Gadfly brings you bagpipes for breakfast as you plan today’s Festival activities

(32nd in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Bagpipes from the Greenway Friday night will get your blood flowing better than a Dunkin’! Gadfly always thought a bagpipe alarm clock would be a winner. Perfect gift for the sluggard in your life!

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How to Festival UnBound
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Touchstone 1

Festival 5

click here to get hot links for Monday’s events listed above

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Gadfly with the students in the morning and then a double-header Sunday afternoon

(31st in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Touchstone 1

Sleepy-eyed Gadfly plans this morning with the students:

“Starry-Eyed”

A roaming group of misfit heroes follows a peculiar star; they find themselves in Bethlehem by accident but stay to fight the monsters that they find there– and face their fears– in this original production, devised and written by teens from Bethlehem high schools.

Directed by Emma Ackerman, coordinator of Touchstone Theatre’s Teen Ensemble.

DATES & TIMES:

Sunday, October 6 – 11:00a-12:30p

VENUE:  Payrow Plaza | 10 E. Church Street, Bethlehem, PA

In case of rain, venue will be Nitschmann Middle School. Decision will made by 8am– Check the Festival UnBound Facebook, FestivalUnBound.com or our voicemail to confirm.

PRICE:  Pay What You Will: Suggested Donation $15 adults / $10 students and seniors

And then, since Gadfly saw Prometheus/Redux yesterday with the panel, he plans to see The Secret — the H.D. play with the Mock Turtle Marionettes — likewise with panel — today and afterwards walk up to Zoellner to see “A Joyful Noise.”

He likes panels and will post on the Prometheus one in a day or two.

The Secret

DATES & TIMES:

Sunday, October 6 – 1:00-2:30p (Audio Description) | Panel 2:30-3:30p

Monday, October 7 – 7:30-9:00p

Tuesday, October 8 – 7:30-9:00p

VENUE: Touchstone Theatre | 321 E. Fourth Street, Bethlehem, PA

PRICE: $25 adult & $15 student/senior; limited amount of Pay What You Will tickets for purchase; please call 610-867-1689 to order.

“A Joyful Noise” — one time only

The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, in collaboration with Nazareth Area High School Cantus, Camille Armstrong, Greater Shiloh Church Choir, Big Easy Easton Brass, Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts Touring Choir, Bel Canto Youth Chorus, and Jakopa’s Punch, explores how the collective act of choral singing and music making can bring people together and make the world a smaller place. Join us as we give voice to community through song!

DATE: Sunday, October 6

TIME: 4:00 – 6:00 PM

VENUE: Zoellner Arts Center, Baker Hall | 420 E. Packer Avenue, Bethlehem, PA

PRICE:  $15 / $10 students; limited amount of Pay What You Will tickets for purchase; please call 610-867-1689 to order.

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Last chance to see “Prometheus/Redux”

(30th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Touchstone 1

Prometheus/Redux is arguably the heart of “Festival UnBound.”

A wag might say its the liver of the Festival.

The “real” Prometheus was doomed to have his liver eaten every day only to have it grow back every night — an endless cycle of repast and regeneration.

Our Everyman Steelman lies dying in a local hospital with cirrhosis of the liver, most likely from toxic chemicals bequeathed by The Steel.

What will his fate be?

Twenty years later, our Prometheus, though no longer chained to the huge Steel monolith where we first encountered him in Steelbound, is much the same man spiritually while much the more decayed man physically.

The play almost literally opens with the familiar beautifully haunting choric plea for Prometheus to now cut his ties with his Bethlehem Steel past as he earlier had cut his ties with the Bethlehem Steel place.

For the man hasn’t changed. Age has not improved his vocabulary.

He’s a man who hasn’t moved on from the closing of The Steel.

“I used to be somebody, not any more.”

“I just want to count for something. I can’t bear fading away.”

“You don’t ask a man to build a country and then leave him useless.”

“I was part of the process, now I’m not so sure.”

“Don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

“I need a place to stand.

“A man needs a purpose.”

“I need a job, a man’s job.”

So, yes, what will his fate be?

Gadfly saw the play yesterday.

You must do likewise.

Today is your last chance.

Sunday, October 6 – 7:00-9:00p (Open Captions and Audio Description)

VENUE:  Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts | 321 E. Third Street, Bethlehem, PA

PRICE:  $25 adult & $15 student/senior/steelworkers; limited amount of Pay What You Will tickets for purchase; please call 610-867-1689 to order.

Day-by-day events

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

 

Touchstone’s “Festival” does not take Sunday off!

(29th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)
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How to Festival UnBound
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Touchstone 1

Festival 3

Festival 4

click here to get hot links for Saturday’s events listed above

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Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Sights and Sounds from the Greenway (7)

(28th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

What’s a Festival without callin’ on the Saints?
(Gadfly forgot he had the audio on these guys from last night)

076

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

It’s a beautiful day . . . and there’s a Festival going on!

(27th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Touchstone 1

Day-by-day events

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Sights and Sounds from the Greenway (6)

(26th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

“You won’t fool the children of the revolution”
Let’s play

(abitididibitdidbit, That’s all, Folks!)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Sights and Sounds from the Greenway (5)

(25th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Buckle up for a wild ride into the future!

(stay tuned for more audio and video)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Sights and Sounds from the Greenway (4)

(24th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

“With a little help from my friends”

(stay tuned for more audio and video)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Sights and Sounds from the Greenway (3)

(23rd in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Bethlehem’s stepping to a different drummer

(stay tuned for more audio and video)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Sights and Sounds from the Greenway (2)

(22nd in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

“You can’t envision the future without us”

(stay tuned for more audio and video)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Testament to Bethlehem’s commitment

(21st in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Gadfly:

My 18 years in Bethlehem qualify me as “just barely” past newcomer status, so I did not live through the closing of the Steel years. But I am more than grateful for those who have worked to recreate Bethlehem into the place I gladly call home. Sure there are challenges but there are plenty of good people committed to continuously improving it. Last night’s opening was a testament to that commitment.

Carol Burns

Sights and Sounds from the Greenway (1)

(20th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

“Bye, bye, Miss American Pie”

(stay tuned for more audio and video)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

A sterling Saturday at Touchstone’s Festival!

(19th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)
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How to Festival UnBound
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Touchstone 1

Touchstone 2

click here to get hot links for Saturday’s events listed above

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Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

“We look ahead as a new day dawns”

(18th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Gadfly is so sorry — Anne Hills — he misheard her name on the video

And sorry that the video is chunky and incomplete, but there is a full audio

 

So a dinosaur falls sooner or later,

Shakes the ground, leaves a crater,

A town to fall in, be torn apart

Leavin’ nothin’ but bones and a broken heart.

. . . . .

Now bones of steel they still are there,

Fossilized in the Lehigh air,

But time is short, it hurries on,

We look ahead as a new day dawns.

When the dinosaur fell, we felt the thunder,

It tried to push this whole town under.

But dreamers work and workers dream,

What may seem lost was soon redeemed,

Both sides of the river, new life is growing.

. . . . .

This valley sings of the men, the women,

Everything once made and all been given,

by those long here or immigrant hands,

we regenerate and restore these lands.

And where the steelstacks stood, there’s music ringin’,

Through the old mill walls, you’ll hear children singin,’

While the old men talk and recall the ways

That the dinosaur lived in the dinosaur days.

 . . . .

Yeah, we look ahead as a new day dawns.

(stay tuned for more audio and video)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

“LET THE FESTIVAL BEGIN!”

(17th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

We have gathered today in the spirit of community to rise up and embrace the  possibilities of our future.

And what amazing possibilities they are.

They shine like a piece of polished Bethlehem steel.

They shine like our lights at Christmas time.

They shine like the Star of Bethlehem itself.

You see, for generations, Bethlehem defined itself through its pride of industry through Bethlehem Steel,

But for the last twenty years we have found so many new ways to define ourselves.

We can be anything we want to be.

We are free to dream.

We are unBound!

In this “Festival UnBound,” we will come together for a week of celebration and exploration.

Celebration of this wonderful community,

And exploration of just what kind of a future we want for ourselves.

Throughout the week we will share our dreams of the future,

and then like. like a message in a balloon,

we will send our dreams out into the world,

because those dreams, our dreams, make a difference!

And now I hereby declare,

LET THE FESTIVAL BEGIN!

(stay tuned for more audio and video)

How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Kim predicts sockslessness on the Greenway tonight — 5:30!

(16th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)
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How to Festival UnBound

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Gadfly followers:
Stilt walkers, fire dancers, jugglers, singers, three bands including Easton Big Easy Band …etc! All outdoors to start your evening , and kick off two weeks of fun and reflection as a community–come and go as you wish!
Just an fyi about this “once in a generation”  series of events, performances, kids stuff, concerts, HISTORY and more: Festival UnBound:
The festival kicks off tonight with an opening ceremony that should knock your socks off! Starts at 5:30-7:30 starting at Touchstone Theater on E.4th st. The event processes down the Greenway with bands, and events along the way . . . to the pavilion (near New St), and back again!  It will be quite the event.
Hope you can make it for a bit. The kickoff wraps up by 7 or 7:30. Then you can go on with your evening, or hang out at the Touchstone Outdoor Cafe area and meet local folks, talk about the next events, etc. –or attend the performance of Prometheus Redux at the theater!
See you there, perhaps? (hint: I’ll be singing with a popup chorus . . .
–>want to join in? We really need more singers, whether good voices or just enthusiastic ones!) 
Cheers!
Kim Carrell-Smith

A special “Secret” on Sunday follows opening on Saturday

(32nd in a series of posts on H.D.)

Bethlehem-born writer Hilda Doolittle — H. D. —  (1886-1961) is
the “Lehigh Valley’s most important literary figure.”

Gadfly calls your attention especially to the Sunday showing of the play — see bottom of page for all showings — because of the panel that will follow.  A panel that includes our Councilwoman Van Wirt, my Lehigh colleague Mary Foltz, and a Gadfly former student, the wonderful Emily Santana.

“The Secret: A New Play About Hilda Doolittle”
part of Festival UnBound

The premiere of a new play by Mock Turtle Marionette Theater on the Lehigh Valley’s most influential artist, the celebrated feminist writer and LGBTQ icon Hilda Doolittle, featuring narrative, song, and puppetry.

Post-Show Panel Discussion, Sun., Oct. 6, 2019, Play 1:00-2:30, Panel Discussion 2:30-3:30

“Who will follow the music?” WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP: Inspirations and Obstacles

Festival UnBound at Touchstone Theatre, 321 East 4th Street, Bethlehem, PA, 18015

Panelists’ Biographies:

Phyllis Alexander has been a champion for social justice for several decades, and civil rights professional for over twenty years working for both corporate America and city government. Phyllis is an experienced coalition builder and trainer and credits her skills to her 28-year affiliation as senior trainer and board president with the National Coalition Building Institute, an international social justice/ social change organization. Currently, Phyllis is a consultant with the Promise Neighborhood of the Lehigh Valley, and is the Project Director for the Leadership Without Limits Leadership Institute. Phyllis retired as the City of Allentown’s Neighborhood Coordinator. Prior to this role, Phyllis worked as the city’s Director of the Bureau of Human Relations & Equal Opportunity.

Yalitza Corcino-Davis is a Learning Specialist and Assistant Professor at Lehigh Carbon Community College.  As a young child, she moved with her family from Puerto Rico to New Jersey. As one of the first women in her family to go to college, she understands the barriers some people experience to achieve their goals.  Yalitza is now in her second year of a doctoral program in education at Lehigh University. Her passion is helping students, traditional and returning adults, achieve their academic goals so they can achieve their life goals.  Yalitza is especially committed to the empowerment of underserved and marginalized populations.

Abriana Ferrari is 15 years old and in the 10th grade. She’s been homeschooled for 10 years and hopes to become an environmental lawyer when she is older. She loves the sciences (especially physics!) and aims to assist in the battle to conserve our environment. As for performance experience, she has been among the cast of many theatrical productions (including three Wizard of Oz’s, two Lion King’s, and two Beauty and the Beast’s in the span of three years). One of her favorite experiences was singing in Canterbury Cathedral in England. Outside of performing, she loves to write, compose, and play Dungeons and Dragons in the basement with her nerdy theatre friends.  Abriana is a cast member and composer for “The Secret.”

Mary C. Foltz is an Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University; she also offers classes in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as well as American Studies. For the past years, she has served as the Director of the South Side Initiative, a program at Lehigh that brings community members and Lehigh faculty and students to engage in research that benefits our communities and inspires increased civic engagement. With South Side Initiative, Mary has developed an  LGBT oral history project, LGBT community reading group, and an online newspaper to highlight issues of import for residents of South Bethlehem as well as participating in a variety of public arts and humanities projects.

Nancy Matos Gonzalez, Magisterial District Judge, was elected to office in 1991, when at the age of 25 she became the first Hispanic Magisterial District Judge in the State of Pennsylvania.  She has since continued to preside in South Bethlehem, attaining commendable audit compliance standard reports at both the State and County level. She has also served as President of her County Judge’s Association. Judge Gonzalez and her husband support varying youth athletic organizations in South Bethlehem. She also partners with multiple schools in and around her district to encourage the educational and personal advancement of youth.

Margaret Kavanagh, head custodian at Freemansburg Elementary is married and lives in Bethlehem with her three dogs. In her 20’s, she worked enough to travel to every state (all but Alaska). In her 30s, she was a massage therapist and house painter.  In her 60’s, she and her wife will retire to South Carolina and travel in their RV, transporting rescue dogs to their adopted homes. Kavanagh has been working for the Bethlehem Area School District for 11 yrs. When not working, she volunteers with local animal rescues, plays djembe and recently joined the volunteer committee for Celtic Classic! Kavanagh founded an advocacy group for pitbulls, Mispits. She is passionate about truth, kindness and recycling!

Emily Santana is your friendly neighborhood waitress having worked at Jenny’s Kuali, in South Side Bethlehem, for over 6 years. She always knew she wanted to work for and with under-served families and worked in that capacity as a community resource coordinator for the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley for three years. She has now embarked on a new journey as an ER Tech in St. Luke’s Sacred Heart campus located in the heart of Allentown. She believes she is one step closer to melding her dream of working in the medical field, being a social justice advocate, and teacher, in her community.

Dr. Paige Van Wirt is a physician who co-founded a mobile medical practice that cares for Lehigh Valley seniors in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. She is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Care; her practice cares for over 2500 elders and now employs 23 people. She is a former urban planner with the City of New York, and is currently on Bethlehem City Council. She lives in Bethlehem with her husband Tim and 15 year old twins. She believes passionately in the power of local government and in an activist city council which truly represents the people.

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DATES & TIMES:

Saturday, October 5 – 5:00-6:30p | Talkback 6:30-7:00p

Sunday, October 6 – 1:00-2:30p (Audio Description) | Panel 2:30-3:30p

Monday, October 7 – 7:30-9:00p

Tuesday, October 8 – 7:30-9:00p

VENUE: Touchstone Theatre | 321 E. Fourth Street, Bethlehem, PA

PRICE: $25 adult & $15 student/senior; limited amount of Pay What You Will tickets for purchase; please call 610-867-1689 to order.


How to Festival UnBound

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

“Redux”: Latin for get your butt to the Prometheus play tonight! 8pm!

(15th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)
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Added attraction is seeing how magnificently Bill George has aged!

How to Festival UnBound

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Prometheus 1. jpg

Prometheus 2. jpg

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

It’s Opening Day! Get your Friday Festival feet on!

(13th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)
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How to Festival UnBound
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Festival-UnBound-Day-By-Day. 1pdf

click here to get working links for Friday’s events listed above

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Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Let’s Festival! “Festival UnBound” begins tomorrow Friday Oct. 4

(12th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

How to Festival UnBound

Gadfly made a pitch for “Festival UnBound” at City Council Sept 17 that you can see on the meeting video (min. 1:07:25) or hear below:

In that pitch you will hear him say that Gadfly was so excited that you might even see him dance.

And he was so flustered that, if you listen carefully, you will hear him call Touchstone Theatre “Touchdown Theatre” at the end of his pitch.

Lol

So that was September 17.

Today is October 3.

And his excitement runs even higher.

The Festival starts tomorrow with the opening ceremony on the Greenway 5:30.

And the opening of the original play Prometheus / Redux at 8.

And other events.

Their web site — How to Festival UnBound — has lots and lots on information.

Time to get with it!

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Time to saddle up for “Festival UnBound”

(11th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Send the little kids to the grandparents, board the dog, put an away message on your email, put on your thinkin’ caps and dancin’ shoes —

’tis time to get your tickets for the fee’d events and mark your calendars for the free ones

“What kind of community do you really want?’

“How do we form a new identity?”

Jennifer Sheehan, “Festival UnBound: Bringing Bethlehem together through the arts.” September 30, 2019.

“Where are we and where do we want to go?” said J.P. Jordan, Touchstone’s artistic director. “That’s one of the most important ideas. And the art is the manifestation of that thinking.”

“We would ask the same question over and over,” said Bill George, the festival’s director and Touchstone’s co-founder. “What kind of community do you really want?’

“It’s easy to say, ‘I’m going to be inclusive,’ but they are actually doing it,” said Bethlehem City Councilwoman Olga Negron said. “They really reached out to every corner. Just making this all happen and making it inclusive for real is a big accomplishment.”

“It’s easy to say, ‘I’m going to be inclusive,’ but they are actually doing it,” said Bethlehem City Councilwoman Olga Negron said. “They really reached out to every corner. Just making this all happen and making it inclusive for real is a big accomplishment.”

“We all live in Bethlehem, and we all understand what Bethlehem Steel means,” Reynolds said at a recent council meeting. “And I think all of us, when we look across the country and we see the kind of decline of community identities, whether or not it’s religion or a huge industry like Bethlehem Steel, there is just a wide, wide possibility there. How do we form a new identity? And this is obviously done through art, through theater and conversation. But it’s also about the issues that we see all the time: Why do people disagree, how does that have to do with identity and how do you find ways to disagree with somebody?”

“People focus so much on the end result of these things,” Jordan said. “And that’s important but, and there are so many cliche quotes on this, the journey is the thing. The impact of building the art itself puts people in direct connect with the idea of community.”

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

Unaware of the impact the loss of Bethlehem Steel had on the steelworkers and the City

(10th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Kathy Fox is a member of the Bethlehem Environmental Advisory Council, a co-chair of the Northampton County Council of Democratic Women’s Environmental Committee, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bethlehem Food Co-op.  Kathy involves herself in positive organizations and activities that foster community, environmental awareness, education, and good health. 

Gadfly:

I am so happy I decided to I attend the screening of the film Steelbound at the National Museum of Industrial History, and it was good to see you, Gadfly. I did not live in Bethlehem in 1999, and although two of my sons were attending a local Bethlehem high school, I was unaware of the impact the loss of Bethlehem Steel had on the steelworkers and the City. The film did an excellent job of messaging the pain, anger, sadness, and loss experienced by so many people and their families. There were many meaningful and even timely messages, including the importance of immigrants to American society and importance of camaraderie — the “I’ve got your back” attitude in a workplace. I heard the message of the value of experiencing your pain, then taking what you’ve learned and start looking toward the future to make a better life for yourself, your family, and your community. The talk-back session was fascinating with several of the people involved in production adding their personal experiences about the development of the project and on the set, which included stories from the filmmaker and a couple of the actors (former steelworkers). I look forward to experiencing firsthand the sequel, Prometheus/ Redux at the Festival UnBound. Get your tickets early!

Kathy

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

“Steelbound,” the context

(9th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

Gadfly captured these videos at the Steelbound showing Wednesday, September 25.

Bill George — a driving force in Touchstone Theatre — played Prometheus in Steelbound as he will in Prometheus/Redux.

Hank Barnette was Chairman of the Board at Bethlehem Steel from 1992-2000, the period the Steel was closing and in which Steelbound was developed and performed.

Bill George:

Bill reminded us that the dying of the Steel — “in many ways the poppa of this community for a hundred and some years” — was a traumatic event for all of us and that people needed some way to mark the transition.

He stressed “how unusual it was for the Steel [especially Hank Barnett and Steve Donchez] to have the courage to bring this little theater company into their kitchen at this extremely emotional time when there was a lot of anger and a lot of shame, a sense of failure, a lot of sadness, a lot of fear about the future . . . to bring us into that situation showed so much courage on the part of a business.”

Hank Barnette:

Hank stressed how difficult the decision to close the Steel was, knowing the impact on the community would be severe. He stressed that serving the community/public was a Bethlehem Steel goal and that they didn’t “walk away” as they could have legally. He pointed to the large and lucrative development that has already occurred on the Steel site, with more to come. He pointed to a valuable partnership including Steve Donchez, and Mayor Ken Smith and City Council president Jim DelGrosso.

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Jennie Gilrain, Steelbound’s Movement Director, sent Gadfly this informative reminiscence from the Detroit airport:

It was an incredible experience . . . so rich and full of integrity and true storytelling based on community engagement. My husband, Mark McKenna, was Artistic Director of Touchstone at the time and played a key role in making it happen along with Bridget George who was Producing Director. Mark played “Herman the historian,” the guy who climbs the ladle at the end of the play to interview Prometheus. We actually got the inspiration for the production from our teacher, Jacques Lecoq. While visiting Bethlehem from Paris for “The Festival of Creation” at Touchstone, Lecoq took a tour of the functioning Centec branch of the steel mill (a French based company), witnessed a pouring of molten metal, and exclaimed, “Il faut… un choeur qui chante!” The vastness of the space made him imagine a Greek chorus chanting in the mill. It was Gus Ripa at Lehigh who suggested the Aeschylus tragedy, “Prometheus Bound.” Alison Carey of Cornerstone adapted the Greek tragedy to our local situation. Deb Sacarakis at Lehigh was key in commissioning Jay O’Callahan at Zoellner, who created and performed an amazing story about a steelworker family based on hundreds of interviews that he did in Bethlehem. Jay’s story is available on C.D., titled “Pouring the Sun.” The festival was about 5 years in the making!

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13

“Steelbound’s” riveting conclusion

(8th in a series of posts on Touchstone Theatre)

“You gotta come on out . . . it’s time to go.”
(go to min. 1:20:50)

“So come on . . . let’s go!”

In Steelbound’s riveting conclusion (go to min. 1:20:50), Prometheus is talked — but, more persuasively —  sung, danced, and chanted down from his — we learn — self-shackled post on top that hulking dormant remnant of the once thriving Bethlehem Steel.

Throughout the play he has resisted entreaties:

“Isn’t there someone you could apologize to?”

“It won’t do any good to tear at the wounds.”

“Isn’t there something that can set you free?”

“They [dead steelworkers] never asked you to bury yourself with their bones.”

It is the brotherhood of plant workers that first cracks the sullen spell that Prometheus has cast upon himself.

For the history of Bethlehem Steel is not just the planes, guns, bridges, moon rockets, and skyscrapers it produced.

The history of Bethlehem Steel is a “history of fellowship, of care,” a history of “the people who stood next to you,” who “would watch your back” . . . who “would risk their lives to save yours” — a history of relationship, of community.

It’s the common sense of these people that beckons Prometheus:

“Which story are you going to be telling yourself today . . . the one about the steel mill that accomplished things that no one could ever have imagined possible or the one about the steel mill that closed down and ended a way of life?”

“Some people are afraid that you undercut the achievement if you acknowledge the tragedy. I don’t think so.”

“Just because you have the right to be angry doesn’t mean you have to be angry every day.”

It’s their mill metaphysics that beckons Prometheus:

“This place was the body, but we were the soul. . . . Don’t you tell me that the soul can’t go on after the body is cold and lifeless. Don’t you even think of telling me that.”

It’s their sincerely seductive “Come on, brother” that beckons Prometheus.

But it’s the chorus — rather the assemblage of the three choruses — men, women, children — that provides the finishing touch.

A single mournful, almost dirge-like voice is quickly joined by others gradually swelling upward in ever-pulsing tempo, ending in a rapid-fire burst.

The static, seated, separated companies rise, move rhythmically, change positions, join together in hand-linked-to-hand concentric circles around Prometheus, chanting, among other things, “You gotta come on out . . . it’s time to go.”

Emotional energy impossible to explain in words here finally frees Prometheus from the captivity of his past.

It was beautiful,
It was beautiful,
I was happy when I worked here,
I didn’t think I’d ever leave,
but here I go

And with a “So, come on . . . let’s go,” Steelbound ends with Prometheus, and, in fact, the entire company, frozen in this exiting posture, frozen in the first step of forward motion, as the stage goes dark.

Steelbound 3

That was the cultural moment twenty years ago.

Bethlehem City facing an uncertain life after Bethlehem Steel.

Now the question is:

Who are we now that the Steel is gone?

Steelbound is the point of reference for the entire Festival UnBound and especially the dramatic “sequel,” if you will, Prometheus/Redux.

Festival UnBound
Ten days of original theatre, dance, music, art and conversation designed to celebrate and imagine our future together!
October 4-13