Dozens of theaters in Connecticut are joining hundreds of theaters nationwide Thursday night in a pledge to promote diversity and inclusion in their communities.
The Ghostlight Project, named for the light bulb that theaters leave glowing onstage at night, encourages people to gather at designated theaters at 5:30 p.m. Thursday to shine flashlights (or phones or other light-emitting devices) and make their pledge.
The “action statement” from Ghostlight Project suggests that participants “make or renew a pledge to stand for and protect the values of inclusion, participation, and compassion for everyone — regardless of race, class, religion, country of origin, immigration status, (dis)ability, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”
The project was founded several weeks ago by a group of nationally recognized playwrights, directors, designers and theater administrators. Organizers say Thursday’s event was purposely scheduled to take place on the eve of the presidential inauguration.
Enthusiasm for the Ghostlight Project has been growing daily. There were less than a dozen Connecticut theaters listed on the project’s website, theghostlightproject.com, a week ago. On Wednesday morning the number had grown to 33. The list includes Hartford Stage, TheaterWorks, HartBeat Ensemble, Goodspeed Musicals, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, the Shubert, the Long Wharf Theatre, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theatre and the Wesleyan University Theater Department.
TheaterWorks also plans to include readings, projections, and a procession to other theaters. At 5:20 p.m. in front of the theater at 233 Pearl St., attendees can fill out personal pledges on forms that begin with the statement “I am an…” At 5:30 p.m. TheaterWorks will project an image of the iconic 1960s activist performer Nina Simone (whose music figures strongly in the current TheaterWorks production “Sunset Baby”) on a wall across the street from the theater.
Cathy Malloy, CEO of the Greater Hartford Arts Council, and TheaterWorks Producing Artistic Director Rob Ruggiero will lead the delivering of the pledges at 5:30 p.m. Lights will be lit and local musician Alex Parks will perform a song. The assembled group will march to some of the other Ghostlight Project locations downtown, including the Sea Tea Comedy Theater at 15 Asylum St. and the Wadsworth Atheneum at 600 Main St.
Hartford Stage, which is in previews for its production of Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors,” is holding a gathering in its lobby at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Hartford Stage Artistic Associate Rachel Alderman, who is also a founder of the New Haven troupe A Broken Umbrella Theatre, said in an email exchange Wednesday morning: “Our ceremony will be a chance to reaffirm our commitment to the values of inclusion and compassion. Warmth. Light. Poetry. Shakespeare. Song. We hope you’ll join us for this reflective, national moment.”
In New Haven, several theaters are joining together for a single centralized downtown event. The Yale Repertory Theatre and the Long Wharf Theatre are encouraging their patrons to go to the historic Shubert theater on College Street. There, local performer and educator Aleta Staton will recite the Elizabeth Alexander poem “Praise Song for the Day,” which the poet wrote for the first Barack Obama inauguration in 2008. Students from New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School will sing John Lennon’s “Imagine.”
Victoria Nolan, the deputy dean of the Yale School of Drama and the managing director of the Yale Repertory Theatre, says that “the purpose of a ghostlight in a theater is to offer visibility and safety. I know that for myself, because I was in a theater once that didn’t have one, and I fell off the stage. The inauguration marks the end of a long and raucous campaign. It’s time to say, ‘OK, we need to light our light, for visibility and safety.’ Our theaters are a place where people can feel safe.”
