World Theatre Day 2024

 

[The statements below are from the website of the International Theatre Institute.  ITI, an NGO in formal associate relations with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was officially inaugurated during the meeting of its first World Congress in Prague in 1948, organized on the initiative of UNESCO and a group of international theater experts. 

[ITI’s charter objectives are: To promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in the domain of the performing arts; to stimulate creation and increase cooperation among theater people; to increase public awareness of the need to take artistic creation into consideration in the domain of Development; to deepen mutual understanding and contribute to the consolidation of peace and friendship between peoples; to join in the defense of the ideals and aims of UNESCO; and to combat all forms of racism or social and political discrimination.

[To further its goals and especially to spread the idea of theater as a bridge-builder for peace and mutual understanding, in 1961 ITI created World Theatre Day, celebrated annually on 27 March.  Each year the Executive Council of ITI selects a message author and circulates the international address all over the world.  The message is translated into more than 20 languages.

[I’ve published on World Theatre Day several times before on Rick On Theater, and ROTters who are interested should check out the past posts to read earlier messages: “World Theatre Day 2012,” 24 April 2012; “World Theatre Day: 27 March 2022,” 4 April 2022; “World Theatre Day 2023,” 27 March 2023.] 

WORLD THEATRE DAY: INTERNATIONAL MESSAGE 2024
Jon Fosse

Art Is Peace

Every person is unique and yet also like every other person. Our visible, external appearance is different from everyone else’s, of course, that is all well and good, but there is also something inside each and every one of us which belongs to that person alone—which is that person alone. We might call this their spirit, or their soul. Or else we can decide not to label it at all in words, just leave it alone. 

But while we are all unlike one another, we’re alike too. People from every part of the world are fundamentally similar, no matter what language we speak, what skin color we have, what hair color we have.

This may be something of a paradox: that we are completely alike and utterly dissimilar at the same time. Maybe a person is intrinsically paradoxical, in our bridging of body and soul—we encompass both the most earthbound, tangible existence and something that transcends these material, earthbound limits, against what lies deep inside all art.

Art, good art, manages in its wonderful way to combine the utterly unique with the universal. It lets us understand what is different—what is foreign, you might say—as being universal. By doing so, art breaks through the boundaries between languages, geographical regions, countries. It brings together not just everyone’s individual qualities but also, in another sense, the individual characteristics of every group of people, for example of every nation.

Art does this not by levelling differences and making everything the same, but, on the contrary, by showing us what is different from us, what is alien or foreign. All good art contains precisely that: something alien, something we cannot completely understand and yet at the same time do understand, in a way. It contains a mystery, so to speak. Something that fascinates us and thus pushes us beyond our limits and in so doing creates the transcendence that all art must both contain in itself and lead us to.

I know of no better way to bring opposites together. This is the exact reverse approach from that of the violent conflicts we see all too often in the world, which indulge the destructive temptation to annihilate anything foreign, anything unique and different, often by using the most inhuman inventions technology has put at our disposal. There is terrorism in the world. There is war. For people have an animalistic side, too, driven by the instinct to experience the other, the foreign, as a threat to one’s own existence rather than as a fascinating mystery.

This is how uniqueness—the differences we all can see—disappear, leaving behind a collective sameness where anything different is a threat that needs to be eradicated. What is seen from without as a difference, for example in religion or political ideology, becomes something that needs to be defeated and destroyed.

War is the battle against what lies deep inside all of us: something unique. And it is also a battle against art, against what lies deep inside all art.

I have been speaking here about art in general, not about theater or playwriting in particular, but that is because, as I’ve said, all good art, deep down, revolves around the same thing: taking the utterly unique, the utterly specific, and making it universal. Uniting the particular with the universal by means of expressing it artistically: not eliminating its specificity but emphasizing this specificity, letting what is foreign and unfamiliar shine clearly through.

War and art are opposites, just as war and peace are opposites—it’s as simple as that. Art is peace.

Translated by: Damion Searls

Biography of Jon Fosse
Norwegian writer, playwright 

Jon Fosse is a renowned Norwegian writer born in 1959. He is known for his extensive body of work, which includes plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books, and translations. Fosse’s writing style is characterized by minimalism and emotional depth, making him one of the most performed playwrights in the world. In 2023, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his innovative plays and prose that give voice to the unsayable.

Fosse’s work has been translated into over fifty languages, with productions presented on over a thousand stages worldwide. His minimalist and introspective plays, often bordering on lyrical prose and poetry, continue the dramatic tradition established by Henrik Ibsen [Norwegian; 1828-1906] in the 19th century. Fosse’s work has been associated with post-dramatic theatre, and his notable novels have been described as post-modernist and avant-garde due to their minimalism, lyricism, and unconventional use of syntax.

[Post-dramatic (or postdramatic, post dramatic) theater is a term coined by German theater scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann (b. 1944) in his book Postdramatic Theatre (1999). It represents a departure from traditional, text-based, and plot-driven drama. Lehmann describes a shift away from the traditional dramatic elements of plot, character, and dialogue to a theater characterized by a focus on the performative and visual aspects rather than a structured narrative. The linear narrative, cause-and-effect relationships, and character development are often fragmented or discarded.

[Post-dramatic theater—which arose in the modern theater in the middle of the 20th century, though examples exist in classic drama—treats the performance as an event rather than a representation. The experience of the audience is crucial, and the boundaries between the stage and the audience may be blurred. Some key characteristics of post-dramatic theater include non-linear and fragmented narratives; emphasis on the live, embodied performance itself; blurring the boundaries between the stage and the audience; and challenging the conventional separation between performer and spectator.]

Fosse gained international acclaim as a dramatist with his play “Nokon kjem til å komme” (1996; “Someone Is Going to Come,” 2002), known for its radical reduction of language and powerful expression of human emotions. Inspired by artists like Samuel Beckett [Irish; 1906-89] and Thomas Bernhard [Austrian; 1931-89], Fosse combines local ties with modernist techniques. His works portray the uncertainties and vulnerabilities of human experiences without nihilistic contempt. In his plays, Fosse often leaves incomplete words or acts, creating a sense of unresolved tension. Themes of uncertainty and anxiety are explored in plays like “Natta syng sine songar” (1998; “Nightsongs,” 2002) and “Dødsvariasjonar” (2002; “Death Variations,” 2004). Fosse’s courage in delving into everyday life’s anxieties has contributed to his widespread recognition.

Fosse’s novels, such as “Morgon og kveld” (2000; “Morning and Evening,” 2015) and “Det er Ales” (2004; “Aliss at the Fire,” 2010), showcase his unique language characterized by pauses, interruptions, negations, and profound questioning. The trilogy “Trilogien” (2016) and the septology “Det andre namnet” (2019; “The Other Name,” 2020) further demonstrate Fosse’s exploration of love, violence, death, and reconciliation.

Fosse’s use of imagery and symbolism is evident in his poetic works, including “Sterk vind” (2021) and his poetry collection “Dikt i samling” (2021). He has also translated works by Georg Trakl [German poet; 1887-1914] and Rainer Maria Rilke [Austrian poet; 1875-1926] into Nynorsk [an official form of written Norwegian].

Overall, Jon Fosse’s works delve into the essnce of the human condition, tackling themes of uncertainty, anxiety, love, and loss. With his unique writing style and profound exploration of everyday situations, he has established himself as a major figure in contemporary literature and theatre.

—From the International Theatre Institute

*  *  *  *
WORLD THEATRE DAY: U.S. MESSAGE 2024
Luis Alfaro 

Hello Friends,

I am so happy to be speaking with you from the ancestral lands of the Gabrielino/Tongva Nation, otherwise known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora, la Reina de Los Angeles, or as we simply say, Los Angeles.

On this very special occasion, I hope I don’t sound like a crazy optimist when I say that theatre saves lives. I know this because it changed mine.

As an artist who was raised in poverty in a barrio in downtown Los Angeles, I am conscious of a violence that accompanied me in my youth. A way of thinking about my limited choices which were constantly confirmed in mainstream images that distorted my culture and its options.

The message was clear, survival was the objective. For some it meant joining gangs, addiction or learning prison systems. For others, like me, it was the refuge of a public library where I discovered, that I was, what they called, an artist.

Which is to say that exploring and practicing expression was a way of learning what freedom was.

Discovering this freedom in every play I checked out from the library, showed me that language was attached to feelings that lived in bodies that had metaphorical wings, capable of transport.

Words, as I read them carried me far when I was growing up. They were comfort in a harsh world. When I wrote words as a teenager, my restlessness to know more stories, took me on real journeys. To you, and your stories, which, I often find, are my stories. The details are different, but the feelings, the same.

Theatre has an extraordinary power to cross all borders and let us see each other, not just on stage, but in the audience as well.

My parents, with their farmworker history, did not know how to access this world. We simply could not afford it, but they desperately wanted it for me.

I collected cans and bottles. At football soccer games, I sold sandwiches my mother made. I raised enough money to buy tickets to see theatre.

My parents drove me to see the first national tour of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Pacific Overtures’ starring the legendary Asian American actor, Mako.

Then, they drove me to my first play, the first national tour of Ntozake Shange’s ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf’.

Then, Luis Valdez’s seminal Chicano work, ‘Zoot Suit’, a history of Los Angeles and Mexican Americans. My Story.

They waited in the car across the street from the Mark Taper Forum Theatre at the Music Center of Los Angeles County.

My parents had no clue what I was seeing, but they could see that something was expanding in me.

I began to understand that the world was much bigger than the one I had been given. There was another world out there. I had little idea how it worked, but I could see that even if it was foreign, it was also capable of being me.

Each play, from the Mahabharata [a Hindu epic poem; a film version of Peter Brook’s 9-hour stage version was released in 1989] to Nagamandala [a 1997 Indian drama film by T. S. Nagabharana based on a play by Girish Karnad], were my story too.

I collected more bottles and cans. I sold my mother’s tamales in my neighborhood. I was able to go to New York to see Broadway shows when I was fifteen.

My best friend and I held yard sales until we had enough money to go to London.

Eventually, the theatre paid me! To go to Chicago for my first production. To London for my first residency. To Mexico City to perform in my native language. To Canada to meet Canadian-Latinos telling their own immigrant stories.

A play is an invitation to another world.

I am a Chicano, a politicized Mexican American. I yearn to tell more audiences the stories of my people. For me, these are often hard stories, about the disproportionate poverty and violence we are born into. But they are also love stories.

I have adapted the Greek classics so that you can see that we belong to the world too. Our humanity is not limited to barrios and prisons, regardless of what the dominant culture often portrays us as.

I am – a world artist; I belong to the shared humanity of our stories. We, my people, built civilizations, and systems, and rituals, and meaning, from the very dirt we will be buried into.

In La Kech. We believe that we are the other you, or should I say, you are the other me. Your story is also my story. We are one expression of feeling in a world of languages. [In Mayan tradition, the law of In Lak’ech Ala K’in means ‘I am you, and you are me. Your story is also my story.’ It is a statement of unity and oneness.]

This is a difficult time for the world. Violence, poverty, hunger, war, fueled by the lies that support such actions.

We artists must stand in truth, both our own, but also in yours.

In La Kech. Tu eres mi otro yo. You are the other me.

Let us speak to each other in stories, through words and feelings.

This is what theatre does best. We learn how to be better human beings, by coming together and wrestling with all that is conflict, and all that is joy.

The communal experience. This is what I share in the theater, and with you. On this day, when we get to share each other.

Gracias and thank you.

Luis Alfaro’s Biography

Luis Alfaro [b. 1963] is a Chicano playwright born and raised in downtown Los Angeles. He was the Associate Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group at the Music Center of Los Angeles County (2021-2022), home of the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson & Kirk Douglas Theaters, where he produced over one hundred new play commissions, productions, workshops, and readings.

He is the only playwright in the history of the Kennedy Center to have received two ‘Fund for New American Play’ awards in the same year. An Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, he is the director of the MFA in Dramatic Writing program. He was previously on faculty at California Institute of the Arts (Cal-Arts), Writers Program at UCLA Extension and a University of California Regents Fellow at U.C. Riverside.

He has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, popularly known as a “genius grant,” awarded to people who have demonstrated expertise and exceptional creativity in their respective fields.

He is also the recipient of The United States Artists; Ford Foundation Art of Change; Joyce Foundation; Mellon Foundation; PEN America/Laura Pels International Foundation Theater Award for a Master Dramatist, among others.

He was the inaugural Playwright-in-Residence for six seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2013-2019); Playwright’s Ensemble at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre (2013-2020); Inaugural Imaginistas Latinx Playwrights at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (2021-); and served in numerous positions for the Ojai Playwrights Conference (2002-2022).

His plays include Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, Mojada, Delano, Body of Faith, Alleluia the Road, Black Butterfly, Bruja, and Straight as a Line, which have been seen at regional theaters throughout the United States, Latin America, Canada, and Europe.

His most recent play, The Travelers, was produced at the Magic Theater in San Francisco and is the winner of the Bay Area 2024 Glickman Prize. The production traveled to the Los Angeles Theatre Center, where it was named one of the nine best productions of the year by the Los Angeles Times.

Luis spent two decades in the Los Angeles Poetry and Performance Art communities, where he regularly presented at Highways Performance Space, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and Beyond Baroque Poetry Center.

His book, The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro, is the winner of the prestigious Greek & British Hellenic Prize, and licensed by Dramatists Play Service.

He is a local Emmy winner, and Emmy nominated for his short film, Chicanismo, which was produced by PBS, named Best Experimental Film at the San Antonio CineFestival and Best Short at CineAccion in San Francisco.

His recording, down-town, released on SST/New Alliance Records, was awarded Best Spoken-Word Release from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors.

He was a student of playwright Maria Irene Fornes [1930-2018], performance artist Scott Kelman [1936-2007], and a product of the Inner-City Cultural Center in downtown Los Angeles.

—From the Theatre Communications Group 

*  *  *  *
WORLD THEATRE DAY: U.S. EMERGENT ARTIST MESSAGE 2024
Caitlin Nasema Cassidy 

Hi. My name is Caitlin Nasema Cassidy. I’m an actor, director, and producer.

I live in New York City, and I make work within and about our climate and ecological emergencies. As a storyteller, I am working to connect climate science to history to the lifecycle of a firefly, for example. Within my theater company LubDub, we often say: When it’s all very big, it helps to go small.

This is an offering in honor of World Theatre Day 2024.

Beat.

Lorca was a first love.
I read his lectures and his plays
mourned his brutal death
Learned from his desire to suggest
Not delineate
To animate
In Madrid 1928, he wrote:
“Wherever there is a dark corner, I wish to direct toward it light.”

This winter, I learned that fireflies, or lightning bugs, are neither flies nor bugs
They are beetles
And they live a good portion of their life underground
Before they can direct their light, they spend a lot of time in dark corners
There are a lot of those these days

I’m afraid to name everything the last year has taken
Holding my breath, haunted by ghosts of displacement
I’m reading the IPCC report like, “How many more statements?”
Crying on the B train ‘cause this morning my dad texted: Ivory Billed Woodpecker Extinct
Wondering what the Wall Street Journal thinks
Do they know most wasps are peaceful creatures, who do not sting?

And
In a small rehearsal room here in the city
We dance across worn wooden floorboards
Let deep breath in
Marvel that our diaphragms can move like this
We practice patience and consent
We brace for what’s next
With gentleness
We keep the magic in our fingertips

In an auditorium in Dearborn,
We’re studying how our ancestors shook their hips
Building process around relationship
We’re singing to the mountains
Conducting research on the sea
From an office in Marseille, Uncle Ramzi says:
“That’s your job as artists. You imagine what could be.”

In a theater in Stockholm
We are synchronizing our heartbeats with strangers
We are practicing the broad, sustained awareness our screens have endangered
We are turning over the soil
And this not a rehearsal
It is life

Along a river in DC
We’re choreographing burlesque with biologists
Telling tales to honor the return of the shad fish
Leaning into silliness

On Zoom
We’re telling stories that recall our vital connections to earth
Celebrating grandmothers, goddesses, and birth

In a garden in Tangiers
In a skatepark in Brooklyn
In a dance studio in Tunis
In a gymnasium in San Juan
In a black box in Jenin
In a classroom in Franklin
In a community center in Istanbul
At a top golf in Virginia
In a rehearsal room in New York City 

We are writing new worlds
With our bodies and our words
Building cultures of care
On a budget
Crafting cardboard castles
Making the best of plastic chairs
We are (re)storying the future

Like lightning bugs and Lorca
The theater and its artists
Are directing our light toward the darkest corners. 

CAITLIN NASEMA CASSIDY’S BIOGRAPHY

Caitlin Nasema Cassidy ([b. ca. 1989]; she/her) is an actor, director, and producer making experimental performance that is physical, collaborative, and poetic. Her practice is rooted in joy, embodied research, and (com)post-activism. Theatre includes NY Times Critic's Pick The Vagrant Trilogy at The Public Theater, the world premiere of Paradise at Central Square Theatre (2018 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actress), NY Times Critic’s Pick Pay No Attention to the Girl with Target Margin, and Ferry Tales at The John F. Kennedy Center. Caitlin is a Grist 50 List Fixer, Social Impact Community Partner at the John F. Kennedy Center, and recipient of a National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund Award. She holds the Artist-in-Residence position at Georgetown University’s Earth Commons Institute for the Environment and Sustainability and is Co-Artistic Director of LubDub Theatre Co.  CaitlinNasemaCassidy.com

 —From the Theatre Communications Group

The Letters Project

 

Readers of Rick On Theater may have noticed that I’ve been publishing a lot of posts that I haven’t written.  There have been several by my friend Kirk Woodward, a frequent guest blogger on ROT since I launched the blog, and many republications of articles and reports from other outlets—but relatively few original pieces that I’ve composed. 

That’s a situation that I assiduously avoided from the start.  In fact, my performance reports were not only the mainstay of ROT, but the rationale for starting the blog in the first place.  The pandemic shutdown interrupted that protocol for almost two years, but that’s not the actual reason for the apparent change in blog policy.

The fact is that I’ve been working on a huge project on and off since 2016, and now, eight years later, I’m close to finishing it.  I still have work to do, but when I am finished, I will be posting the result on Rick On Theater in installments.  I’ll have more to say about that at a later date.  For now, I want to explain the reasons for the long hiatus from original writing from me on the blog.

My mother died in 2015 at the age of 92.  She’d been a widow since 1996, almost 20 years, my father having died at 77.  They’d been married for 50 years as of January 1996.

Mom was born in New York City, but her family moved to Trenton, New Jersey, when she was little (see “Horsman Dolls,” posted on ROT on 14 February 2017).  After graduating from college in September 1944, she did social work with servicemen and -women who were far away from their homes out of the Trenton Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Dad was also a native New Yorker, but in January 1945, he was an artillery officer at Camp Hood in Killeen, Texas.  Like many stateside GI’s, Dad had come home on leave for the holidays.  He and my mother-to-be met on New Year’s Day 1945 and immediately fell in love.  Mom was 21 and Dad had only just turned 26.

Dad left New York on 7 January to return to duty in Texas.  Stopping in St. Louis, Missouri, the next morning to change trains, Dad began writing to the girl he’d just met—and Mom replied.  This began a year‑long correspondence that continued when Dad was sent overseas and even while he was fighting across western Europe, and upon his return to the States. 

I imagine there are lots of World War II couples with similar tales, but what I find remarkable, now 79 years later, is that not only Mom, back in the safety and comfort of Trenton, but Dad, in the hectic activity and chaos of combat and the peripatetic life of an army officer, managed to keep the letters they’d received from each other. 

In the early years of my parents’ marriage, Dad took the two caches of letters and had them mounted and bound in two scrapbooks.  They kept the two volumes in our home, taking the books with them whenever they moved, including their sojourn in Germany with the U.S. Foreign Service (see “An American Teen In Germany” on ROT, 9 and 12 March 2013, and “Home Alone,” 12, 15, and 18 June 2015).

Eventually, Mom brought the letters with her to the assisted-living residence in Bethesda, Maryland, which was her penultimate home, and when she died, among the first things I made certain to safeguard in my own apartment in New York was the two-volume set of bound letters. 

I had long wanted to do something with the letters, and now that I had them in my hands, it became a matter of exactly what and how.  The letters run from 8 January, a week after Mother and Dad met, to 2 December 1945, two days before Dad was released from military service. 

In all, Mom and Dad exchanged 182 pieces of correspondence (that were preserved).  Dad sent Mom 81 pieces, including 4 telegrams, 1 postcard (a change of address notice), and 1 V-Mail; Mom responded with 101 pieces between 11 January and 1 December, including 1 telegram, 5  birthday cards (Dad’s 27th birthday was 5 November 1945), and 7 V-Mails. 

(V-Mail was a development used between 1942 and 1945 both to save space and weight that could be then devoted to shipments of war supplies, and to enhance security.  The pre-printed form on which the message was written was photographed and transported by ship or plane as microfilm images.  The V-Mail negatives were then printed at a quarter of full size to be delivered to the addressees.)

On 18 February, I wrote up the last two letters in the collection.  I’m now rereading the resulting document from the top for the purpose of editing and revising it.  Its working title is “Letters from the Fronts” because Dad was writing from the “military front,” including the battle front, and Mom was writing from the home front.  Their perspectives were different.

In the three-part post I called “Home Alone,” I posted transcriptions of 17 letters my father wrote to my mother in September and October 1962.  The letters were from the month my dad was in Germany starting on his job as a Foreign Service Officer before my mom joined him. 

Unlike the “Home Alone” letters, I haven’t merely transcribed the messages in “Letters from the Fronts.”  I’ve quoted selectively (though sometimes extensively) and summarized the rest of each letter, adding commentary and explanations as I felt it was necessary. 

Some of the comments are personal recollections from family lore and my life with my folks over 49 years with my dad and 68 with my mother.  (There are tributes to my father—“Dad,” 20 June 2010—and to my mother—“Mom,” 1 November 2016—on the blog.) 

I start out, for instance, with an explanation of how, why, and where my future parents met—the circumstances that led to the correspondence.  There’s also the interesting fact that before my father enlisted in the army in March 1941, he did some previous service in another institution—something that’s not mentioned in the letters.

Other notes are identifications of people mentioned in the letters, mostly family members and friends of either my mother-to-be or my father-to-be.  (There are some names I can’t identify, and I’ve acknowledged that.)

Aside from both my mother’s and my father’s parents, who played a significant part in the story that underlies the letters, one other close relative of my father was most instrumental in the meeting of my future mother and father.  She figured prominently in the letters, but why she was there wasn’t explained.

Perhaps most helpful, I have tried to identify or explain references to places or events that the correspondents mention in the letters, some of them historical, some regional, some just obscure, especially almost eight decades later.

I won’t reveal here any interesting surprises, but do any readers know what the President’s Ball was?  I didn’t . . . until I researched it.  Did any of you know that “Tax Day” was originally on an earlier date than 15 April?  It was news to me!  And my mother made mention of that little factoid.

One of the principal characters in the letters story took a vacation at a place called Scaroon Manor.  I’d never heard of it, so I looked it up.  It was a late-19th-century resort in the Adirondacks of New York State, across the Hudson River from Vermont, that closed in 1962 and became a state park in ’67.  (A popular movie with a cast of major stars was filmed there in 1957—one you may have caught on TV.)

Among these latter notes are also army references my father (and occasionally my mother) makes that are either familiar only to people with military experience or are limited to the World War II era.

Had you ever heard of the “forty-and-eights”?  I certainly hadn’t, but my dad had to ride in one in France.  They were apparently well known as rail “accommodations” during the war.  What about V-Discs?  I introduced readers to V-Mail above, but except for the name, there’s no connection.  I wasn’t familiar with either of those terms, so I searched them out.  V-Discs were a special kind of phonograph record.  (Those who are too young to know what phonograph records were will just have to look them up themselves.)

What about tattoo (not the skin art)?  If you served in the army, you should know what it is, but it’s probably not familiar to other readers.  Dad mentions it in one of his letters.  I think most Americans know what taps is, at least relative to military funerals.  It’s also the last bugle call of the day on an army base and announces the official close of the day.  Tattoo is blown about an hour earlier to signal the end of the day’s work.

Rereading my folks’ letters from 79 years ago, I must confess that I found them really interesting, but I don't know if anyone else will find them so.  There’s considerable information about my family that I didn’t already know, and that might not be of any interest to anyone else. 

In one respect, I had two contrasting reactions simultaneously.  It was fascinating and strange at the same time.  This was particularly true in the letters of the last month of the collection, while Dad was waiting for his separation orders.

Dad had arrived back in the States in early September.  He landed in the New York area and immediately took two months’ leave.  He proposed to my mother and they started making wedding plans. 

Dad reported to North Carolina at the beginning of November and was essentially waiting for his release from the army, which came in the first week of December.  The letters he and Mother exchanged during November were full of discussions about decisions and choices concerning the wedding—Where would they have it?  What would Mom wear?  Whom would they invite?—and the honeymoon—Where should they go?  How should they get there?  How long should they stay? 

There was also considerable discussion regarding where the couple would live and whether they’d be able to find an apartment, considering the post-war housing shortage, and what job Dad would find once he was released from the service.

The debates, which also included the input of their parents, especially Mom’s folks, were interesting to read.  There were decisions they considered that I never knew about.  But at the same time, I knew beforehand how it all came out!  It was a very peculiar feeling.

There are also surprises and revelations, often little items that illuminate a time and place that few of us here now were around to witness.  I was born a little over a year after the letters stopped.  Some of what Mom and Dad wrote about was history—the deaths of President Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler, for example—but most of it was a level or two beneath that.  It was just life in 1945.

I don’t want to preview the letters’ content here.  If there is anything of interest to readers, that’ll spoil it.  I just want to explain at this point, when I’m close to competing this long task, why I’ve been so distracted—maybe ‘preoccupied’ is a more accurate word—with regard to Rick On Theater. 

I can’t give any kind of an accurate date when I expect to have “Letters from the Fronts” ready for posting.  I hope it’ll be sooner rather than later.  I’m anxious to see if there’s any interest in the result of my eight years’ effort.  I can’t guess, of course; I can’t be a disinterested judge.  These are the voices of my parents, after all, and I’m eavesdropping on them from almost 80 years in their future.

My friend Kirk suggested that I write a post on the work of creating “Letters from the Fronts.”  Toward that end, I’ve been keeping notes on some of the things I’ve done to put the commentary together, some of the methodology of my efforts.  Every once in a while, I tell Kirk about some process or technique I used to solve some little mystery or resolve some small conundrum.  I suspect that’s where he got the idea that a method post would be a good idea.

I won’t be writing that report until after “Letters” is “in press.”  Of course, if “Letters” doesn’t generate much interest, then a report on how I created it will be even less engaging. 

"Audiences Are Back, More or Less"

A Supplement to the Regional Theater Series

[The following omnibus report on the lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic and shutdown on attendance at public events and venues such as plays, concerts, and museums appeared in the “Arts” section of the New York Times on 13 March 2024.  It’s a collection of mini-reports by Times writers who cover the various areas of arts, culture, and entertainment.

[Over the past few months, I’ve published several articles on Rick On Theater related to the state and background of the regional theater in the United States: “A Crisis In America’s Theaters” on 13 September 2023, “The Regional Theater: Change or Die” on 3 October 2023, and “Regional Theater: History” on 8 October 2023.  In November and December, I ran an 11-part series on “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” because the NEA had a huge influence on the development and growth of the regional theater in the U.S. 

[Because of the seriousness of this subject, I said when I started this coverage that I’d post on it from various perspectives from time to time.  Below is my fifth report in that occasional series.]

With shutdowns over, pop concerts crowds are up, but Broadway is still a bit down.

It was four years ago — on March 12, 2020 — that the coronavirus brought the curtain down on Broadway for what was initially supposed to be a monthlong shutdown, but which wound up lasting a year and a half.

The pandemic brought live events and big gatherings to a halt, silencing orchestras, shutting museums and movie theaters and leaving sports teams playing to empty stadiums dotted with cardboard cutouts.

Now, four years later, audiences are coming back, but the recovery has been uneven. Here is a snapshot of where things stand from reporters of The New York Times.

Broadway audiences are still down 17 percent from prepandemic levels.

On Broadway, overall attendance is still down about 17 percent: 9.3 million seats have been filled in the current season as of March 3, down from 11.1 million at the same point in 2020. Box office grosses are down, too: Broadway shows have grossed $1.2 billion so far this season, 14 percent below the level in early March of 2020.

Broadway has always had more flops than successes, and the post-pandemic period has been challenging for producers and investors, especially those involved in new musicals. Three pop productions that have opened since the pandemic — “Six,” about the wives of King Henry VIII, “MJ,” about Michael Jackson and “& Juliet,” which imagines an alternate history for Shakespeare’s tragic heroine — are ongoing hits, but far more musicals have flamed out. The industry is looking with some trepidation toward next month, when a large crop of new shows is set to open.

Many nonprofit theaters around the country are also struggling [see “Theater in America Is Facing a Crisis as Many Stages Go Dark” by Michael Paulson (New York Times, 24 July 2023), posted on ROT in “A Crisis In America’s Theaters”] — attracting fewer subscribers and producing fewer shows — and some have closed. One bright spot has been the touring Broadway market, which has been booming.

michael paulson

Sales for the biggest pop concerts increased by 65 percent.

After a fitful recovery, the pop touring industry has now reached record highs, enabled by superstar tours, pent-up fan demand and ever-higher ticket prices.

The top 100 tours around the world generated $9.2 billion in ticket sales last year — a record by far, according to the trade publication Pollstar, which tracks touring data. That was up an astonishing 65 percent from 2019. The average ticket price last year was $131, up 23 percent from 2022, which accounts for some of the jump. Concert attendance climbed about 18 percent last year, to 70 million.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was the biggest of many success stories, estimated at just over $1 billion in ticket sales, a new high (with dozens of dates still to come in 2024). According to numbers crunched by Pollstar, Swifties paid an average of $239 per ticket to see her show.

Not every artist is celebrating the post-pandemic touring boom, though. Those who operate below the level of arenas and amphitheaters — and lack the promotional apparatus of a Swift or a Beyoncé — have been sounding an alarm about skyrocketing costs, and continuing supply-chain issues, that have eroded profit margins and made touring riskier and more expensive for non-superstars.

ben sisario

There are 4,800 fewer movie screens.

Thanks to “Barbie,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” the 2023 domestic box office, which includes the United States and Canada, took in close to $9 billion. That’s a marked increase from 2022 but still not at prepandemic levels, when theaters reliably sold $11 billion in tickets annually.

Fewer films were released in 2023: There were 125 wide releases, down from 138 in 2019, said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter [FranchiseRe (https://franchisere.substack.com/)] on box office numbers. Some films were delayed by the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which shut down Hollywood for close to six months [2 May-27 September 2023 and 14 July-9 November 2023, respectively.]

The number of screens across the country has also declined. Some independent theater chains like Pacific Theaters and ArcLight Cinemas went out of business. And the top three U.S. chains, AMC, Regal and Cinemark, shut about 1,000 screens collectively, according to David Hancock, the chief analyst for cinema at Omdia, a London-based research company. He said that at the end of 2023, there were 36,369 screens in the country, down 12 percent from the 41,172 screens before the shutdown.

nicole sperling

Orchestra ticket sales are up 2 percent, yet some opera companies struggle.

Many orchestras are beginning to return to, or even exceed, prepandemic levels. The number of tickets that orchestras sold increased by 2 percent in 2023 compared with 2019, according to a study of 42 medium- and large-size orchestras by TRG Arts, an analytics firm, in partnership with the League of American Orchestras. Some continue to struggle, though, and some are giving fewer performances than they used to.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is averaging 78 percent attendance so far this season, compared with 63 percent before the pandemic. The New York Philharmonic, which completed a $550 million renovation of its hall in 2022 that made it more audience-friendly and reduced its seating capacity, is averaging 85 percent attendance this season compared with 74 percent before the pandemic. The San Francisco Symphony has had 74 percent attendance so far this season, slightly ahead of where it was before the shutdown, but it has fewer performances. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is now averaging 89 percent attendance, back where it was before the pandemic, even as the number of subscribers has fallen to 6,409 from 8,791.

But the Detroit Symphony Orchestra said that its attendance had fallen to 59 percent through March this season, down from 74 percent in the same period during the 2019-20 season, a drop it attributed to a loss of subscribers who have yet to return.

Many opera companies have had a hard time, as the cost of staging live opera — which requires sets, costumes, singers, chorus members and large orchestras — has risen. Ticket revenues at opera houses across the nation were down by about 22 percent last season compared with 2018-19, according to a recent study by Opera America, a nonprofit group, which said that so far this season, revenues are up.

At the Metropolitan Opera in New York, paid attendance is about 73 percent so far this season, compared with 71 percent at the same point in 2019-20, when fears of the pandemic were already beginning to keep operagoers away. And the Met now gives fewer performances overall. The pandemic has seriously strained the Met’s finances: The company has withdrawn about $70 million from its endowment over the past two seasons.

Many leading dance companies have largely bounced back from the disruption brought by Covid. Attendance at New York City Ballet so far this season is at 79 percent, compared with 73 percent before the pandemic, and San Francisco Ballet is at 78 percent attendance, compared with 66 percent in the 2019-20 season.

javier c. hernández

Museum attendance is mixed.

While some major museums have been able to regain lost ground, others are still seeing fewer visitors, which continues to strain their already-stretched finances.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York reported nearly 861,000 visitors last year, a 26 percent decline from about 1.2 million visitors before the pandemic, when its Hilma af Klint exhibition [12 October 2018-23 April 2019] set new attendance records. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has seen a 15 percent decline over the same period, to 5.8 million visitors from 6.8 million, which could be partially attributed to the loss of its Met exhibition space at the Breuer building on Madison Avenue. And the Art Institute of Chicago said that attendance had also decreased by about 15 percent since the shutdown with about 1.3 million visitors in 2023, saying that while it now has more paid local visitors than it did before the pandemic, there are still fewer international visitors.

[The Met Breuer closed in July 2020 for budgetary reasons and the building was turned over to the Frick Collection while its Upper East Side home underwent expansion. The Frick vacated the Madison Avenue building on 3 March 2024 and it will be a facility of Sotheby’s auction house in September.]

Some regional organizations — relying more on local populations than international tourists — have seen stronger comebacks. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston said that it had experienced a 20 percent increase in visitors over the last fiscal year when compared to prepandemic levels. “We have also witnessed a change in the demographics of our audience, with a larger percentage of younger visitors, which bodes well for the future,” said Gary Tinterow, the museum’s director and chairman.

And the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, which completed a renovation project last year, said that it attracted a record 277,882 visitors last year, up from 240,706 in 2019.

Zachary Small and Robin Pogrebin

Sports fans are back.

Sports fans are back. All four major sports leagues — the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League — had bigger attendance in their most recent regular seasons than they did in 2019, according to a calculation of the leagues’ data by The Times.

The N.F.L. saw the sharpest increase: 18.9 million people in 2023, up 10.9 percent from the 17 million people in 2019. That is in part because the league added a game to the regular-season schedule in 2021 as part of a new media-rights package. That bumped the total number of games played in a season from 256 to 272.

Attendance for Major League Baseball increased 3.2 percent last season compared with its last full season before the pandemic.  The National Basketball Association had a 1.2 percent increase and the National Hockey League had a 1.1 percent increase.

Emmanuel Morgan

[This post is also the most recent entry in another ad hoc series: the effect of the COVID pandemic on the theater and the theater’s response to the crisis.  Other posts on that topic are:

•   “Theaters Go Dark Across the Nation,” 29 March and 1 April 2020

•   “Suzan-Lori Parks on the Covid Pandemic,” 17 May 2020

•   “Theater Online – A Preliminary Report” by Kirk Woodward and Rick, 19 May 2020

•   “‘Connecting through art when a pandemic keeps us apart’” by Jeffrey Brown, 26 June 2020

•   “Yo Yo Ma on the Artist’s Role in the Time of Covid-19,” 28 August 2020

•   “‘Medical professionals turn to music as a tonic’” by Jeffrey Brown and Anne Azzi Davenport, 22 September 2020

•   “‘At this Virginia theater, the show – and the masks – must go on’” by John Yang, et al., 18 October 2020

•   “‘Despite the Pandemic, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like “Christmas Carol’” by Jerald Raymond Pierce, 27 December 2020

•   “‘Waiting out a pandemic – and for our “King Lear”’” by Peter Marks, 11 January 2021

•   “The Show Goes On During the Pandemic,” 26 January 2021

•   “‘Great Performances’: The Arts Interrupted” produced and directed by Akisa Omulepu, 3 and 6 June 2021

•   “‘As Attendance Falls, Now Is the Winter of Broadway’s Discontent’” by Michael Paulson, 23 January 2022

•   “At the Theater: To Wear A Mask, Or Not To Wear A Mask,” 27 June 2022

[In addition, there are many other posts in which Covid, the coronavirus, the pandemic, and/or the shutdown gets a mention.]

Music Has Charms

 

[On 3 March 2024, I posted “The Arts & Health” on Rick On Theater.  It comprised two reposted transcripts from PBS NewsHour, both dealing with the convergence of the performing arts and matters of health.  The first report of the pair was “Opera legend Renée Fleming teams up with Dr. Francis Collins to study how music can improve health,” which aired on the NewsHour on 22 February 2024. 

[The topic of that report was the work of Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, and opera singer Renée Fleming on the effect of music on people’s mental health.  My original intention was to combine that transcript with some other material on the same topic, but I came across an entirely different report on another issue of health and the performing arts, so I set aside my plan and paired those two pieces.

[I anticipated returning to the subject of music and mental health at a later time and pick up the articles I kept in reserve.  Then I heard a report on WCBS news about another application of music therapy on people’s mental wellbeing, namely its effect on patients with dementia.  I decided to post that report with the remaining pieces on the NIH program.  Here is the result.]

“BROOKLYN MUSIC THERAPIST HELPS DEMENTIA PATIENTS
BRIDGE THE PAST TO THE PRESENT”
by Steve Overmyer
 

[This report was originally aired on 8 March 2024 on CBS 2 New York (WCBS, Channel 2 in New York City) on CBS 2 News at 5PM; it was updated online on 9 March (Brooklyn music therapist helps dementia patients bridge the past to the present - CBS New York (cbsnews.com)).]

NEW YORK – More than 6 million Americans are living with dementia, and while there is no cure, patients can be helped by music.

In this Snapshot New York, Steve Overmyer learns how melodies help bridge the past to the present.

In a place where the days unfold with a predictable rhythm, a symphony of kindness is being composed.

Rafe Stepto is a credentialed music therapist in the music therapy department at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.

In the hallways of the memory care unit of the Watermark Senior Living Home [Brooklyn Heights], filled with a lifetime of stories, Stepto has brought a revolution – not with grand gestures, but with the gentle strum of a guitar.

“We happen to have a kind of maximum recall for songs. For example, from when we were 13 to 21 or so, sometimes people call it the reminiscence bump. And so we leverage that quirk to get people’s best-remembered songs out so that they can be in the lucidity of those intact memories even in the midst of advanced dementia,” Stepto said.

Dementia attacks a particular part of our memory dealing with people, places and things. It doesn’t attack procedural memory, the act of doing things, which is why you can see those in memory care join in harmony and come alive.

“Music and memory – it’s a powerful, powerful engine,” Stepto said.

Music is more than entertainment. It can be a beacon that guides them back to a moment of clarity, the joy of youth or the warmth of love. In these moments, the true power of music therapy reveals itself. It’s the key to unlocking buried memories.

“Their memory of listening to a song, dancing to a song, courting to songs, socializing to a song – all of that is in the procedural memory, which remains intact longer into advanced dementia,” Stepto said.

The truth is we’ve all been touched by the transformative power of music. We do it almost every day.

After the class, Stepto has a private moment with a resident who struggles to find his voice, but music unlocks that door. Time stands still as they hold each other’s gaze, reaching out across the divide of forgetfulness and forging a bridge of validation.

“The moment between two people . . . . There’s nothing more important,” Stepto said.

Together, they’re rewriting the narrative of dementia – not as a journey into silence but a celebration, where every day brings the promise of a new song, a new memory, a new connection.

We all use music to help alter our mood, but music therapists are using this clinically and intentionally, they say with reliable results.

[Steve Overmyer joined CBS 2 in February of 2011 as a sports anchor and reporter. He hosts Sports Update every weekend on CBS 2 and WLNY 10/55 (Long Island, New York; owned by CBS).] 

*  *  *  *
“IS MUSIC REALLY THE MEDICINE OF THE SOUL?
AN INTERVIEW WITH RENÉE FLEMING AND FRANCIS COLLINS”
by Joanna Cross, NIMH 

[This article is from The NIH Catalyst 27.4 (July-August 2019), updated on 4 April 2022.  The NIH Catalyst showcases the scientific research conducted at the National Institutes of Health and contains feature stories, essays, profiles, and other news on NIH research, Scientific Interest Groups (SIG’s), new scientific methods, NIH history, the Clinical Center, and more.]

What happens when you get a world-renowned scientist and a famous opera singer in the same room? A spontaneous rendition of “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and the establishment of an important collaboration. NIH Director Francis Collins [b. 1950; director of the NIH, 2009-21] and Renée Fleming [b. 1959], who met a few years ago at a dinner party, realized that they both were curious about how music affects our minds. And so the “Sound Health: Music and the Mind” initiative, an NIH–Kennedy Center partnership in association with the National Endowment for the Arts, was born.

Fleming visited NIH on May 13, 2019, as the featured guest at the annual J. Edward Rall Cultural Lecture, named for the former deputy director for intramural research. She and Collins discussed the creative process, the intersection of music and science, and the Sound Health initiative, which aims to expand our understanding of the connections between music and wellness. 

Music has been part of our lives for millennia and may well predate speech. The earliest known surviving instrument is a bone flute from about 40,000 years ago, and our vocal mechanisms have hardly changed throughout the years. “Can you imagine a Neanderthal opera?” Fleming joked. Because music has been part of our society for so long, it follows that it must have an identifiable impact. Indeed, it has been shown that exposing children to music can enhance reading proficiency and tends to lead to higher rates of career success.

Plato remarked that “Music is the medicine of the soul.” But why is it so beneficial? We can all understand how a piece of music can influence our emotions, but one study showed that rhythm may also be important in our development. Fleming showed a video of a study that demonstrated that when a stranger bounced in time with a baby, the infant was more likely to help the stranger complete a task afterwards than if the bouncing was out of sync. This study showed that even from an early age, music can bring us together, but to find“” out what happens in the brain, we need to be able to observe neuronal activity.

Bring in the magnetic-resolution-imaging (MRI) scanner. In 2017, Fleming experienced the feeling of being in such a scanner for herself. [This episode can be seen on the video of the recent PBS NewsHour report related to this topic (Opera legend Renee Fleming teams up with Dr. Francis Collins to study how music can improve health | PBS NewsHour.) The transcript is posted on this blog in “The Arts & Health,” 3 March 2024.] She chose the song “The Water Is Wide,” and her brain activity was measured as she spoke, sang, and imagined singing the words. Interestingly, imagining the words produced the most striking brain activity, but she put this down to the fact that singing is natural to her; imagining the words was the hardest.

MRI studies have revealed the fascinating influence of music. Fleming described an experiment in which neuroscientist Charles Limb asked jazz piano prodigy Matthew Whitaker [b. 2001] to undergo two tasks while in the scanner. First, Whitaker had to listen to a boring lecture and, unsurprisingly, very few areas of his brain showed activity. However, when he listened to his favorite band, his brain lit up like a Christmas tree. Although Whitaker is blind, even his visual cortex responded, indicating that music could have very potent therapeutic benefits.

One striking example, said Fleming, is the case of Forrest Allen [b. 1993], who was left in an almost lifeless state after a snowboarding accident in 2011 that caused a traumatic brain injury. Allen’s recovery was long and tough, surgeries to repair his skull catapulted him into comas, and he couldn’t speak for two years. His childhood music teacher noticed a tiny movement in Allen’s pinkie finger when music was playing, as if he was tapping along with the rhythm. As part of Allen’s rehab, the music teacher began using rhythm and melody to help his brain heal. Thanks to his doctors, surgeons, and physical therapists, Allen slowly recovered. Thanks to music therapy, he eventually learned to talk again. Today, Allen is a college student at George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia).

Given that music can affect us to such a degree, Collins asked Fleming how she manages singing professionally during emotional moments. She recollected two particularly emotional moments—singing “Danny Boy” at Senator John McCain’s funeral in Washington, D.C., in 2018, and performing “Amazing Grace” at the National September 11 Memorial in New York City in 2013. She said that it was all about mental preparation before the events. She had to keep reminding herself that the she was singing for everyone else and not just for herself: The singing had to be right. Despite being raised in a musical family, it was not an easy road to becoming a famous singer. Nevertheless, she had the drive to be successful and became fascinated by the skill and practice of singing, observing that “The voice is like a horse: You never know when it will betray you and be off!”

Regarding her dreams for the Sound Health program, she hopes music therapy will become more widely covered by insurance and that the arts will be increasingly involved in our general well-being. She concluded by saying that she had been privileged to work with so many amazing people and takes great delight in performing in all sorts of ways. At this, Collins picked up his guitar and they wrapped up this unique event in an unforgettable way. They joined their voices in harmony to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and the spiritual song “How Can I Keep from Singing?” The audience sat spellbound as the music echoed around the room.

[Joanna Cross is a postdoctoral fellow in the National Institute of Mental Health.] 

*  *  *  *
“FOR SCIENTISTS ABOUT TO ROCK (WE SALUTE YOU)”
by Michele C. Hollow

[This article was posted on Next Avenue, a nonprofit, digital publication produced by Twin Cities PBS for older adults, on 27 February 2019 (NIH Director Francis Collins and His Band (nextavenue.org)).]

When not overseeing the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins is jamming with his colleagues

Science and music are closely connected. Says Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH): “Whether you’re working with another person or a whole team of people who have different skills, different dreams and different aspirations and you put them together, you create something magical. Science does that and so does music.”

Collins, a physician-geneticist, is noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book. He served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993 to 2008. He was appointed the 16 NIH director by President Barack Obama and was confirmed by the Senate in 2009.

When Collins came to the NIH, he was concerned that his passion for music would take a backseat to science. He soon learned about The Directors, a band consisting of former NIH senior staff. The name changed to the Affordable Rock ‘n’ Roll Act (ARRA) and everyone at the NIH is welcome to join.

The name’s not political. It stems from being affordable, “since we don’t get paid for performing,” Collins said.

Making Music 

Collins grew up in a musical household. His father, Fletcher Collins, was trained as a classical violinist and worked for President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s New Deal project collecting folk songs from coal miners in Virginia. About 200 of those songs are in the American Folk Life Collection at the Library of Congress.

Collins’ mom, Margaret, sang, and musicians gathered at the family’s farmhouse to jam. Collins remembers a sullen young man with a scratchy voice celebrating his 18[th] birthday at his house. He didn’t think the singer would go far. It was Bob Dylan [b. 1941].

In order not to be left out, Collins taught himself how to play the pump organ at age five. He also wrote songs and picked up the guitar around the same time. “My family didn’t own a television,” he explained. “Music was our entertainment of choice.”

Collins played in high school and joined a bluegrass band at the University of Virginia. Throughout high school and college, he aspired to be a chemist, but music remained an important part of his life.

All NIH Scientists Are Welcome

Crystal “Crys” Young, lead singer and post baccalaureate grad from Washington University’s class of 2017, has been working at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of NIH, and has played music “all my life,” she said. She’s a classically trained pianist who started practicing at age four. 

“I was excited to be accepted into the program and at the same time was worried I wouldn’t have an outlet to do music,” she said. “Playing in ARRA is so much fun. I was really nervous going into it because I’m performing with the top people in their fields. Music brings us together.”

The number of musicians changes depending on the workload. Currently, there are a dozen regulars. They rehearse at Dr. John O’Shea’s house. Chief of the Molecular Immunology and Inflammation Branch of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, O’Shea plays guitar and mandolin. Occasionally, depending on the music and who’s in the group, he has also performed on violin, bass guitar and drums. O’Shea is self-taught and picked up the guitar at age eight. He enjoys old-time and Irish music.

The music ARRA plays is geared towards its audience. When the group plays for scientists, Collins has been known to take a “Weird Al” Yankovic approach by changing the words of a song. For instance, Del Shannon’s hit “Runaway” was changed to “Amazing DNA.” He performed this at the NIH’s National Heart, Lunch, and Blood Institute.

“In my perspective, the best rock ‘n roll is from the last century,” Collins said. “We also play The Black Eyed Peas and songs from Bruno Mars when the audience is younger. We often meet at John’s (O’Shea’s) house for good food, conversation, and of course, to rehearse.”

Rehearsals can be one or two times a week if they’re getting ready for a performance. Otherwise, they’re less frequent. ARRA performances can be year-round, with more during the holidays and summer. They’ve performed for the National Association of Science Writers, at the Building Museum, the Library of Congress and numerous science and medical conferences.

“Francis is supportive of the extraordinary talent here at the NIH,” O’Shea said. “All of us love playing. I like rehearsals more than performances because we get together, have dinner, talk and have fun playing together.”

“Francis also has a yearly music party at his house where he invites a whole bunch of people over. Audience members call out a song and we play. The venues vary, too. Francis would say — and I’ve always felt this way, too — that music creates a sense of community,” added O’Shea.

Collins has had the pleasure of performing with YoYo Ma, Jackson Browne, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and Whoopi Goldberg. “One of the most heartwarming things is being with these stars and their roadies backstage,” Collins said. “It’s exciting for us and they respect what we do.”

Researching the Links Between Music and Science

He and Renee Fleming sang together as part of an interview on NPR [National Public Radio]. Now, they’re working together on an initiative between the NIH and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts called Sound Health: Music and the Mind, to expand on the links between music and mental health. It explores how listening to, performing or creating music involves brain circuitry that can be harnessed to improve health and well-being.

For Collins and the members of ARRA, life rocks when you combine music and science.

[Michele C. Hollow is a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter specializing in health, climate, social justice, pets, and travel.]