer; board chair Sandy Silverberg, tech consultant, producer (The Way Out); We'll talk about coping with the current political climate, and focus on what we can do to stay centered, creative and productive. Click here to register and receive the zoom link. 

UPCOMING:

12/6 - Politics and Art: City and State Initiatives to Support the Arts, and What We Can Do. In the room: NY State Assemblyman Robert Carroll and Paul Leibowitz, co-founder of IndieSpace, celebrating and centering independent theater-making in New York City, and founder of newly formed Plot, which provides real estate advisory and transactional services with the goal to secure creative community spaces in New York City. Politicians who support and actually talk about the arts are few and far between, and bills that directly affect the NYC theater industry are rare. Enter Robert Carroll, an attorney who was an active part of the indie and not-for-profit theater scene and found his way into politics to facilitate necessary changes. How hard was the transition? Paul Leibowitz and IndieSpace offer programs to empower and support small theater companies. The two (plus others) have come together to create the New York Arts Space Act which offers tax incentives to landlords who include affordable rehearsal and office space for the arts when converting buildings from commercial to residential. Paul will also share about the multiple programs that IndieSpace offers to keep the indie arts scene alive and thriving, and his plans for Plot. And we will certainly talk about what the rest of us can do to strengthen the arts. Click here to register and receive the zoom link. 

12/13 - Designs for a Living: Creating Sets and Building a Career. (Postponed from 11/8) In the room: Beowulf Boritt, set designer (Tony Awards for Act One and New York, New York; nominated for The Scottsboro Boys, Thérese Raquin, Flying Over Sunset, POTUS; Obie Award for Sustained Excellence). Being a sought after designer in New York theater doesn't just happen. Or does it? Meet a designer whose career came as a surprise, though hard work and lucky breaks certainly helped. We'll talk about the steps along the way, and what distinguishes his designs. Surely a production must inspire a designer, but does a designer ever inspire a production? Is there a Boritt style or esthetic? We'll also consider the dynamics of collaboration with a director and - more crucially - the other designers on a show. And we'll look at how Boritt is "passing it forward" with his 1/52 Project that provides grants to early-career designers. Click here to register and receive the zoom link.

More information about upcoming interviews is available at: truonline.org/tru-community-gathering.

To receive the Zoom invitation for weekly 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 an optional tax-deductible donation or consider joining TRU at truonline.org/membership to support the organization’s ongoing service to the community.

Videos of past Community Gatherings may be viewed on TRU’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/channel/UC43rsChi4fA23dNLeloaF_A/. And a podcast series, TRU Talks About Theater, featuring 2023 Community Gathering conversations, is now available wherever you get your podcasts; or tune in at ElectraCast: https://electracast.com/?s=Theater+Resources

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a thirty-two-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, opportunities 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, TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices evening of short plays about social issues, 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; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.

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