Imploring our Elected Officials: Stand Up for Democratic Institutions

February 5, 2017

Dear Senator Collins,

I’m scared. And I need to know you have the backs of myself and fellow Mainers.

I’m a rural Mainer; a gay woman; a state employee; a practicing Catholic; a theater professional with a degree in American Studies. I’ve spent my adult life studying, defending, and practicing American democracy. I’ve served my time both as an elected community official and as an appointed member of municipal committees, as well as a board member for numerous community nonprofit organizations.

Many of the acts of the current administration, in its first two weeks, make me fear not for particular policies, but more importantly for the institution of democracy we hold so dear and proudly.

I am writing to implore you, as Maine’s most senior congressional representative, to find the courage to lead, at this moment in history, with even more integrity than ever before: to take the continuous actions essential to supporting the pillars of our democracy.

There are a majority of voters of both parties who will stand behind you. We must believe our democracy matters to us all, matters more to each of us than partisan alliances and politics. We need your voice of moderation, courage, and integrity now more than ever.

Through you, Maine’s proud legacy of female political leadership, highlighted by Margaret Chase Smith, can stay alive – but only if you are willing to uphold Maine’s values in the face of some of the administration’s current actions.

We look to you to actively and vocally support the following:

1.     An independent Congress and Judiciary, acting in their appropriate roles of checks and balances on Executive branch power;

2.     An independent media, in existence and necessary to provide an additional check and balance on those in power;

3.     Cabinet and Supreme Court nominations of individuals who support and have expertise in government precedence and the departments they have been selected to lead;

4.     Transparency and equity: proper disclosure of and appropriate action on personal financial statements, including President Trump’s tax returns and the holdings of Betsy DeVos, so that Congress and the Judiciary can determine how to handle potentially debilitating and dangerous conflicts of interest that pose threats to our national security.

5.     Policies and programs, such as the the ADA, the Affordable Care Act, Social Security, Medicaid, the NEA, and Public Broadcasting, which help to ensure that every American, regardless of wealth or position, is able to benefit from the basic privileges of being a citizen of or refugee or immigrant to the world’s wealthiest nation.

6.     A compassionate national government that seeks to extend its overwhelming wealth and natural resources to those who continue to suffer worldwide.

It is my hope you will raise your voice in support for these crucial pillars of our democracy; that you will vote and advocate for only those cabinet and Supreme Court nominations of individuals who are well qualified for their intended positions and support long-standing federal precedents; and that you will actively demand financial transparency of all existing and potential federal officials, as well as the steps necessary to eliminate glaring conflicts of interest that damage our democracy and safety.

Senator Collins, I’m scared and I hope you are, too. Belligerent leadership, rife with financial conflicts of interest, disrespect for the balance of powers and a demonstrated disregard for facts and truth endangers our nation. As an elected leader in whom we have placed our trust, you are one of an elite few in a position to stand against these actions.

You are in a difficult position, one in which we ask you to step up and be, at times, in opposition to your party and its President. Your demonstration of such integrity, however, is vital to the preservation of our democracy. Every one of us is needed to build the fair and equitable democracy in which we and the Founders, regardless of their historical limitations, believed. Without your strong voice and leadership, it might be lost: a tragedy of a scale few can even imagine.

Thank you in advance for your leadership and your service on our behalves.

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most sincerely,

What Effective Political Idealism Might Look Like

I wrote most of what follows for Maine’s caucus day on Sunday. I am republishing it here today because I find the increased rhetoric from liberals who support Sanders, as well as his “victory” in Michigan, upsetting.

The increased polarization of the electorate bodes well for no one.

To the many liberals who continue to push for Sanders and to denounce Clinton, I hope you will read this carefully as a cautionary tale. In Maine, the liberals who are crowing about Sanders victories are the exact same people who voted early for Libby Mitchell for Governor in 2010 because she said what they wanted to hear. And the increasingly vitriolic denouncements of Clinton—including those Sanders supporters who say they will not come out to vote for Clinton--indicate only that the Democrats, no less than the Republicans, are wrestling with a body politic that fears a woman in power and is under-educated about how democratic change truly happens.

Like many Mainers and unlike the majority of Americans, I live in a small, rural community.

I know everyone and they know me. Most of us spend a lot of time volunteering - for our schools, ambulance corps, fire departments, community nonprofits and municipal governments - to make our communities work and to encourage them to thrive.

We’re all so wonderfully various! Aging hippies. Young adults coming into their own as entrepreneurs. Middle-aged adults, with or without kids, some activists and some not. Pioneering artists. Fishermen. The elderly retired, the elderly infirm. And across all of these demographics are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. To move the needle forward we have to find common cause with those whose perspectives and beliefs are different from ours. We have to make compromises and deals and know that we can continue to hold our ideals while respecting others and moving toward them for the sake of a bigger, more common good.

The empathy, tolerance and respect required by small community life has traditionally been a hallmark of Maine culture, whose Senators have proudly included Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Margaret Chase Smith alongside George Mitchell, Ed Muskie, and Mike Michaud.

To regain our civility and continue the change that eight years of the Obama administration started, we have to understand that real change happens in the middle ground between us. A sweet spot that neither end of ideology — liberal or conservative — represents. This is why I find the extremely polarized nature of the current Presidential election so depressing — particularly on the liberal side.

The conservatives can deal with their own house. I’m talking about the ways liberals, progressives, Democrats and the like often shoot ourselves in the foot when it comes to electoral politics.

It appears, from evidence on the great blogosphere, from Nader’s impact on Florida in 2000 and the many small elections that lead up to that, from our own three-way races for governor in Maine, that few of us have received adequate training on how to be an effective citizen for democratic change, i.e., how to move forward together for the sake of a common good. The evolution of American culture and media have made it far easier to cling to our individual identities and to the ideologies that support those.

Understanding and valuing a common good means that as citizens we are required to move our votes out of the realm of ideas and personalities we "like" or don't like: away from ideology and toward common cause.

This doesn't mean the end of idealism, although it does mean the end of ideology.

I remember my own youthful idealism, when the only things that mattered were our radical beliefs for "a better world" and the sometimes extreme ideologies that pulled us toward these personal utopias. 

I am idealistic for a better world these days in a different way. Oh yes, I absolutely believe we need to deal solidly and effectively with income inequality. Our work for education and against poverty is paramount to me.

Yet based on my experience in community, I am also aware that we have very different ideas about how to achieve these goals. And as an historian, I am very aware that the characteristics that most distinguish American culture from the European models held up by most liberals is that we are a country founded on a tax revolt and with an urban (manufacturing/banking/big government) / rural (agrarian/slaveholding/local control) split at our core (for those who don’t know the history of our two parties, start with Hamilton on Broadway!).

My idealism today is for a civil, democratic world in which we respect each other in all our (conservative/liberal urban/rural black/white male/female etc. etc.) differences, and demonstrate that respect by not only finding common cause but rolling up our sleeves and getting to work with those with whom we disagree. It is an idealism against ideology and for commonality--or community. For liberals, that means that Republican community members often have good ideas, too. It is an idealism for the sweet spot in the middle, not for a tenacious clinging to either end.

This idealism informs my decisions about for whom to vote. To be effective, our votes have to represent our hopes that change is possible for all of us: not just socialists on the left and Tea Partyers on the right. Not just for the usual types of authority we've been taught to trust (white, male) and not just against those whose solutions we consider "crazy." Our votes have to represent our knowledge that the middle ground is not only respectful but effective in moving us toward the better world for which we are all crying out.

Ideology, as advanced through rhetoric, is about ideas, not people. One can favor the idea of increased national security and be deaf to its impact on refugees. One can be opposed to income inequality and be oblivious to the the fact that change requires bringing vested interests along for the ride.

If leadership is only inspiring others to follow a shared vision, then both Trump and Sanders are performing beautifully in this race for President. But isn't leadership also about knowing how to work with those who disagree with you? Acknowledging the validity of their beliefs, fears, and solutions, and being willing to meet them half way to get the job done?

Our current American “idealism” for ideologies on the far left and far right bodes ill for the long term future of our democracy, because a democracy depends on voters willing to give up individual positions to ensure better governance for our common world. Through our behavior and rhetoric and public education system, through the mass media and social media, we are educating our young people only to follow their individual hearts and beliefs. These are important, but not all that make an effective voting electorate.

Yes: I continue to believe that the ends keep pulling the center forward, and are therefore always necessary. I am glad Bernie Sanders entered this race to do just that. I also know, after advocating for women's, gay, and economic rights for 35 years, that real change doesn't happen in “one fell swoop.” It does not surprise me that Sanders support is heaviest among white, young liberals; demographics who rarely question what their own privilege really means, or how it takes shape in the world. I support Hilary because she shows more respect for and understanding of how to work with my fellow community members, and can get the job done.

I’m crossing my fingers that we can rally behind her, and that liberals as well as conservatives don’t again shoot American progressivism in the foot by clinging to ideologically-based voting. 

36 Hours in the Arts in Maine with NEA Chairman Jane Chu

From The Telling Room to Spindleworks and the Bowdoin International Music Festival in 3 Short Days

NEA Chairman Jane Chu greets members of the Somali
Bantu Community Association, recipients of NEA funds
via the Maine Arts Commission's grant programs

In less than 36 hours you can get a grand picture of the vitality and breadth of the arts in Maine. Here's a quick tour courtesy of last week's visit by National Endowment for the Arts chairman Jane Chu. 

I had the great pleasure of accompanying chairman Jane Chu and Maine Arts Commission Director Julie Richard to Brunswick on day 3 of the chairman's junket here. Hopefully many of you were able to attend the packed Town Hall meeting she conducted Monday night in Portland.

Thanks to the office of Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, the Chairman visited NEA grant award winners in Portland on Monday, August 10; in Waterville and Lewiston on Tuesday; and Brunswick Wednesday. Details of that day below, but in the meantime here are the great organizations that Chairman Chu visited -- and you can, too!

Day 1, August 10, Portland: The Telling Room, Terra Motto/Veterans Story Exchange, Portland Museum of Art
Day 2, August 11, Waterville: Maine Film Center
Day 2 continued, Lewiston: Bates Dance Festival, Bates College Museum of Art, Somali Bantu Community Association

Julie Richard, Executive Director, Maine Arts Commission;
Jane Chu, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts;
Liz McGhee, Program Director, Spindleworks;
Spindleworks artist, seated, and teaching artist.

We started Day 3: Brunswick at the ever-amazing Spindleworks, a non profit art center for adults with disabilities, where one of the most famous lines ever written or spoken is “HANDICAP, I HEARD ABOUT IT BUT I AIN’T GOT IT NOW," by participating artist Rita Langlois. As intrepid Program Director Liz McGhee walked us through the full and busy artist studios, they showed us their excellent work and described their inspiring days of art making at Spindleworks. We reluctantly tore ourselves away from the Spindleworks Gallery without buying armloads of art. You can purchase Spindleworks art online or at their new Spin Off Studio in Gardiner, but I truly recommend visiting and perhaps getting a chance to meet one of the 40+ artists who use these studios every week. 

We hiked up Maine Street and were lucky enough to greet briefly Bowdoin College's incoming president, Clayton Rose, who showed off Nathaniel Hawthorne's desk.

Then off to greet Peter Simmons and the staff of the Bowdoin International Music Festival whose violin instructor, Frank Huang, was recently named concert master for the New York Philharmonic--a testament to the amazing quality of work and student experiences offered by the festival. A quick tour of one of the Festival's musical homes, the beautiful Studzinski Recital Hall (where I swam as a Bowdoin student, as it was formerly Curtis Pool) and off we swept to see, last but not least, the renovated and re-energized Bowdoin College Museum of Art, now under the guidance of curators Anne and Frank Goodyear. If you didn't see my previous posts re the unexpected Night Vision exhibit, or the innovative new work now on display there from photographer Abelardo Morrell, check them out here.

Whew. You CAN do this, too--and I highly recommend it. Maine arts and artists in all areas -- whether folk or traditional artists, or those who hang in museums -- are of international quality. And they are right here in our very own, very beautiful backyard.

A final quick note re NEA Chairman Chu. This fall she is poised to announce her signature leadership initiative, Creativity Connects. Earlier this year she launched the Tell Us Your Story to celebrate this year's 50th anniversary of the NEA and said,

"We have an opportunity to start a new dialogue on the ways in which the arts—and the ways the NEA supports the arts—are an essential component of our everyday lives," says Chu. "Although many may not realize it, the arts actively intersect with areas such as the economy, human development, and community vitality. The arts and artists who are funded and supported by the NEA are an integral part of the solution to the challenges we face in all parts of our society."

We say YES.

The Lincoln Festival Chorus 35th Season Performance

Soprano Suzanne Nance soloed with the Lincoln Festival Chorus in Boothbay Harbor and Newcastle, Maine this weekend in an all-Mozart concert including the Solemn Vespers.

This is a story about how great it is to get out of your own head/hood and into the world to see what others are doing: a kind of wake-up call for the way we need to break and cross boundaries in Maine arts.

There is a lot of beautiful, high quality performance work happening by and in Maine communities, and a great example of this is the Lincoln Arts Festival in the Boothbay region. The Lincoln Festival Chorus and the Mozart Mentors Orchestra conducted by maestro Anthony Antolini (disclaimer: yes, another fellow Bowdoin grad as well as member of the Bowdoin faculty) gave a fabulous, all-Mozart concert in Newcastle tonight of the Ave verum corpus, written in 1791, less than six months before the composer's death; and Vesparae solemnes de confessore from 1780. Both pieces featured soprano soloist Suzanne Nance, whom followers of this blog have seen frequently at Opera House Arts.

We rarely have truly hot days and evenings in Maine, and today was one of these. The beautiful St. Patrick's hall in Newcastle, where tonight's concert was held, had no AC and both audience and performers were swabbing our sweat from our faces. The maestro shed his white tie to reveal strong green John Deere suspenders over his soaked shirt.

Antolini mentioned to me after the performance that he was extremely grateful for the Maine Arts Commission's support of a world premiere commission he conducted in May, Elizabeth Brown's To Walk Humbly for theremin, piano, and chorus. Brown is composer in residence at Monclair State University in New Jersey. Her music, which has been heard around the world, is informed by her performances on flute, shakuhachi, theremin, and dan bau (Vietnamese monochord). It is always a thrill for the Arts Commission to support the world premieres of original performances, especially of contemporary classical works, right here in Maine.

Faith Becoming Flesh: Martin Luther King Day 2013

What does it mean to take our faith into the world? To not simply proclaim it, but to follow the examples of the world’s great spiritual leaders—Christ, Buddha, Mohammed—and give flesh to our beliefs?

In the U.S. of modern history, few have exemplified such “faith in action” better than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I continue to find the national holiday in honor of King the most moving and inspiring day of the year.

And right now, on this Martin Luther King Day 2013, I’m thinking of One Billion Rising on February 14, and the National March on Washington for Gun Control next Saturday, January 26.

King’s message, like the great spiritual leaders’ before him, was “simple:” love thy neighbor, and pay particular attention to those who are poor, afflicted, and oppressed. The making of these words flesh continues to be complicated, and King’s execution of his faith was no less complex than those who came before--or than ours must be each day.

While best remembered for his civil rights victories, it is King’s much broader battle that demands our current attention. His great 1963 March on Washington, forever memorialized in his “I Have A Dream” speech, dramatized the plight of America’s poor and catalyzed President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty legislation. King supported the rights of low-wage garbage workers in Memphis; he actively protested the Vietnam War.

Johnson proposed The War on Poverty (we have this legislation to thank for federal programs such as Head Start) in response to a national poverty rate, in 1960, of just under 19%. During President Clinton’s tenure, the poverty rate reached a low of 11.3%, but by the time of the 2010 census it had climbed back to 15.1%.

In 50 years, we’ve shaved less than 4% off our national number of people living in poverty. This is 15.1% of individual U.S. citizens living on less than $11,344.

Whether or not you support the Occupy Wall Street movement (or for that matter the Arab Spring revolutions), with 1% of our population accounting for 24% of all income, we have not, as a nation, solved the problem of how to equitably distribute resources so that everyone, including children and the elderly, has enough to eat nutritiously and live warmly, safely, and healthily.

So when President Obama, in his inaugural address, connected King’s actions at Selma to those of women struggling for equality at Seneca Falls and gay people fighting for our rights and lives at Stonewall, he’s reminding us that for any of us to be free, there must be equity for all—and equity, despite our religious beliefs and faith, does not come easily. It requires action. It demands that faith be made flesh.

Just days before his assassination, King was planning a second March on Washington, and said that to create real change for America, “We are coming to demand that the government addresses itself to the problem of poverty. It is our experience that the nation doesn’t move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct action.”

Poverty and oppression come in many shapes and sizes, and so there are nearly limitless opportunities to join together and put our faith to work. One billion women—mothers, daughters, sisters, partners, and friends, one of every three people on our planet of seven billion—will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. One Billion Rising, the largest day of action in the history of Eve Ensler’s V-Day movement, is a promise that we will rise up with women and men worldwide to say the violence ends now. Join us at the Opera House this Valentine’s Day, Thursday, February 14, and put your faith to work on behalf of ending violence against women. Or take yourself to Washington, D.C., next Saturday, January 26, to work towards lessening gun violence in the U.S. by demanding legislation to better protect all of us from the “overkill” of a culture in which a strident insistence on individual rights often works to the detriment of our communities and the most disenfranchised among us.

Can we truly call ourselves a nation of faith when so much of our legislative and economic time is spent struggling only for our own individual well being? Not in my book. Together, we can make change, but to do so requires action in addition to belief. It requires, as all the great religions of our world proclaim, faith made flesh.

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
    and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
    and her salvation like a burning torch. – Isaiah 62:1

The Power of Black

OK. Yeah. Art matters.

For most of you reading this, this is a pretty obvious statement of fact.

For me, living on Deer Isle, ME for most of the year, I've access to art (thanks to our excellent population of artists and the galleries that show them) but not museums.

Today I was reminded of how great museums are, when Judith and I spent two hours at the National Portrait Gallery here in Washington, D.C. Especially the Smithsonians --supported by our tax payer dollars, free admission. Government service to the lives of its citizens minds, hearts, and spirits at its finest.

We saw multiple great exhibits, including Annie Liebovitz's new "Pilgrimage," but the one that grabbed me by the throat was "The Black List" by African-American photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Above you can see his portrait of Angela Davis, one of the many large format, finely detailed photographs that made us stop, stare, and tear up with emotion.

The concept for "The Black List" is important. The term "black list" has of course been used pejoratively: if you're on the black list, you're being punished. You're in deep shit.

In this exhibit, Greenfield-Sanders turns this meaning on its head. The 50 photos here are a gallery of black stars: this is a list one WANTS to be on. The individuals captured in Greenfield-Sanders portraits are some of the most accomplished, educated, respected members of American society and represent a wide variety of influence, from Toni Morrison to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Vernon Jordan.

The impact of these portraits, putting the viewer up close and personal in very intimate ways with these powerful people, is breathtaking. A range of emotions washed through me as I stood before each one, from awe to pride to a kind of homesickness for living as I once did in a community rich with African-American people and others. A kind of heart sickness for this had been tugging on me since last night, with the news of singer Whitney Houston's death.

We all need opportunities to put ourselves in the company of others, and in the company of such powerful imagery. I found myself wishing I could transport our entire tiny high school of 125 students into the center of this gallery to see this show.

And you know I'm headed to more museums during my stay here this week!

The American Prospect

Judith’s and my choice to spend our sabbatical in San Francisco, where we have family and a free place to stay in the SoMa district, has stirred up quite the economic tornado in my psyche.

For those of you familiar with San Fran, you already know that Market, which cuts a northeast to southwest diagonal through the city, was known as “The Slot” for being the location of the first underground metal cable trough in which constantly whirred the cables pulling trolleys up from the waterfront and into the city. North of The Slot is where the rich folk lived and worked and remains home to Union Square, Nob Hill, etc. South of The Slot was where the immigrant communities, the docks, the warehouses, tenement buildings, saloons and gambling halls were to be found (as well as Jack London’s birthplace). That is until the 1960 and ‘70s, when the national phenomenon of “urban renewal” grabbed San Francisco by the throat, shook it a few times, and succeeded in ripping its working class guts out of its downtown area.

Today South of The Slot is known as SoMa or South of Market, mirroring the trendy SoHo (South of Houston) neighborhood in New York City, another converted warehouse district. But what you’ll find in SoMa, instead of the gorgeous and historic cast iron warehouses-cum-expensive lofts and shops of SoHo, are newly built condo-scrapers; the blocks long Moscone Convention Center; and a large mall-like development known as the Yerba Buena Center. And mostly you’ll find high tech conventioneers (lots of ‘em); tourists; and, well, the 1% who can afford to live here.

And for a month, me and Judith.

We’re just up Folsom Street (which for you may conjure up images of Folsom Prison; for me, a gay person from the 1970s, Folsom Street was known as the leather district or, er, the “meat district”) from a fine restaurant named Prospect, a second restaurant launched in 2003 by award-winning chef Nancy Oakes of Boulevard fame. San Francisco today is a foodie’s food town as many fruits, fresh produce, wines, etc. all hail from the surrounding region, and Oakes and her restaurants sit near the zenith of foodie heaven.

The trick with all of this foodie-ness (in which we of course happily partake) is, well, the amount of hunger and homelessness that immediately surrounds it. You can literally cross one block, at 5th Street on Market, and go from fancy-dressed shoppers bustling in and out of the Apple Store, Abercrombie and Fitch, Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue to sidewalks empty of any other than men in sleeping bags, blankets, and cardboard on the street.

This is not even to mention that the leather bars and baths anchoring the west end of SoMa were closed by the City in the early 1980s thanks to the AIDS epidemic. That same epidemic considerably weakened the gay component of SoMa’s working class and artist communities, eliminating some of the strongest community resistance that originally existed to the gentrification of this neighborhood.

In light of all of this, the name Prospect captured my imagination.

“Prospect” as a noun means “a. an apparent probability of advancement, success, profit, etc. b. the outlook for the future: good business prospects.” Or how about “something in view as a source of profit,” or “a potential or likely customer, client, etc.”

And then there’s the verb form of the word, also highly appropriate both historically and currently in this neighborhood: “to search or explore (a region), as for gold; to work (a mine or claim) experimentally in order to test its value.”

In other words: to be a gold digger! An optimistic gold digger: a prospector with prospects!

And that’s pretty much who surrounds us now, South of the Slot in SoMa: a lot of people with enough money to make them believe they can and will always have more. Surrounded on all sides by folks who have nothing: not homes, or warm coats, or food to eat. Soup kitchens underfunded by federal budget cuts at the same time they are being overwhelmed by the working poor: people who work full-time but at jobs that don’t pay enough for them to feed their families.

We’re on an island of prosperity kept afloat by the surrounding sea of despair. And I have to tell you, much of the time I feel I'm drowning.

Interestingly, the Latin root of “prospect” is “prospectus” which meant to foresee, to see far off, to watch for / provide for / look out for. What if an “American Prospect” on life could shift from self to other; if we could really look ahead, see the future, and want to provide and look out for each other?

The challenge is crossing The Slot.

It doesn’t sound difficult, but it is filled with whirring machinery which seem to separate these two worlds as widely as if they were on separate continents. Instead of pulling us together, the ceaseless motion of the Slot’s cable divides us--until we trip, stumble, fall into it.

Take for instance how we best know the term “prospectus” today: as “the formal legal document required by the Securities and Exchange Commission about an investment offering for sale to the public.”

So much for the long view.

Might we define an era as “The American Prospect?” Can we cross The Slot?

Why Are We 'Waiting for Superman'?

Geoffrey Canada, a fellow Bowdoin graduate, founded the Harlem Children's Zone in 1990. The Zone's goal is "to do whatever it takes to educate children and strengthen the community." In Harlem, this has meant establishing new methods to end cycles of generational poverty.

The phrase "waiting for Superman" is Canada's term for his own childhood belief that the ghetto in which he was growing up was in such crisis it could only be rescued by a superhero. He and filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (Academy Award, "An Inconvenient Truth") believe that public education in the U.S. is an a similar state of severe crisis.

Why are we "waiting for Superman" to fix our public education system, the foundation of our democracy, innovation, and U.S. leadership throughout the world--and so evidently in decline? The filmmakers hope, and ours in screening this film at the Opera House March 3, is that the powerful stories of children and their families it documents will give all of us, in each of our communities, a launching place for dialogue and action to improve our schools. The film shines a spotlight on key education reform issues and the importance of great teachers, and will hopefully not only spark conversation and action but also galvanize the community support essential to bringing about meaningful and lasting change in our public schools.

As part of the "Waiting for Superman" house party movement in which the Opera House will participate on March 3, the film's producers, Participant Media, have created a Social Action Campaign around four key initiatives: celebrating great teachers; ensuring world class standards; encouraging more great schools; and raising literacy rates. You can learn more about how to participate in any of these areas, before or after seeing the film at the Opera House, at waitingforsuperman.com/action.

Front Page News

Some of the underlying topics in our upcoming winter production of Christopher Shinn's drama, "Dying City," made the front page of the New York Times yesterday in this story of the Army missing (or ignoring?) signs of potential suicide among its overburdened corps.

Shinn's taught, three-character play takes audience members into the rippling sea of violence which runs through and impacts all of our lives--whether we are privileged, Harvard-educated New Yorkers, hard-working fishermen (or fishermen's wives), or working-class suburban California boys who sign up for the Army Reserves. We don't know exactly how one of the protagonists, Craig, died while on his second tour of duty in Iraq; but the play suggests he may have been one of the record number of military personnel since 2004 who, like Craig, are "mentally exhausted and traumatized from repeated deployments to combat zones" and have committed suicide.

But Craig is only one-third of this play. The impact of subtle and not so-subtle family and cultural violence on him, his brother Peter, and his wife Kelly is what leaves audience members, at the end of 90 minutes with no intermission, gripping the arms of our seats and asking ourselves some important questions. Who do we become in coping with the everyday violence in our own lives? Can we see and touch the fear which underlies so many of our interactions? How do we prevent it from eating us up?

"Dying City" is constructed on the metaphor of Craig's understanding of his company's mission in Baghdad: "ordered to protect themselves from violence by actively doing violence, which leads to more violence to protect themselves against: no sane person could survive these tasks." Baghdad is dying, yes, but its not the only city that is, whether in reality (see recent news reports from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico) or in this play, in which each individual is his or her own "city."

Shinn prefaces his play with by an epigram from Aeschylus--"A lie sweet in the mouth/is sour in the stomach"--but more to the point for why we're producing it at the Opera House is this statement which comes about two thirds of the way through the play: "If you really care about the truth, you can't just speak to your own tiny group, you have to figure out how to speak to the community . . . People who may not be like you but that you still have--something in common with. A basic humanity."

"Dying City" by Christopher Shinn, February 3-13, 2011. Directed by Peter Richards. Starring Juri Henley-Cohn and Therese Plaehn. An Opera House Arts' Actors Equity production at the Stonington Opera House. Click here for tickets and additional information.