The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Relief fund readied for artists
Arts organizations worked behind the scenes to soften the blow of the COVID-19 shutdown this week and prepare for an eventual return to live shows.
The Arts Council of Greater New Haven announced a new partnership with the City of New Haven’s Department of Cultural Affairs in establishing a New Haven Creative Sector Relief Fund.
The new initiative will distribute (starting immediately) up to $1,000 in financial assistance to help low-income individual artists and arts institutions with small budgets to help them survive and adapt to the shutdown.
⏩ New Haven Symphony Orchestra touted a 7:30 p.m. Thursday “fireside chat” with conductor Alasdair Neale in an online hangout on the symphony’s YouTube channel, “New Haven Symphony Orchestra.”
⏩ Waterbury Symphony Orchestra maestro Leif Bajaland urged healing via music in a WSO email blast: “Music offers us a refuge and a haven in which we can remember our most important values and qualities — qualities about being human, like compassion and comfort. These are needed now more than ever. So I encourage you to listen to music on recordings and YouTube, to stream a live performance and to sing in the shower.”
⏩ And Hartford Stage, which had layoffs recently, announced its 2020-2021 season, the first full season selected by Obie Awardwinning Artistic Director Melia Bensussen.
Bensussen and Managing Director Cynthia Rider announced four of the plays comprising the mainstage season — “As You Like It” by William Shakespeare; the world premiere of “Simona’s Search” by Martín Zimmerman; “Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous” by Pearl Cleage; and Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” by David Catlin. Two additional shows will be announced in the coming weeks, they said.