The future of risky multidisciplinary work is HERE. But for the theater’s new leadership, that future is far from a foregone conclusion. The co-directors spoke with the Rail about collaborative decision making, budget woes, reassessing the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), and what it means to “make a splash.”

Tony Torn was only ten years old when he witnessed his father, the inimitable Rip Torn, perform the role of Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway. Torn, at sixty years old, is now an essential fixture of New York’s experimental theater scene, with over one hundred credits across a richly varied career as writer, director, and actor (extensive film and television work included). 

The Connelly was the planned home for Kallan Dana’s Racecar Racecar Racecar, but the venue’s landlord, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, had abruptly begun to scrutinize the work taking place on the Connelly’s stages. After the church quashed a planned production of Becoming Eve, a play centered around a transgender woman, multiple productions collapsed, and Josh Luxenberg, the venue’s director and general manager, resigned in protest.

“It's important to remember that the Starr wasn't always the supernova it is today; it was once just a little baby Starr,” said Howze. “New York is in need of more baby Starrs. For the future of our art form, we need more gutsy young folks who are eager to band together. We need the folks at the Starr, who will no doubt inspire the next generation of brazen, unhinged art spaces.”