Program overview
Inspired by Rajio taisō, the radio calisthenics program aired on public radio every morning in Japan, The Silver Lining is a short program that invites listeners to spend twenty minutes of their day breathing together and exercising their creative minds. The program is created by teaching theater artists Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, Caitlin Ryan O’Connell, Claire Fort, Camile Cano-Flavia, Nicole Villamil and visiting guests. 

Typically, we direct a theater and oral history program at senior centers in Bushwick every spring. In mid March, when senior centers in New York City had to cancel all programming due to COVID-19, we wanted to reach out to our students to offer opportunities for them to feel less isolated and remember that play and creativity are a perennial resource. Born out of this practical and civic desire, we dreamed up an audio version of our class.

The Silver Lining is a transformation of a loss into an opportunity that is even more accessible and expansive than what we had originally planned. Moving our class to a dial in number allows us to reach our students, and for the first time, home-bound residents that deserve access to New York City’s cultural programming. We hope that seniors listen in with their families or caregivers.

What will you hear?
Each audio episode is a 20 minute class that guides listeners through movement and memoir prompts. No paper is even required—all that is needed is a comfortable place and a sense of humor. Episodes begin with a physical warm up, followed by prompts to spark imagination, play, and feeling.

LISTEN TO EPISODES:

Description of Episode Nine:

The Roundtable Senior Center Drama Club presents 9 voices and 9 points of view on the vaccine. Some are stories, some are scenes, and some are direct messages to you, our listeners.

El Club de Drama del Roundtable Senior Center presenta 9 voces & 9 puntos de vista sobre la vacuna. Algunos son cuentos, otros son escenas, o mensajes directos para ustedes, nuestra audiencia.

Description of Episode Eight:

We start with a physical warm up that you can do from wherever you are listening, followed by a short reflection exercise (you don’t need a pen or paper, you can just listen!) and then we’ll end with hearing a poem by Lucille Clifton and its adaptation by the members of the Roundtable Senior Center Drama club, that we hope will inspire adaptations of your own.

Empezamos con un ejercicio de calentamiento físico que puede hacer desde donde esté escuchando, seguido por un ejercicio de reflexión corto—no necesitarás papel o lapicero, simplemente puedes escuchar. Terminaremos escuchando un poema escrito por la poeta Lucille Clifton y unas cuantas adaptaciones escritas por los miembros del club de drama de Round Table Senior Center, un centro para mayores en Brooklyn. Esperamos que les inspire a escribir sus propias adaptaciones.

Description of Episode Seven:

What Really Matters
Our last episode of the year! Featuring important messages from our senior listeners about what to remember during and after the election!! And of course, a few grounding exercises to do at home. Enjoy!!!! We’ll back in 2021!

Lo que realmente importa 
¡Nuestro último episodio del año! ¡Con mensajes importantes de nuestros escuchantes mayores sobre que recordar durante y después de las elecciones! Y, por supuesto, algunos ejercicio físicos para hacer en casa.  ¡Disfruten! ¡Volveremos en 2021!

Description of Episode Six:

Fall is the time of shedding old leaves and gathering what we need. In this episode, we reflect on what we want to let go of, and how to gather what gives us strength.

El otoño es la época en la cual vamos deshaciendonos de las hojas viejas y recogiendo lo que necesitamos para sostenernos en esta nueva temporada. Entonces, en este episodio, vamos a reflexionar sobre lo que queremos dejar atrás, y lo que queremos reunir en esta etapa a la cual vamos entrando que nos de fuerza.

Description of Episode Five:

In this episode, which we recorded in early May and waited till now to release, we explore how to be tender, playful, and loving, wherever we are today. We begin with some physical warmups and move towards reflections on different forms of love in our lives. We promise this episode will make you smile.

En este episodio, que grabamos a principios de mayo y esperamos hasta ahora para compartirlo con ustedes, exploramos cómo ser tiernos, juguetones, y cariñosos a pesar de donde estemos hoy, emocionalmente. Empezamos con unos calentamientos físicos y avanzamos a ejercicios en los cuales reflexionamos sobre diferentes formas de amor en nuestras vidas. Les prometemos que este episodio les hará sonreír.

Description of Episode Four:

This episode is about the cycles of time. And the gift of being here today. The exercises in this program will ground us in our bodies and this very moment.

Este episodio se trata de los ciclos de tiempo en nuestras vidas. Y el preciado don de estar vivos hoy. Vamos a compartir con ustedes unos ejercicios que nos permite anclar en nuestros cuerpos y en el presente.

Description of Episode Three:

Episode Three makes space for breath and grief.
In this bilingual episode we take some time to sit with our grief, and celebrate the lives of our senior center community members we have lost. Whether or not you know the seniors we commemorate, we invite you to get to know them, and to also make time for the losses you are carrying.

El episodio número cuatro crea espacio para la respiración y el pesar.
En este episodio bilingüe, tomamos una pausa para sentarnos con nuestro pesar, y celebrar las vidas de los miembros de la comunidad anciana que hemos perdido. Aunque no conozcan a los que conmemoramos, los invitamos a que los conozcan, y que también hagan espacio y tiempo para las pérdidas que ustedes cargan.

Description of Episode Two:

In this episode, we explore the power of opposites: scrunching and releasing our faces, exploring weight and lightness in our bodies, improvising a list of all the things we DON’T know and what we DO know. Through play, we admit our full spectrum of feelings and can move with a little more ease between the extremes of our daily lives. We end the episode with a short exercise inviting you to imagine a new country. You get to make up its laws, flag, and national anthem! This episode is great for anyone listening at home alone, for caregivers who want to walk someone through the exercises on their own time, and for kids who want to stretch and dream!

En este episodio, exploramos el poder de los opuestos: estrujando y relajando nuestras caras, explorando el peso y la levedad de nuestros cuerpos, improvisando una lista de todas las cosas que NO sabemos y lo que SÍ sabemos. A través del juego, reconocemos el espectro entero de nuestros sentimientos, y aprendemos a movernos entre los extremos de nuestras vidas cotidianas con más facilidad. Terminamos este episodio with un corto ejercicio invitándolos a crear un país nuevo ¡Creas tus propias leyes, bandera, e himno nacional! ¡Este episodio es ideal para alguien escuchando solo desde su casa, para cuidadores que desean enseñarle los ejercicios a alguien a su propia velocidad, y para niños que quieran estirarse y soñar!

This program is made possible by The Bushwick Starr theater and supported by a SU CASA grant from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Council

THE SILVER LINING TEAM:

Camila Canó-Flaviá is an actor. Broadway: Network (Belasco Theater). Off Broadway: Mac Beth (Hunter Theater Project), Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons; Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble). Regional: The Coast Starlight (La Jolla Playhouse), My Jane (Chester Theater Company). TV: Lovecraft Country (Upcoming) (HBO), Madam Secretary (CBS), Orange is the New Black (Netflix). B.F.A. Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

Rachel Kauder Nalebuff is a writer working in performance and oral history. She is the editor of the New York Times best-selling My Little Red Book (Hachette, 2009), an anthology of people’s first period stories; co-editor of The Feminist Utopia Project (Feminist Press, 2015), a collection of essays and art that imagine a better future; and author of Stages (Thick Press, 2020), a hybrid collection of interviews with end-of-life care workers and writing on love and loss that “feels truly revolutionary, in both form and in content” (Elif Batuman). Rachel created A Knock on the Door (Reimagine End of Life, 2018), a performance made with a cross-section of nursing home staff—from housekeepers to clergy to management—about the invisible labor behind dying in New York City. Her adaptation of The Birds by Aristophanes (NYU, 2017) was created with and performed by nursing home residents. Her work has been presented by the BBC, the Skirball Cultural Center, REDCAT, and the Hammer Museum. Rachel holds an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College, where she is a lecturer in the English Department.

Justice Nnanna is a Director based in Brooklyn & Lagos. He graduated from NYU Tisch & studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. His work is predominately non-fiction inspired and explores ways of seeing social-political experiences. He’s worked across five continents and is eager to collaborate with partners committed to supporting important, unique, narratives. His projects “Maria el Diablo”  & “Megolonyo: With a Mother You Are Rich” are in current award contention at The Nitehawk Film Festival, Social Impact Media Awards (SIMA) and the Brooklyn Film Festival.

Caitlin Ryan O’Connell is a freelance director and teaching artist based in Brooklyn. She teaches at NYU's Playwrights Horizons Theater School, The Powerhouse Theater Training Program at Vassar College, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Ridgewood Bushwick & Roundtable Senior Centers, and with the International Theatre Project in Rwanda. Recent directing credits include King Philip's Head is Still On That Pike Just Down the Road by Daniel Glenn at Clubbed Thumb and Twin Size Beds by Sam Max at The Public's Under the Radar Festival. She has directed and developed work with the Bushwick Starr, Ars Nova, The Lark, Roundabout, Fault Line Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Trinity Repertory Company, The Denver Center and Clubbed Thumb. Caitlin was a 2018 New Georges Audrey Resident, a former Clubbed Thumb directing fellow, and a former Actors Theatre directing apprentice. BA Wellesley College, MFA Brown University.

Nicole Villamil. Wolf Play, (Soho Rep), Network (Broadway), Queens (LCT3), How to Load a Musket (59E59), MUD (Boundless Theatre), Shakespeare’s R&J (Hangar Theatre), De Profundis (PlayMakers Rep), Tell me I’m not Crazy, The Rose Tattoo (Williamstown Theatre Festival) The Hunchback of Seville, The Love of the Nightingale (Trinity Repertory Co.), [Edu] M.F.A., Brown/Trinity Repertory Co.

Coleman Zurkowski is a composer and musician based out of New York.  Zurkowski studied composition at DePaul University in Chicago, IL with Kurt Westerberg from 2008 to 2012.  He continued his studies at the California Institute of the Arts from 2012 to 2014 with Michael Pisaro and Wolfgang von Schweinitz.  In 2015, he was chosen to be a resident composer for the Khora Residency at the Syros International Film Festival in Syros, Greece.  In 2017, he self-organized an international tour of his album ZERO, which was eventually released by Dangerbird Records in Los Angeles in 2018.  In 2019, he released his follow up album INSTRUMENTAL with a US tour through New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, and Miami.  Zurkowski has lectured as a visiting artist at the California Institute of the Arts and DePaul University.  Outside of his personal composition, Zurkowski also composes music for film, television, commercials, and theatre.

Image credits from the program in action at the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center:
1. Photo by Caitlin Ryan O’Connell
2. Photo by Arianne Alizio

Get in touch, we’d love to hear from you! silverliningradio@gmail.com