TRU Community Gathering: How a Playwright/Producer Found Himself Running a Theater (More than One.)

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.

8/28 - How a Playwright/Producer Found Himself Running a Theater. (More Than One.) In the room: Tony Sportiello, playwright (LOL, National Pastime, Tickets, Please, Contract Time), librettist/producer (off-Bway's National Pastime, Sessions, An Evening at the Carlyle, The Devil and Billy Markham), current artistic director of ATM Theater in NYC. When did creative artist Tony dive into the business side of the arts? At one time a playwright actively involved in the running of the artist consortium The Workshop Theater, he went on to form Algonquin Theater Productions and settled into the vacated Blue Heron theater space, overhauling it into The Algonquin Theater with partner Al Tapper. Fast forward to post-pandemic 2022. Tony and Al took over the former 45th Street Theater and turned it into the AMT Theater. What has he learned over the years about space renovation and creating a usable venue? What mistakes has he made along the way? Was this shift in career a choice or was it something he jumped in to do because somebody had to? How does he balance his time between writing and running his company? And what do people need to keep in mind when converting a space into a theater? He'll also talk about the mission of AMT, the tech specs of the theater and its availability for developing new works. Click here to register, and receive the link.

More information about upcoming dates is available at: truonline.org/tru-community-gathering.

To receive the Zoom invitation for weekly meetings, email TRUnltd@aol.com with “Zoom Me” in the subject header. These gatherings are free for TRU members, non-members are asked to make an optional tax-deductible donation or consider joining TRU at truonline.org/membership to support the organization’s ongoing service to the community.

Videos of past Community Gatherings may be viewed on TRU’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/channel/UC43rsChi4fA23dNLeloaF_A/ Pleased visit us and consider joining our 27,700 subscribers.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a thirty-three-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, opportunities and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings about the arts, and monthly Town Halls about current social issues; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater; and presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices (adapting short plays into films), Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation, Stewart F. Lane & Bonnie Comley, Merrie L. Davis, Dunbar Hofmann Productions and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.

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