Memo from the RTC: Doubt is Gone, Newsies on the Way

 
Memo from the RTC:  Doubt is Gone, Newsies on the Way

By Norm Scott

Why do they do it?

It was just a coincidence that Sunday’s Broadway Tony Awards were on the same day as the final performance of Doubt that afternoon where I felt I had seen once again a production worthy of Tony awards for all involved.

Non-musicals at the RTC don’t always sell out but the theater was packed with almost every seat filled. Word of mouth about the exquisite production of a play about a difficult subject had gotten out. The original Broadway production won the Tony award for best play in 2005 and some of the original cast won for best actor. The 2008 movie version with an all-star cast of Meryl Streep, the late Seymour Philip Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis was nominated for many Academy Awards. I didn’t love the movie. The subject matter just didn’t draw me in.

So I tried to examine why this RTC production has such an impact on me and the audience. More of an impact than the movie and even though I didn’t see the Broadway play, but I would bet as much of an impact if not more. I like almost all RTC productions as much if not more than the Broadway versions.

Of course, the superb acting of Susan Corning, Frank Caiati, Ashley Ann Jones and Billyn Tarplain under the strong direction of David Risley and Jodee Timpone, both accomplished actors themselves, were keys. I have said repeatedly that these actors should be up for community theater Tony-type awards. But there were other factors that made Doubt at the RTC something more than the sum of its parts. The intimacy of the theater itself. The wonderful Frank Caiati designed (that boy is a quadruple threat) and the Tony Homsey-led construction crew that built the sets. The costumes by Adele Wendt. And stage manager Suzanne Riggs who kept her finger on the button.

A few of Frank Caiati’s thoughts on FB are worth sharing: “I want to express my gratitude to everyone involved with this production. David and Jodee were rockstar Directors, always willing to entertain discussion and meticulous in what they wanted to see. Suzanne, our fearless stage manager, as per usual, supported us....and spoiled us every day. The crew were literal ninjas moving the enormous set pieces (and no one got run-over!) and being hilarious and kind humans. And finally...my three ladies, Susan, Ashley and Billyn were so much FUN backstage and so giving and present onstage.”

Most people see the theater as being about the people on the stage. Productions at the RTC are much more than the sum of their parts and in over a dozen years of involvement I’ve learned about every aspect of the theater, which has made all theater experiences so enjoyable. Frank notes the backstage crew who had to move a heavy mobile stage (the office) numerous times. For a four character play, there were a hell of a lot more behind the scenes people.

Why do they do it?

The next day at 9 AM, four of us joined Tony Homsey to take down that wonderful set. The stage was bare by 1 PM and we began building the set for the upcoming musical Newsies which opens July 19 (where I get to play a small role as the mean guy – typecasting.) Tony pushes hard to get the stage ready for the next show so they can rehearse on the real set and he has to translate the vision of the directors into the reality of a fairly small stage. Questions like will this part of the set obstruct the sight lines of some of the audience? Some of us where there until 4 PM.

The Newsies crew has not had access to the stage until now. A month is not that long a turnaround time, especially with a  musical with a lot of choreography.

And did I mention the power black-out at Fort Tilden which forced the rental of a generator that looks like a house I could move into? The show must go on (and Producer Susan Jasper always does what has to be done). Why do they do it?

Norm’s other WAVE column is School Scope and he blogs daily at ednotesonline. com

-->

City Hall - NYC parents, kids, advocates, union members and elected officials will rally for smaller classes -Tuesday, June 11, noon

Contact: Leonie Haimson; 917-435-9329; leoniehaimson@gmail.com

Martha Ayon; 718-213-1550; marthaayon1@gmail.com 
         

                                 

MEDIA ADVISORY

NYC parents, kids, advocates, union members and elected officials will rally for smaller classes  

WHAT: Parents, students, advocates, elected officials and union members will gather to urge the NYC Department of Education and the Mayor to allocate specific funding in next year's budget towards reducing class size. 

WHO: The rally is co-sponsored by Class Size Matters, NYC Kids PAC, the UFT, Local 372, the CSA, the Education Council Consortium, and many other parent and advocacy organizations.

WHEN:  Tuesday June 11 at 12 noon

WHERE:  Steps of City Hall in Lower Manhattan

WHY:  Although the state’s highest court concluded in 2003 that NYC public school classes were too large to provide students with their constitutional right to a sound basic education, class sizes have sharply increased since then, especially in the early grades. More than 336,000 students were in classes of 30 or more this fall.  Reducing class size is also among the top priorities of parents on the NYC Department of Education’s surveys every year. Yet the Mayor has allocated no city funding to reduce class size during his administration.

 For additional information please contact Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters; leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329.

Mackinac Center Files Lawsuits Against New Jersey Unions for Failing to Respect Workers’ Opt Out Rights

Anti-union slugs on the loose. Expect a similar suit here in NYC - but they have to find some teachers willing to put their names on it.

https://www.mackinac.org/mackinac-center-files-lawsuits-against-new-jersey-unions-for-failing-to-respect-workers-opt-out

New Jersey’s Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act violates Supreme Court decision Janus v. AFSCME

Friday, June 7, 2019 |

MIDLAND, MICH. — The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has filed three separate lawsuits on behalf of New Jersey public employees who face barriers to exercising their First Amendment rights to opt out of paying their government union.
Jody Lutter, a nurse in Essex County, Lisa Grega, an employee at The College of New Jersey, and Michael Kopie, an employee of New Jersey’s Department of Transportation, have all attempted to leave their union. However, New Jersey’s Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act — signed into law last May — restricts their ability to opt out of union membership to a short “window” of “10 days following each anniversary date” of their employment. The law was written in order to lessen the effects of last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, a decision that strengthened worker freedom by allowing public employees to stop membership and payment to government unions without fear of losing their jobs.
"I’m simply attempting to exercise my constitutional right to withdraw from my union, and it’s unjust to be told this freedom is somehow limited to a small window of time" explained Lutter, who has been employed by the Essex County Hospital Center in Cedar Grove for the past eight years.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation’s lawsuits on behalf of Lutter, Grega and Kopie challenge the constitutionality of New Jersey’s WDEA, asserting that unions cannot constrict public employees’ exercise of their First Amendment rights with an arbitrary opt-out window.
“For 37 years, New Jersey public employees were trusted with the right to resign at any time,” said Patrick Wright, vice president for legal affairs at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Mackinac Center Legal Foundation. “Then, a 10-day a year resignation limit was imposed to frustrate those employees’ First Amendment rights. This is unconstitutional.”

Bernie is right on charter schools - Carol Burris, Diane Ravitch

Bernie is right on charter schools

By Carol Burris  and Diane Ravitch

| New York Daily News |

Jun 07, 2019 | 10:55 AM

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to the crowd during a rally at Central Piedmont Community College on the lawn of Overcash Center in Charlotte, N.C. on May 17. (David T. Foster III / Associated Press)

Late last month, 11 people connected to California charter schools were indicted on criminal charges of grand theft, conspiracy, personal use of public money and financial conflict of interest. According to the Washington Post, over $50 million in total was stolen; the L.A. Times reports that $8.18 million went into the bank accounts and charitable trusts of the charter management company’s leaders, Sean McManus and Jason Schrock. The pair allegedly inflated enrollment numbers and cheated the kids who attended the schools they used as piggy banks.

This story is far from unique. During the month of May alone, we identified more than 40 newspaper stories from across the country documenting charter mismanagement, failure and outright fraud.

There was the May 29 story of the Tennessee charter CEO who was running a side business out of his charter school while its teachers were not being paid. and the May 25 story about the former charter board member who is seeking to make a real-estate killing based on knowledge he gained while on the Monument, Colo., charter school board. There was the May 6 story of a former school board member in Milwaukee who was bribed by a Philadelphia-based charter school company to operate three schools in Wisconsin.

Charter corruption, which now occurs every day, was one of several reasons why the NAACP called for a moratorium on new charter schools. Yet these daily instances of mismanagement, failure and fraud have not been enough to persuade charter advocates to address the concerns of our nation’s most prominent civil rights organization.

It is equally inexplicable that when Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders publicly supported that moratorium, he was subjected to a racialized attack — not only by The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools but here in the Daily News. It is long past time to set the record straight.

The majority of black and Latino families choose public schools, even when charters are an available option. Charter schools drain funds from public schools, and for the kids who choose the local public school, they and their schools have less. Sanders’ plan includes a tripling of Title I funding, whose greatest beneficiaries would be disadvantaged kids, both in public schools and in charters.

For those students who are already enrolled in charters, Sanders does not call for their schools to be shut down. Rather he calls for a moratorium, a pause, on the opening of new charters until charter schools clean up their act.

He is right. The lack of transparency that leads to scandal and the ability to profit and self-deal does not promote innovation or serve the interests of children of color. When charter schools shut down (one third of all charters close in less than 10 years), students, who are more often than not disadvantaged, are left scrambling for a school. There is nothing progressive about showing up to school, sometimes mid-school-year, to find the doors are shuttered and locked. But that is the reality that some kids face.

Why don’t charter advocacy organizations like the Progressive Policy Institute call for charter reform? Perhaps they don’t want to offend the billionaires like the Walton family who fund charter schools.

The claim that for-profit charter schools, which Sanders’ plan would ban, are rare is flatly wrong. Nearly every state with charter schools allows for-profit management companies to run them. In the state of Florida, about 45% of all charter schools are run by for-profit management companies.

From real estate leases, to tax breaks, to exorbitant salaries, self-dealing and sweetheart deals, lots of folks have, like McManus and Schrock, figured out how to get rich off taxpayers and disadvantaged kids.

Unfortunately, the charter industry is now overrun with scoundrels profiteering from people of color. Thank you, Bernie Sanders, for standing up and being willing to expose the scams that the charter establishment refuses to acknowledge or fix.

Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education. She served as principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre for 15 years. Ravitch is president of the Network for Public Education and a research professor of the history of education at New York University. She is the author of numerous books on public education, including “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.”

Murray Polner, Antiwar Editor and Author (and teacher at Thomas Jefferson HS), Is Dead at 91

As the executive assistant to the first New York City schools chancellor, Harvey B. Scribner, in the early 1970s and an assistant to Seymour P. Lachman, a member and later president of the Board of Education, Mr. Polner conceived of a program to help hospitalized and disabled veterans earn high school diplomas, initiated night schools for teenagers who worked during the day, and instituted a student Bill of Rights.... NYT Obit

When I read this this morning I had an instant memory of Murray Polner as a teacher at Thomas Jefferson HS I had in my senior term in 1962 for an advanced political science course. I think I found it fairly boring but it was the last period of the day in my final days as a high school student. Polner apparently went on to a longer career in the then BOE and did some good things in addition to all the other political work he did.

Murray Polner, Author at LA Progressive

https://www.laprogressive.com › Archives for Murray Polner

1. 
   
2. 
   

6 days ago - Murray Polner is a book review editor for HNN.org and was editor of Present Tense, published by the American Jewish Committee from ...

Obituary: Author and editor Murray Polner, age 91 - Blog - The Island ...

https://theislandnow.com › Blog

1. 
   

May 31, 2019 - Murray Polner, a Great Neck resident since 1961, passed away on May 30. He was 91 years old. Polner was the founding and only editor of ...

Murray Polner, Antiwar Editor and Author, Is Dead at 91 - The New ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/obituaries/murray-polner-dead.html

3 days ago - Murray Polner, an unswerving voice for pacifism and civil liberties and the founder and only editor of Present Tense magazine, a progressive counterpoint to Commentary that began in a period of one-upmanship among Jewish intellectuals, died on May 30 in Manhasset, N.Y. He was 91.

Murray Polner, Antiwar Editor and Author, Is Dead at 91

Murray Polner, the founder and only editor of Present Tense magazine, at his office in 1980. Present Tense, which he started in 1973, was intended as a progressive counterpoint to Commentary; both magazines were published by the American Jewish Committee.CreditLarry C. Morris/The New York Times

Image

Murray Polner, the founder and only editor of Present Tense magazine, at his office in 1980. Present Tense, which he started in 1973, was intended as a progressive counterpoint to Commentary; both magazines were published by the American Jewish Committee.CreditCreditLarry C. Morris/The New York Times

By Sam Roberts

• June 5, 2019
• • 
    

School Scope: La Guardia HS Student Sit-in Over Admissions Policy, Forest Hills HS Principal Out Plus Neoliberalism Further Defined

Published in print in The Wave - June 7, 2019


School Scope: La Guardia HS Student Sit-in Over Admissions Policy, Forest Hills HS Principal Out
By Norm Scott

A couple of well-known historic NYC high schools have been undergoing turmoil. For the past year teachers at the 82 year old Forest Hills High School, one of the few large high schools left standing in the city (famous alum: Simon and Garfunkel, Art Buchwald, Jerry Springer, Captain Kangaroo – well, Bob Keeshan) have been protesting the actions of principal Ben Sherman, with a massive vote of no confidence. There are rumors that even the Assistant Principals voted no-confidence. And the tabloid press and education blogs (like mine) have also picked up the story. Finally, on June 3, Sherman “resigned” – meaning he will be kicked upstairs to a desk job with a salary raise. So goes it in the DOE. The UFT is getting some credit for assistance to the teachers and I have all the details, including the resignation letter at: https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2019/06/ben-sherman-out-at-fhhs.html.

At the even better known LaGuardia High School, a different kind of action has been taking place where students held a sit-in last Friday.

D-Day - June 6 - the Invasion of Norman - and possibly my conception

The invasion of Normandy on June 6 75 years ago is not only historically significant, it is also a very personal day since 48 years ago we got married on that date in 1971 - the invasion of Norman, which was the 27th anniversary of D-Day. That's a scary thought - we were married a generation away from D-Day and now we are three generations away.

We celebrated over two days with dinner at The River Cafe Wednesday evening and going to see the Temptations musical - Ain't Too Proud last night.

I wasn't alive in D-Day - I was born on March 3, 1945. But maybe in a sense I was - for those who consider there is life at conception.  I did some math last night. I was born 3 days short of 9 months after D-Day. Hmmmm. Did my parents celebrate that day and am I the outcome?

Toasting the life of our cat Penny who died suddenly of apparently a heart attack the other night at the age of 7.

Happy anniversary desserts - chocolate Brooklyn Bridge

Outside the River Cafe - I want one of these waterfalls

THE INDYPENDENT - June Issue is out

I'm doing some distribution of this progressive monthly in Rockaway and in mid-town.

You're June Indypendent is here! This month we feature an in-depth look at Tiffany Cabán, the young public defender who is following in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's footsteps, taking on the Queens political machine and looking to make the criminal justice system work for the people it serves. Reporter Libby Rainey spent months immersed in the race for Queens' next District Attorney, talking with Cabán supporters and bird-dogging the candidate herself. Read her full report in our latest issue. And check this mini-doc from filmmaker Erik Rist on Cabán, AOC and The Indypendent. Also in the new Indy, queer activists reclaim pride, Mark Zuckerberg's plans for world domination, Hudson Yards on steroids and more. — Revolt of the Outsiders: First AOC, Now Tiffany Cabán — Fighting Mass Incarceration From Within, Progressive DAs Lead The Way — The Dark Side of Sunnyside Yard — You’re Being Zucked: Why You Should Worry About Facebook’s Redesign — Yemeni Bodega Owners Are Making the NY Post Feel the Pinch

READ THE LATEST INDY ONLINE

Happy Pride Month Check out these special features from The Indy:  — No Cops, No Sponsors: 50 Years After Stonewall, Pride Goes Back to Its Roots — Gay Old Brooklyn: Hugh Ryan Takes a Look at the Borough’s Queer Past — After An Uprising: New Exhibition Highlights Queer Art Post-Stonewall — Pride and Courage In The Age of Climate Change

SUPPORT THIS VITAL NEWS SOURCE