72nd in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre 
Gadfly is still culling the treasures in his Festival UnBound files. So much there.
One of the things he was especially pleased with and impressed by during the Festival was the participation of our elected officials and City administrators. He said so during public comment at a Council meeting.
Councilman Reynolds chaired a panel. Councilwoman Van Wirt appeared on one that we just recently highlighted here with a video of her segment.
Darlene Heller was part of the Sustainability Forum that, unfortunately, he couldn’t attend.
Here Gadfly would like to call attention to the participation by Alicia Miller Karner, our Director of Community and Economic Development and Councilwoman Olga Negron.
These very short clips are especially welcome. If we get to hear City administrators speak, it’s usually about “business.” Ugh. Here we get to hear Alicia “as a person.” And CW Negron, well, she’s not one to speak overmuch at Council. She’s not one of those elected officials that Gadfly calls “wind demons.” So it’s good to hear her warm voice more as well.
The participation of all of these people indicates not only their personal commitment to the future of Bethlehem — the ambitious purpose of the Festival — but how that participation was valued by the festival organizers.
A tip o’ the hat!
Be sure to give a listen.
———–
Alicia Miller Karner, Director of Community and Economic Development
- “As a community we are continuing to rely on technology, on social media, on different ways of interacting . . . you have to put effort into coming out and interacting.”
- “The best is still yet to come.”
- “In my job, I spend a lot of time with those questions of how do we not leave them behind.”
- “[Responding to the question by another panelist: What am I going to do with my anger?] Honoring the anger stuck with me more.”
- “[Responding to a comment about lack of diversity in City Hall] Very male. Many times I am the only female in the room.”
Olga Negron, Bethlehem Councilwoman
- We hear that she once made a living sewing for the theater and the return to that in the Prometheus play “grounded” her again.
- “It’s up to us. It shouldn’t be up to the Mayor, it shouldn’t be up to the Administration, or even to us in City Council — it’s our community, and to me [the play is] a call to be involved, to be engaged.”
- “I’m always looking forward to listen to my emails, my phone calls, conversations . . . we cannot just sit down and watch, we have to be participants.”
- “We need to be more humble, learn to embrace, and, you know, encourage us to invite others that might not look like us or speak like us so that we can move forward in the community some of us might be wishing, dreaming of.”
Bravo!
Festival UnBound
Closed but never forgotten
