Local theatre tour opens with original musical
BY DEAN JAMIESON
With the city reopening,
one of New York’s
cultural staples –
street theatre – is revving back
up.
Starting July 31, Theatre for the
New City will open its summer
2021 tour with performances
of an original musical, Critical
Care, or: Rehearsal for a Nurse, in
playgrounds, parks, and closed-off
streets across the City.
Written and directed by Crystal
Field, and composed and arranged
by Joseph Vernon Banks, Critical
Care is about a student who takes
a job in a nursing home, only to
be thrust into the double crises
of Coronavirus and the Trump
Presidency.
“Theatre, music and dance
join hands to tell us how to fi nd
each other so that the terror of
the Trump years will not happen
again,” said the Theatre for the
New City.
Field fi rst began writing street
In “Critical Care, or Rehearsals for a Nurse,” a third-year nursing student’s wish to fight the
COVID-19 virus carries her through battling elements of the city in a heroic search to find the
answer to the pain and misery of the social isolation we all feel.
theatre in 1968 Philadelphia,
and there found an enormous
appetite for “both modern and
classical poetry when presented
in a context of relevancy to social
issues.” She went on write plays
with the TNC, and has written
and directed “a completely new
PHOTO BY JONATHAN SLAFF
opera for the TNC Street Theatre
company each successive year.”
Many of these plays combine
political philosophy with humor
in a genre she has called, “that
brainy slapstick.”
Critical Care, which touches
on issues from COVID to health
insurance, from immigration to
the Trump administration, is par
for the course, as Field attempts to
confront social and political issues
in ways that can touch, transcend,
and be accessible for the whole
family.
A “rip-roaring musical,” Critical
Care was composed and arranged
by Joseph Vernon Banks, a composer
who has written music for
a number of TNC productions,
including Liberty or Just Us: A
City Park Story and No Brainer,
or the Solution to Parasites.
With last year’s TNC Street Theatre
production Liberty or Just Us
livestreamed due to COVID, the
company is excited to bring live, inperson
performances back to New
York City’s parks and streets. Free
performances, which will touch all
fi ve boroughs, began July 31 and
go every Saturday and Sunday, into
September.
Mini Statue of Liberty retraces her big sister’s steps
BY REUTERS
A scaled-down replica of the
Statue of Liberty that has
retraced the journey made
over a century ago by its big sister
was erected on Ellis Island in New
York Harbor on Thursday, July 1.
The replica, which stands 9.3
feet (2.8 meters) tall, began its trip
from France to the United States
on the back of a fl at-bed truck last
week.
On Thursday, workers gently
uncovered the plastic fi lm used to
protect the statue in its trip across
the Atlantic.
The work is being loaned by the
Museum of Arts and Crafts in Paris
to the United States for 10 years,
in a gesture aimed at cementing
Franco-American friendship.
“It is a symbol of the friendship
between the French and the
American people, but it is also
a reminder of the importance of
the message of liberty and enlightening
the world, which is the
name of the statue,” said Philippe
Étienne, French ambassador to the
United States, at an inauguration
ceremony.
“It is the essential importance of
freedom in our democracies, inside
our societies and also in the world.”
The larger version of the Statue
of Liberty, who stands at 305 feet
tall (93 meters) including the base,
was given by France to the United
States as a gift. It was assembled
in 1886 and has been on Liberty
Island in New York Harbor ever
since.
The 992-pound (450-kilogram)
bronze replica was crafted from
Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi’s
original Statue of Liberty plaster
model and will be displayed on
Ellis Island from July 1-6 – so it
will be in New York for the July
4 Independence Day celebrations.
It will then move to Washington.
“We found it so important to
have this meeting between the little
and the big sisters, especially on the
4th of July, and then on the 14th
of July – which is our national day,
Bastille Day – it will be inaugurated
again, but in Washington,” said
Étienne.
REUTERS/ROSELLE CHEN
A replica Statue of Liberty is installed on Ellis Island across from her big sister in New York
Harbor on July 1, 2021.
12 July 8, 2021 Schneps Media