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Downtown Art
Downtown Art works with a company of 35 to 50 teens (ages 12-18) to rehearse and present three to four original productions each year. Our company of young artists, who work as performers, crew, and organizers for all our events, come from all over New York City, with more than half from our immediate East Village/Lower East Side neighborhood. To ensure that the shows we perform are accessible to a diverse audience, we keep our ticket prices low.
We are committed to teens as artists – to providing a fierce contradiction to 'adultism' and its readiness to dismiss young voices, often without even giving them a hearing. We aim to demonstrate the power, intelligence, vision, sensitivity and enormous capacity for creativity that teens possess, and so our programs pursue artistic excellence above all.
Ryan Gilliam, Downtown Art's Artistic Director and primary artist, has been creating work with teens for over 15 years; she has directed over 100 productions and written sixteen original plays and adapted a dozen more from literature and film. Downtown Art is now engaged in a $4 million+ capital project to renovate the vacant building at 70 East 4th Street into a youth arts center. We will have the top 2.5 stories (approximately 6,300 square feet) dedicated to our use.
When opened in 2010, Downtown Art will expand its work with young artists to also include music, video, and community service projects. Upcoming Downtown Art events include:
- HOUSE OF DREAMS–This season looks at the lives of teens one hundred years ago and HOUSE OF DREAMS does that by celebrating the 100th anniversary of "The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets" by Jane Addams, a founder of the Settlement House Movement and an outspoken advocate for young people, immigrants, and those struggling in American cities. An energetic collage of theater, dance, and video, HOUSE OF DREAMS traces the almost obsessive relationship between working class teen boys and the popular culture of 1909 -- the music, the theater, the dime novel, and the new Nickelodeon cinema -- and the deep concerns of parents and well-meaning adults that these stories of adventure, thrills and revenge would turn 'good' boys into 'bad.'
- THE WRITERS PROJECT– The works of a selected group of teen playwrights, who take on the task of giving us an inside look at their perspective on adult behavior and concerns. These plays are being written throughout the fall and winter, but we expect that (if past plays by teens are any guide) the final works will combine fresh, sharp insight, humor, tenderness and frustration at the inconsistencies and blind spots of those making the rules.
- THE WAISTMAKERS' OPERA– In the winter or 1909/1910, teen girls working in the shirtwaist factory, courageously went on strike to demand a 52 hour work week and recognition of their union. Their effort became a citywide phenomenon, and they faced powerful foes, including the factory owners who were led by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a mayor and police force who (controlled by the corrupt forces of Tammany Hall) turned their back on them, thugs and prostitutes hired by factory owners to beat and humiliate them, and judges who told them they were "striking against God." This is the story of those girls, told through music and song, dance and dialogue, and enacted outdoors on locations steeped in the history of those events. An original score by Michael Hickey; text & direction by Ryan Gilliam.
- NYC STREET FESTIVAL OF YOUNG ARTISTS AND LEADERS– A free outdoor festival on East 4th Street of theater, dance, music, poetry, video and artwork by New York City's teen artists, as well as demonstrations of teen leadership in addressing city issues and needs. Last year, the first Festival hosted over 30 companies from all parts of the city, giving a powerful demonstration of the creativity and leadership young people offer New York. This is a stunning display of originality and talent that will put new hope in your heart for what the future holds.
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