Pilot Episode: First Online With Fran with Angelina Fiordellisi

“I think that one of our greatest responsibilities as theater providers,” asserts Angelina Fiordellisi, “is to sensitize the tribe . . . deepening our primal connections, our primal needs, our primal impulses and what Shakespeare calls ‘holding the mirror up to society’.” This poignant insight is particularly significant since the tragic course of events this past week in Newtown, Connecticut.

On November 19th, 2012 First Online With Fran featured Artistic Director and founder of the Cherry Lane Theatre, Angelina Fiordellisi. Listen to her reflect on the work at the Cherry Lane Theatre, most notably the 2013 Mentor Project, among others, and how they contribute to cultivating an urban artist colony, honor its ground-breaking heritage, create theater that illuminates contemporary issues and transforms the human spirit.

First Online With Fran was shot and edited by The New York Film Shop, Andrea Bertola, Artistic Director.

SUBSCRIBE NOW: http://www.youtube.com/user/FrancesMcgarry

What Can the Arts do at a time like this?

The Further Erosion of American Innocence
Barry Hessenius, WESTAF Blog, 12/16/12
http://blog.westaf.org/2012/12/the-further-erosion-of-american.html

The last line in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is:
“And Ralph wept for the end of innocence and the darkness of man’s heart”.

In the face of the senseless carnage at the Sandy Hook Elementary school this past weekend, America again shed tears in the continuing erosion of its innocence, and the recognition of the darkness in the heart of one seriously disturbed young man.

We in the arts – whether directly as artists or those who support them in some way – have the great and good gift of dealing with beauty, with joy and hope – even in the face of despair; with redemption, salvation and the wellspring of epiphany. We do this in a world that is sometimes unimaginably ugly. What can we now do? Nothing more than to keep doing what we do; to continue to be part of what makes life good, what makes it worthwhile, what gives hope and joy and brings smiles to faces.

Thank you, Barry, for this poignant reminder of how the arts heals our humanity. Stay tuned for the first pilot episode of First Online With Fran! Angelina Fiordellisi, Artistic Director and Founder of the Cherry Lane Theatre talks about this very subject in our interview. STAY TUNED…

Alexandra Svokos, editor of Columbia University’s Bwog.com, 11/29/12

In final appearance, outgoing NEA chair again calls US arts funding “pathetic”….http://myemail.constantcontact.com/You-ve-Cott-Mail-for-Mon-Dec-3–Government-funding-for-the-arts.html?soid=1102382269951&aid=2cNrBFVo_Wo.

Gem Magazine Long Island

Women In Arts & Entertainment

Read about Northport’s Isabella Eredita Johnson, founder and director of Opera Night Long Island in the winter issue of Gem Magazine