Theater Resources Unlimited Announces This Week’s TRU Community Gathering via Zoom, Happy Anniversar

A dependable haven for theater professionals, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is in its sixth year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings, having led over 300 consecutive conversations about aspects of the arts. The series has offered the theater community information, inspiration and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts these gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, originally presented to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of shutdown, and now to ensure that these crucial conversations continue going forward.

Click here to receive this Friday’s Zoom link. These gatherings are a service for the theater community and are offered free for TRU members; non-members may also attend for free, but we ask that non-members help keep us running by buying a $12 ticket, making a donation or joining as a member.

5/22 - Happy Anniversaries! Two Theater Companies, and How They Are Celebrating. In the room: Emily Joy Weiner, co-founder and artistic director of Houses on the Moon, now observing a milestone 25th anniversary; and Ludovica Villar Hauser, founder and artistic executive director of Parity Productions, now reveling in its 10th anniversary. Meet two New York companies with community-centered missions: Emily’s company amplifies unheard voices and confronts social issues in order to unite communities through the sharing of untold stories, and Ludovica’s company promotes gender parity by empowering women, trans, gender-expansive, and intersex artists in theater. What have they learned as their companies have grown? How have they adapted to the ebbs and flows of audience buying habits in a post-shutdown environment? Interestingly, both have eschewed traditional gala models and are now in the throes of new fundraising strategies in celebration and support of their milestones. Why? Click here to register and receive the link.

PANELISTS 

LUDOVICA VILLAR-HAUSER’s directorial accomplishments include the New York premiere of Otho Eskin’s Duet, the world premiere of Teresa Lotz’s She Calls Me Firefly, the Off-Broadway world premiere and West End premiere of Gregory Murphy’s The Countess (634 Off-Broadway performances), Philip Ridley’s Leaves of Glass, and Laura Pedersen’s For Heaven’s Sake!, among many other critically-acclaimed productions. Ludovica was the youngest woman ever to simultaneously produce and direct in London’s West End. In the New York theatre industry, she was also one of the few women to own and operate her own theatre for 17 years — The Greenwich Street Theatre. She served on the Board of the League of Professional Theatre Women from 2009-2018 and is currently the Producer of its Oral History Project at NYPL for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Previous to her many credits in New York, at twenty-three, Ludovica was the youngest woman ever to simultaneously produce and direct in London’s West End. Her production of O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night transferred after its initial run to a larger West End venue. In the New York theatre industry, Ludovica is one of the few women to have owned and operated her own theatre – The Greenwich Street Theatre – which she ran for seventeen years, during which time she developed more than thirty new plays and presented the work of hundreds of theatre artists. Alongside her directorial career, Ludovica is Founder and Artistic Director of Parity Productions, a recipient of NYWA's Galaxy Award, and has served on the Board of the League of Professional Theatre Women since 2009.

EMILY JOY WEINER is the Co-Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Houses on the Moon Theater Company. New York theater includes Othello at the West End Theater, Coming Through at the American Place Theatre, Tara’s Crossing at the Lower East Side Tenement Theater, Finding The Words at the Lucille Lortel, Henry V at the Bank Street Theater, An Epidog with Mabou Mines, and De Novo at 59E59th St. Theaters. Selected regional theater includes The Crucible at Madison Repertory Theatre and Fefu And Her Friends and The Threepenny Opera at Williamstown Theater Festival. She was awarded the Craig Hardesty Best Female Actress award for her performance in Houses on the Moon’s pilot play, Building Houses on the Moon. She recently developed and toured a one-woman adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. She is currently directing Houses on the Moon’s new play in development, The Assignment, which will be premiering Off-Broadway next spring. Emily studied in NYC with Wynn Handman. She has also been working for the last many years with NYC public school students, teachers and parents designing and facilitating creative workshops using drama and drama therapy techniques to teach social/emotional skills.