Good morning, all! I wanted to get back to my old sleeping schedule and I guess getting out of bed at 6:45 fulfilled my wishes. My last dream was truly bizarre: something about seeing a play at Town Hall, staying for a talkback after and losing my jacket, wishing an actor and actress who were in it best of luck with auditions they were going to, and getting on a train to go to Oxford, OH. The train almost hit a bicyclist walking his bike on the tracks, my father was riding on the train with me, ignoring me and washing his hands over and over again at a sink that he was filling up with paper towels, and I was discussing the situation with my brother Randy, presumably after the tran reached Oxford.
I have a bit of work on the EILEEN scores before I deliver Act One to my colleague Curtis.
DR John G, the New York State Theatre Institute is now dead; if you Google Patricia and the Institute, you will read a lot of ugly press from the General Inspector's charges via the NY State Governor's office. The witch hunt began around 2006, following an anonymous letter to the governor's offices. None of the charges are true and the actual documentation, which the Inspector General ignored in its leak to the press, refutes the charges, but this information never was given to the press. A lot of damage has been done. While I would be rash and misinformed to say it's part of a poverty-stricken state government shutting down what it feels are unwanted and unnecessary arts programs, I believe the overall plan was to oust Patricia as director, disgrace the Institute, and fold it up with no leader to fight for its support.
The saddest part is that for nearly 30 years that Institute provided professional theatre productions four days a week for school children in the Albany-Troy-Schenectady area from grades 1 through high school, ran internships and theatre programs, and introduced a lot of children to live theatre. That's an audience of children, children of children, and no one stopped this inquisition or [protected the organization..
Patricia looks great, and she will do good theatre work in other spaces now. She's very unhappy over all the charges and lies, the ugliness, back stabbing and treachery from long-term associates in the company when heads started rolling, and seeing something you created crushed. I loved working for her and NYSTI, and I'm sorry that all of this has occurred.
And so, to work.
