“It couldn’t happen here” was the reaction most theater-goers had to the news of the closing of the East Village’s The Connelly Theater by the building’s landlord: The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. After years of being a home for original, thought-provoking, more challenging, gender-questioning, plays and performances, the Archdiocese started to take a closer look at the work mounted in his theater. Many shows were displaced because of this sudden decision, including RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR, the latest production by The Hearth, a New York-based theater company dedicated to producing work by artists of underrepresented genders as well as offering opportunities to early-career artists started by Julia Greer and Emma Miller in 2015. While The Hearth had yet to work with The Connelly, RACECAR could have been the start of a fruitful artistic relationship cementing what was the theater’s mission: supporting the work of local theater-makers. Previous productions at the theater include Job by Max Wolf Friedlich, Circle Jerk by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, and Pre Existing Condition by Marin Ireland. It seems unbelievable, unthinkable, incomprehensible that censorship would come for the freewheeling East Village. The place of the avant-garde bohemianism of the 70s. The location of La Mama and New York Theater Workshop, but, as Greer contextualized it nicely when she said, “it used to be easy to think that an East Village theater in New York City was untouchable by bigotry, censorship, and prejudice, but it seems inescapable even in these progressive corners of the world.” After the election, Is this our wake-up call? Read on to hear Greer discuss how she learned of the news of The Connelly, RACECAR, and some musings on the state of American Theater.
This interview has been edited for both length and clarity.
Eve Bromberg: In addition to the closure of The Connelly, Trump’s election has left a lot theater makers and students feeling like their work is redundant or frivolous– or perhaps more important than ever. How are you all feeling about running a theater company right now? How are you doing?
Julia Greer: Ya know, it is really hard! It’s always been difficult, but it’s only felt harder and harder in the last few years with rising costs, fractured audiences, and a city that seems to be more and more inhospitable to small theater companies. I believe in the work we do so deeply, but producing quality work on this scale feels more and more like a herculean effort. But, at its core, I think theatre is an exercise in understanding people’s humanity and learning from a perspective different from your own. We need human connection and storytelling to laugh, to feel, to gather, etc.. We always need stories, and can always stand to broaden our horizons– that will never be a frivolous endeavor. At The Hearth, I feel very proud to be giving voice to artists who haven’t been heard before.
EB: I’m not sure if you can speak to this, but did you hear rumblings about the closure before it happened?
JG: I had not heard a peep about the closure or the goings on until it was imminent. It all seemed to move very fast, and I think all parties believed that since we had a signed contract before the change in leadership, we would be able to do our play as planned even though a lot was happening behind the scenes unbeknownst to us. As soon as we learned the extent of what was going on, we knew it wouldn’t feel right to do the play there, and we had reason to believe that the new leadership would cancel ours, and then they did!
EB: How was the news delivered? Did they expect you to sort of just get out?
JG: I was actually on my honeymoon and learned because The New York Times had started looking into what had shifted in The Connelly’s programming. We learned more over the next few days but didn’t know we were officially kicked out until there was no staff left at the theater. The Cornelia Connelly Center and the former theater staff were all pretty devastated.
EB: Does The Hearth have a working relationship with The Connelly? If so, how would you classify your relationship with the archdiocese in the past? Was he as hands-off as the Times piece suggests?
JG: We had never worked at The Connelly before and were very excited to start a new relationship.
We had hoped that it would be a place we could return to for years to come. When we signed a contract to do RACECAR The Connelly, the wonderful Josh Luxemberg who ran Connelly’s operations told us about the archdiocese’s role in the organization. There was a small section about them in our contract, but even Josh had had very little actual interaction with them and had done many many adventurous and interesting plays there over the last many years. It felt like a backdrop. They did not seem to be decision-makers in any meaningful way.
EB: So many people are reacting to this closure with disbelief: how can this be happening in New York? In the East Village? How do you feel about the strange incoherence of this happening?
JG: It is really devastating! Aside from the very practical loss of two theater spaces, it’s pretty unthinkable that it was lost for this reason specifically. I think in the context of the recent election and the surprising ways our country seems to be sliding backward, it used to be easy to think that an East Village theater in New York City was untouchable by bigotry, censorship, and prejudice, but it seems inescapable even in these progressive corners of the world.
EB: Tell me a bit about RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR! Why did you choose to program it? Did it feel particularly culturally relevant when reading it? Womanhood and girlhood do feel under attack and miscomprehended (see Naomi Beinart’s NYT op-ed from November 16th). How did a collaboration between Playwright Kallan Dana and Director Sarah Blush come about and how does this play exist next to your last production, Push Party– a play that looks at womanhood through a more intersectional lens?
JG: Racecar Racecar Racecar is such a special play from an amazing playwright. It was one of those rare ones that I read and thought, I have to do this play before someone else snags it. I do believe that womanhood and girlhood increasingly feel under attack and we have
to fight for our stories and perspectives to be taken seriously. It has always been important to me that we show narratives about show women and people of marginalized genders onstage in a way that their identity isn’t their main or only character trait and that the stories we tell by women are also made by women. At its core, this play is about a young woman navigating familial relationships, childhood
memories, and inherited demons. She is messy and complicated. It’s one of those stories that is so specific it becomes universal, and I think a theatrical, funny, dark, fast play about the good and bad of a relationship, living in a grey area, and how we move forward and take responsibility for our actions is always relevant. Part of what is nice about being such a small operation is that I often feel like we don’t have a specific set of rules for what constitutes a “Hearth Play.” Sarah Blush directed our 2022 production of EVENTS, and we were dying to work with her again.
Push Party and RACECAR are radically different plays brought to life by incredibly different teams. I love that no Hearth play feels or looks the same, and both of these plays feel vital in really different ways, but at their core, they center women or a woman’s experience and take that experience seriously.
EB: Is there any knowledge of what will become of The Connelly Theater?
JG: No idea! I’m hopeful that it won’t be lost to the theater community forever, but for right now it’s tragic to think of a theater space like that sitting empty.
EB: Any musings on the future of Downtown theater in New York?
JG: I think we are at an inflection point. People are still making exciting, interesting new work, but it feels like there’s less of it and that the entire theater ecosystem is more fragile than I’ve known it to be in my time in New York. I hope that people value it as a place to donate to and support and that new, adventurous, weird, and interesting work keeps finding a way to shine through. We all have to be of the mind that we’re in it together – from the big institutions to one-night performances in tiny spaces, to companies like mine. We all need each other!
EB: Any other musings about the direction of American Theater?
JG: I think theater as an art form will always survive, but I think the way that the American Theater has survived up to this point is becoming less steady. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to shake things up, but I also hope we don’t lose wonderful artists, audiences, and spaces in this shift.
Performances for RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR begin December 6th at ART/NY The Mezzanine Theatre. Read more about the production and buy tickets here.
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