WISHES FOR THE NEW STARR
FROM HARUNA LEE
Dear Bushwick Starr Beloveds,
About a month ago, I met up with Noel for the first time since the pandemic to catch up and to ask him for a favor (typical of our artist & artistic director relationship going on about 9 years now, but also unusual as I don’t really have this kind of relationship with other artistic directors). I turned the corner onto Eldert Street, a quiet cul-de-sac with a few storefront grates and a brick wall covered in faded graffiti. As I walked up, I saw light pouring out of a square opening where Noel was on his phone hovered over some papers on a desk, lit by a couple of tall standing lamps, and surrounded by mismatching chairs that looked like they had seen a few shows over their lifetime. The space looked and smelled like a raw shrine ready to be inhabited by the theater gods. And with the kind of gentle but serious verve that animates Noel, he showed me the bare warehouse that used to be a dairy plant while describing the place like he could see everything in his mind's eye. I imagined this was the same energy and excitement that filled him and Sue when they first conceived of the Starr in a residential building 13 years ago.
The Bushwick Starr has been a hugely generative space for me, especially in my early dreaming as an artist when living felt tenuous & insecure. I shared my first ever shows within the walls of the old Starr (one about Russian Futurism, another about the life cycle of plums), and I certainly took for granted the home that The Bushwick Starr had given me (but maybe that’s the charm of the Starr? Always unassuming)— a home where I was motivated by risk, possibility, and all the discomfort and hard edges of growth, and this was met with the tenderness of trust as well as a commitment to a radical process of care. I can’t express how unusual, how magnificent and crucial this offering was for an artist who just needed to create.
The Bushwick Starr is where I go to see my people and my theater community. It’s where I go to catch riveting and strange new works. It’s where I meet my longtime friend, or where I take my date, or my family when they’re in town (consequently, it’s where I’ve actually worked with my family to develop my work too). What a relief that the Bushwick Starr is still alive! It’s like the fulcrum of our New York theater community, its resilience made up of a sacred gift exchange: the Starr’s ability to cultivate beautiful and real relationships with artist humans, in exchange for artist humans who continually uplift the home that has boldly supported them. And I love and support the Starr, woven into my story of becoming. I know it will continue to be a devoted home for me, and for artist humans of our future, who need an inspiring place for gathering and sharing our most dangerous ideas.
- Haruna Lee, Creator of Suicide Forest
*photo credit Heather Sten
