“What we saw tonight was the reason to have a theater” June 19, 2007

Every time I start wondering if the Voices In Conflict saga has lost its capacity to fascinate and move me …

ABC News’s coverage of last Friday’s Public Theater performance.

Blog coverage of the public performances from Crooks and Liars, Writes Like She Talks, the Playgoer Blog, Echeblog and Rhapsod, the blog of Matthew Wells who covered the performance for the BBC:

Click here if the above audio link is misbehaving

The theater is the best place to talk about the largest issues of our times. It always has been.

Aeschylus talked about the Greeks’ war against the Persians. Shakespeare talked about what gave a King the right to rule. From the countless adaptations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that played across the United States in the years before the Civil War, to the Federal Theatre Project and the Group Theatre and those audiences roaring to their feet yelling “Strike!, Strike!” at the end of Waiting for Lefty — to this very theater, where Sticks and Bones and Hair and For Colored Girls stood the city on edge and Larry Kramer’s The National Heart tore the hearts out of its audience — talking about how we live, and die, has always been what the theater does best.

These young people from Wilton, Connecticut are a part of that noble tradition.

We welcome them, honor them, and celebrate their spirit.

— Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, The Public Theater

What we saw tonight was the reason to have a theater.

— Allan Buchman, Artistic Director, The Culture Project

Technorati tags: Voices In Conflict, Wilton High School, Wilton Board Of Education, Tim Canty, Bonnie Dickinson, Oskar Eustis, New York Public Theater, Allan Buchman, The Culture Project,