Theater for the New City Presents LOVE 'N COURAGE Gala In February

Theater for the New City's Emerging Playwrights Program will be beneficiary of the theater's 22nd annual "Love 'n Courage" benefit Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at The Players, 16 Gramercy Park South.

The evening honors Peter Schumann, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Bread & Puppet Theater, and celebrates the theater's long relationship with that company.

Theater for the New City (TNC) is a four-theater complex at 155 First Avenue. Its awards include the Pulitzer Prize, 43 Village Voice OBIE Awards, nine Audelco Awards, two Bessie Awards, five ASCAP Awards, ten Rockefeller Playwrights Fellowships, The Mayor's Stop the Violence Award, the Manhattan Borough President’s Award for Public Service and Artistic Excellence in Theater, and a NY City Council Proclamation awarded to TNC’s Street Theater for its contributions to improving the quality of life in the City and its  “rich tradition of bringing theater to people in underserved neighborhoods.”

The Emerging Playwrights program is integral to the theater's mission, which includes being a center for new and innovative theater arts, discovering relevant new writing and nurturing new playwrights. TNC does not believe that readings are enough to help an artist to grow into the American playwriting mainstream. So the theater gives emerging artists full productions, with a minimum run of three weeks, with full lighting, sets, costumes and overall professional production values. The theater staff does marketing and ticket prices are kept low to ensure good attendance. Even with a schedule heavy with such productions, TNC is setting attendance records so far this season.

TNC is known as a prolific incubator of new writing. Each year there is the work of 10 to 20 emerging playwrights presented in a season of 30 to 40 premieres. No other theater approaches the volume of worldwide premieres that TNC has presented in the 54 years since its founding.

Playwrights are selected for the quality of their work and their historical and social vision. Executive Director Crystal Field declares, "That is our ballast. Everything else is just decoration." Many colleges have playwriting programs, but the process at TNC is different from what happens in university theaters because at TNC, the playwright is involved in all aspects of the production and has final say on everything including budget, casting, designers and choice of director. Once the play is selected, the producer cannot fire the writer and there is no censorship of any kind. It's a nurturing relationship in which the author is also invited to create a new work for each of the following two seasons, often providing a gateway for their entrance into commercial theater.

Emerging playwright productions have use of the theater's set and costume shops and its vast inventory of set pieces. Each theater space is fully equipped and since Covid began, TNC has added streaming capabilities.

This year, "Love 'n Courage" will be hosted by songwriter/playwright/performer Phoebe Legere and actor David F. Slone Esq.

During the cocktail hour, beginning at 6:00 PM, entertainment will include performances by The Head Peddlers (Elizabeth Ruf and Karl Bateman) and Human Kinetics (Yana Schnitzler and company). At 6:20 PM, students of TNC's after school cultural arts program, ages 8-12, will perform songs they created at TNC.

The seated dinner will begin at 6:45 PM. Entertainment will begin at 8:00 PM on The Players' stage, featuring a mixture of acts: songs performed by Charles Busch and Phoebe Legere, a performance by Ashley Liang Dance Company, a singalong by The Yip Harburg Rainbow Troupe, performances by Thunderbird American Indian Dancers (flute solo by Louis Mofsie and the Hoop Dance by Marie Ponce), songs performed by Luka and Niko Zylik (The Shepherd Song from "Tosca" and "Why Am I Me" from "Shenandoah"), an excerpt from "Orson’s Shadow," written and directed by Austin Pendleton; and a song from TNC's 2024 Street Theater musical, "The Socialization of a Social Worker," performed by Michael David Gordon.

There will be a live auction, organized by Philip Hackett, offering two iconic photos of Bob Dylan signed by the photographer, Elliott Landy, and donated to TNC by playwright David McDonald.

The gathering will be addressed by City Councilmember Carlina Rivera.

Peter Schumann (honoree) is one of the country's most prominent arts activists. He was born in 1934 in Silesia and moved to the USA with his wife, Elka, and their two children in 1961. The couple founded The Bread and Puppet Theater on the Lower East Side in 1963. During the Vietnam War, the troupe attained prominence for its block-long processions and pageants involving hundreds of people. It moved to Vermont as theater-in- residence at Goddard College in 1970 and subsequently to a farm in Glover, VT in 1974, retaining TNC as its New York home and performing one or more productions there each year since 1981. Schuman's puppets have become emblematic of activist pacifism and a sine qua non of American political theater, exemplified by their presence in events from the 1982 Disarmament Parade to the 2023 Climate March and many community and activist performances in between.

Writing in the New York Times in 2007, the year the company also appeared at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Holland Cotter described Peter Schumann's epics as "spectacle for the heart and soul." At this year's "Love 'n Courage," Mr. Schuman will deliver a mini lecture while playing the violin.

The benefit committee includes F. Murray Abraham, David Amram, Lincoln Anderson, Alexander Bartenieff, Joe John Battista, Charles Busch, Myrna Duarte, Carol Dudgeon, Renee S. Edelman, Crystal Field, Matthew Fitzgerald, Andrea Fulton, Assembly Member Deborah Glick, Robert Gonzales, Jr., Robert Greer, Philip Hackett, Alan Hanna, Deena & Ernie Harburg, Celia Kornfeld, Anne Lucas, Eduardo Machado, Nancy and Allan Manocherian, Mark Marcante, Audrey Heffernan Meyer, Louis Mofsie, Lissa Moira, Matt Morillo, Stephan Morrow, Emily Pezzella, Janet Piontek (Chair), Richard Ploetz, Tim Robbins, Liana Rosario, Michael Scott-Price, Jonathan Slaff, David F. Slone, Esq., Mary Tierney, Jenne Vath, Janet Piontek (Chair), Joel Vig, Jonathan Weber, Patricia & Dr. Jay Weiner, and Lewis Widoff.

Cocktails are at 6:00 PM with a seated dinner at 6:45 PM. Performances begin at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $250 (individuals) and $2000 for a table of ten, available online at www.theaterforthenewcity.net. For info call (212) 254-1109. RSVP by February 5. Dress is festive.

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