WISHES FOR THE NEW STARR
FROM TINA SATTER
Dear, People Who Are Reading This:
Maybe you make theater? Maybe you watch theater? Maybe you have loved ones who can’t quit trying to make theater?? I don’t know! But somehow it seems you know the people who run The Bushwick Starr or the work they show there? So here we are: I think this is a pretty known fact, but The Bushwick Starr is NECESSARY. I made a show there in 2011 with my company Half Straddle called In The Pony Palace/FOOTBALL and the chance they took on us and the support they gave us changed the trajectory of my work and career, the company’s and the incredible performers and designers in that piece who all make their own work. When I crossed paths with The Bushwick Starr, I’d been hustling for several years, busting out work with my friends any way we could, anywhere we could, and I remember so clearly that when I met Noel and Sue and sat with them and talked, that it was a revelatory moment in thinking of how institutions can and should be. They spoke directly about how the process could go and how they could support our company and the work, it was different—it was holistic, it was transparent and honest, they made clear their belief in all of us and it felt like the beginning of a conversation—which is what the exchange of any kind of art always should be I think. They made their space from the ground up a place of discourse with their artists, their staff, and so importantly, their neighborhood.
And mostly simply, they walk their talk.
Their ideals and attempts they lay out, they are constantly and clearly working towards. It’s palpable.
And for them to have this new space, again, it’s necessary. For all of us.
I teach all the time and speak with young theater makers who are looking for where to see work and where they can aim to try to make work—and the landscape doesn’t offer a ton actually that is both at once as rigorous and welcoming as The Bushwick Starr.
I firmly believe the biggest thing for theater to continue in this city, in this country, in this world, and to get to change and experiment and remain at all (which is urgent), is Space and Heartbeat Support. This is what The Bushwick Starr has offered so many of us still out there making. And just think—it’s incredibly moving to imagine—all the theater artists we don’t know yet who will come to this space and see stuff and make new things! It’s incredible that Noel and Sue and all their collaborators who have helped them get here are doing this. What an important thing for our artistic ecosystem. I always feel so lucky I know them and worked there.
- Tina Satter, Creator of In the Pony Palace/FOOTBALL
