Filed under: Theater
From the New York Times:
In a bid to broaden its theater program and to bring additional polished, diverse theater uptown, City College of New York is lending critical support to an effort to open a new professional theater in residence uptown at Aaron Davis Hall.
Called the New Haarlem Arts Theater, the venture is the brainchild of Eugene Nesmith, the chairman of the theater and speech department at City College. The artistic director for the new theater, he has been able to secure about $50,000 in seed money from the college.
"To do the kind of season I'd really like to do, we would probably need about $200,000," Mr. Nesmith said in a recent interview. "The name has to get out there in a major way. We're not going to get the Broadway audience. We're pulling on our students, our alumni, the Harlem community. We're working all the social media we can."
The college, which has roughly 16,000 students and is part of the City University of New York, made the commitment to the theater despite a sluggish economy that has hurt arts financing and trimmed audiences. A professional theater is expected to boost the profile of the college's theater department, currently one of the smaller departments, with only about 130 majors taking courses in acting, directing, theater history and the like.
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