The Playgoer: Open Letter

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Thursday, March 02, 2006

Open Letter

Gee, according to NYTW.org:

To give us a piece of your mind -- from comments about what's on stage (and what's not on stage) to observations about the comfort of our seats or the value and quality of our delicious lobby refreshments -- drop a line to NYTW Artistic Director Jim Nicola at TellJim@nytw.org.
We'd love to hear from you.
In that spirit...

Dear Jim,

Re: "what's not on stage"...

I'm really glad to read today NYTW has not "censored" My Name is Rachel Corrie but only sought to "postpone" it. Fair enough.

Provided you can still patch things up with the creative team and the Royal Court, would you mind sharing approximately when--ideally--you would like to postpone the show to?

Also, regarding what you consider to be the "contextualization" necessary in order to prevent anyone from misinterpreting or exploiting the show: could you elaborate on what kinds of efforts you envision NYTW making which would require this extra time?

Shalom.

The Playgoer

Remember, he'd "love to hear" from you, too!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I sent the NYTW this early Wednesday:

To Whom it may concern:

I am appalled at your decision to cancel your scheduled workshop on
Katharine Viner's play, "My Name is Rachel Corrie." I attended a
performance in the autumn run in London. It was a taut, topical
dramatic masterpiece. The awards the play has won in the most
competitive theatrical environment on the planet speak for themselves.

To cancel once attendees had gotten so far along into their scheduling
goes beyond normal rudeness. Your statement on your organization's
home page strikes me as quite disingenuous. Mr. Nicola's concluding
statement "We continue to have a deep interest in presenting MY NAME IS
RACHEL CORRIE. We have asked our colleagues at the Royal Court to give
us the necessary time to consider how we could present this powerful
work with the integrity it deserves. We are awaiting their answer,"
makes it sound as if your London partners are remiss in some item or
another, when in fact they are not. What a craven public statement!

Sincerely,

Philip Munger,
composer of "The Skies are Weeping"

soon afterward I got the message they've now posted on their home page.

Playgoer said...

Thanks so much for sharing this with us here, Philip. And for keeping the pressure on them.