Students from the TDF Wendy Wasserstein Project attending Broadway shows

…said Tory Bailey, Executive Director of the Theatre Development Fund (TDF) – better known to most as the organization that provides TKTS for Broadway shows. Her words touched my heart as the institution I miss most since the pandemic halted everything is live theatre. Her words meant so much as she continued, “Theatre-makers are agile, creative, adaptive and relentless…They will make art always.”

I was invited to watch this year’s Wendy Wasserstein Project graduation on YouTube/live, though usually in-person. Mentors from the theatre community (including James Lapine, Mark Brokaw, Natasha Katz and Kathleen Chalfant) attend multiple Broadway matinees with selected high school students and talk about their experience and insights over pizza afterwards. You’ll have to watch the mentors gush over their charges to get the full impact of their affection for the offering.

“Theatre has survived pandemics and plagues,” we were reminded, most particularly by author/playwright Marc Acito who mentioned that the Black Plague was followed in history by the Renaissance. Makes bearing this quarantine more tolerable if we get to have our own renaissance to look forward to.