Ensemble captures the beat of Hartford through theater
http://www.examiner.com/arts-in-hartford/ensemble-captures-the-beat-of-hartford-through-theater
December 27th, 2010
Andrew Beck
What's the best way for a local professional theater company to get a
beat on its local community?
One way is by following the example of Hartford's HartBeat Ensemble,
which has been committed since 2001 to building and developing close
relationships with all members of its home community, beyond such
distinctions as class, race, gender or economic status.
According the Jennifer Yanko, the Managing Director of the Ensemble,
the non-profit professional theater company is dedicated to creating
new works that spotlight the struggles and triumphs experienced by
the people who live in Hartford's neighborhoods, crafting scripts and
stories from the actual lives and words of area residents. At the
same time, HartBeat believes that it is just as important to make its
productions accessible to these very individuals, many of whom have
never seen theater before or had a very limited exposure to the art form.
This holiday season, for example, the Ensemble has been touring its
most familiar piece, "Ebeneeza--A Hartford Holiday Carol," which they
bill as a multi-cultural contemporary adaptation of Charles Dickens'
"A Christmas Carol," in locations all across the city. Combining
Christmas traditions, Chanukah rituals and Kwanzaa celebrations with
references to Hartford's history, this version tells the tale of an
elderly Hartford woman who has made her fortune as a real estate
mogul and mortgage broker, who is visited by various ghosts,
including Mark Twain as the Ghost of Holidays Past.
As is typical of HartBeat productions, the words and concepts of
"Ebeneeza" result from interviews with citizens of greater Hartford.
Audiences have delighted in recognizing elements of Hartford's
history throughout the play, as the title character, Ebeneeza
herself, grows up on Front Street during the Depression, gets caught
up in the civil rights upheavals in the North End in the 1960's, and
experiences life in Hartford's suburbs during the 1980's. Just as
the play takes place across greater Hartford's broad canvas, the
production has played this holiday season in an equally diverse
series of locations throughout the region, including Kinsella Magnet
School of the Performing Arts, the West Indian Social Club, the Mark
Twain House and Museum, Manchester Community College and finally,
through Wednesday, December 29, at the Playhouse on Park in West
Hartford. The play is appropriate for families.
In addition to bringing the play into Hartford's neighborhoods, the
production has helped introduce theatergoers to some of the venues
and locations where it has played. "We had people attending at the
West Indian Social Club," Yanko explains, "who never would have gone
to that location otherwise, thereby exposing audiences to
neighborhoods and areas of the city they may never have explored on their own."
The annual presentation of "Ebeneeza" is just one component of the
HartBeat Ensemble's busy schedule. As soon as Ebeneeza finishes its
run, the company will turn its attention to its next Mainstage
production, "Flipside," another locally-developed work focusing on an
issue that impacts Hartford's neighborhoods and the surrounding
suburbs: substance abuse and the war on drugs. Again, the members of
the Ensemble spent hundreds of hours interviewing local residents and
a year of writing in order to fashion this story of two drug warriors
on opposite sides of drug war. In addition, the work will incorporate
rhythmic choreography and spoken word poetry from local poets, Mira
and Mind Evolution. "FlipSide," part of HartBeat's New Play
Initiative, enjoyed a workshop production at Manchester Community
College last Spring and is scheduled to premiere in a full production
on the ground floor of the Hollander at 410 Asylum Street in Hartford
this coming Spring.
Although "FlipSide" will not tour Hartford's neighborhoods, its
sit-down run at the Hollander is in line with the theater company's
mission. The building has been developed by Common Ground as 70
mixed-income residential apartments, including 56 affordable
apartments for households earning 60% of the area median income,
representing the first affordable rental housing for families in
downtown Hartford in more than 20 years. The building is one of the
first LEED-certified green residential buildings in the state and
contains the first green roof in Hartford.
But Mainstage productions are not the only ways in which HartBeat
fits into the rhythms of the community. The Ensemble's Open Air
performances bring free theater to public parks, streets, festivals
and marches with the goal of making theater an everyday part of
everyone's lives, regardless of economic status. Open Air
productions include the annual Plays in the Parks (PIP) series, which
brings theater to Hartford's neighborhood parks, including Keney
Park, Goodwin Park, Pope Park, Sigourney Square, and the Hartford
side of Elizabeth Park. In addition, the company was invited last
year to perform on the front lawn of the Church of the Good Shepherd
in the neighborhood just south of downtown.
This series generally consists of a number of 10-minute plays,
derived from local interviews, focusing on a single relevant social
theme. In recent years, the topics have included the lives of
working people in greater Hartford, homelessness, access to health
care for the uninsured and underinsured, and the impact of the
economic crisis on Hartford residents.
Other initiatives include an array of educational programs aimed at
providing youth and adults with the skills and tools necessary to use
theater as a force for personal and social change, using techniques
inspired by Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed. HartBeat has
conducted educational workshops at over 40 institutions including
public schools, colleges and universities, unions, shelters and
treatment centers.
HartBeat also sponsors a Youth Play Institute in conjunction with a
number of local school districts to bring urban and suburban youth
together to work in partnership over a month's period of time in
order to create and perform an original one-act play. The Institute
allows students from diverse backgrounds to communicate with each
other through theater by breaking down racial and economic
stereotypes and exposing participants to people they would otherwise
never get to know.
The Ensemble was founded in 2001 by Julia B. Rosenblatt, Steven
Ginsburg, and Gregory R. Tate, who serve as HartBeat's Co-Artistic
Directors. Together they are responsible for the research,
interviewing, collating, writing, producing and directing the
Ensemble's efforts. All have extensive credentials in theaters across
the country, most notably with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which
brought the three together. They all shared an interest in
developing local professional theater that would be created with the
involvement and participation of a broad swath of community members
and which would reflect the realities faced daily by those audiences.
Rosenblatt convinced her associates that Hartford was an appropriate
venue for such an initiative and the Ensemble was formed in the late
summer of 2001. Although they had planned to spend a year
establishing the organization, they were asked by Hartford leaders
shortly after 9/11 to create a theater piece for a community-wide
rally, thus establishing their presence on the Hartford scene. Their
Mainstage productions have included "Graves," a piece inspired by
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath that utilized hip-hop stylings
to tell the story of a Hartford family impacted by globalization.
Their second Mainstage production was "News to Me," which focused on
education issues in Hartford and the No Child Left Behind Act. Other
works have included "The Pueblo," which explored Latin American
politics, and "Rich Clown, Poor Clown, Beggar Clown, Thief," a
cabaret that satirized the War on Poverty.
The co-directors also perform in their productions as well, with
Rosenblatt and Tate playing roles in the current production of
"Ebeneeza." The title character is played by Debra Walsh, who has
been a company member since 2008 and who has played Ebeneeza ever
since its premiere.
Although it sponsors such a broad range of activities, the HartBeat
Ensemble employs only two full-time staff people, Yanko and Maureen
Welch, who serves as Director of Development. Yanko has been with the
organization since its founding in August of 2001 as a volunteer and
first President of the organization's Board of Directors. She joined
the staff as a part-time bookkeeper in 2004 and was appointed
Managing Director in 2007.
Tickets for the remaining performances of "Ebenezza" are available by
calling the Playhouse on Park Box Office at (860) 523-5900, ext.
10. Performances are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at 7:30 pm at
the Playhouse, 244 Park Road, West Hartford. Tickets are $20.00.
For more information on the HartBeat Ensemble, please visit their web
site at www.hartbeatensemble.org.
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