By Ronald B. Hellman
It’s summertime and we theater types have things on our minds.
No, it’s not the weather or fun and games in Albany, but what our next season is going to be and where we will get the money to pay for it. Audience attendance seems to be down all over, the economy has yet to pick up and show business doesn’t get any easier.
So I find myself at Flushing Town Hall on a Friday morning for a presentation by the New York State Cultural Data Project. CDP describes itself as “a powerful online management tool designed to strengthen arts and cultural organizations.” What it does, free of charge, is to assist you in creating a data profile for your organization that will streamline your grant application process and make available comparisons to other members of the cultural community.
One requirement for participation is to be nonprofit, organized and operated under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Most theater companies can qualify under this section.
Another requirement is to have the time and energy to enter the information and complete the form. Although I scored very high on an Army test for “attention to detail” — which is how I wound up at a missile base defending Philadelphia — this is the kind of stuff that makes my hair hurt.
The good news, however, is that there’s plenty of help available, as well as a surprising amount of grant money just waiting to be accessed. And CDP is open to all cultural groups, from the smallest to the largest.
Their headquarters, by the way, is on Market Street in Philadelphia, rewarding me again for my service in protecting the City of Brotherly Love back in the 1960s. For information go to nysculturaldata.org or call 1-888-697-2371.
Flushing Town Hall, located on Northern Boulevard at Linden Place, is a building erected about 150 years ago, newly renovated and operated by Flushing Council on Cultural and the Arts. Founded in 1979 by the late Jo-Ann Jones, certainly the most dynamic person on the Queens cultural scene during her tenure as executive director, the organization is now headed by Ellen Kodadek, who has her work cut out for her in the face of severe budget cuts and staff layoffs.
Perhaps best known for its jazz programs, Flushing Town Hall has an elegant theater on the second floor, which I am told is available for an occasional rental.
Theater space is in short supply in Queens, an unfortunate deficiency in a borough with an official count of 2.2 million residents. Other than in schools and colleges, and not counting make-do spaces in churches, synagogues and other temporary venues, there are almost no real theater facilities here, Queens Theatre in the Park being one notable exception.
Manhattan, on the other hand, not only has its well-known Broadway and Off Broadway houses, but has dozens of small theaters in all kinds of buildings and places, two of my favorites being the Flea Theater in Tribeca and the Atlantic Theater in Chelsea.
Queens would greatly benefit from the creation of stages for the performing arts, theaters to enhance the quality of our lives and to generate business. A good example is the Rockaway Theatre Company, flourishing since 1998 at Fort Tilden’s Post Theater in Breezy Point. Fort Totten in Bayside would be a good venue if the Parks and Fire departments that control the site can get their act together.
We need our field of dreams: If you build it, they will come.
Contact Ron Hellman at RBH24@Columbia.edu.
