Category: Artist Community

After Rey Pamatmat finished writing a play it just kept writing itself. More and more story kept appearing. It seemed much longer than a play.

The idea of writing a book felt fun. Then he discovered how different books are than plays. He had been writing plays or 10 years so he knows the components and how to put them together. “But with a book, I don’t know all the parts, and what it needs” he said.

Plays are collaborative. Directors, even actors fill in between the words of the playwright, but with books you have to write everything down. “In the book I have to make decisions about things with no collaborators. I alone have to decide what people are thinking. And it has so many more words!” he said with genuine surprise. “I asked my manager how many words a book has. The answer was 60,000 to 90,000!”

The story came to a stop one-third of the way through the book because he had play commission deadlines and a revision due. He got too busy to work on the book and couldn’t write it as efficiently as he could section up and write plays in shorter patches of time. He needed an expanse of time to work on the book so when the opportunity of the Hermitage came up it seemed perfect.

Rey’s venture into this new genre isn’t the first time a playwright came to the Hermitage to write a book. While walking the beach with Kia Corthron, I listened as she mumbled and nearly stuttered the word “novelist.” “I’m here as a novelist.” Like Rey, she was struggling with her evolution as a writer. Hers wasn’t a struggle of form and components, but of self-image. She knew herself as a playwright, and her whole image had to morph. When she returned a year later, her novel was nearly done and she had no problem pronouncing the word “novelist.”

When Hermitage writer Susan Yankowitz talks about the play she’s working on, small crowds gather around her in fascination. I haven’t seen this phenomenon since 2009 when young artists sat on the floor surrounding a chair where Romulus Linney read his entrancing stories. Each story was an encouraging metaphor meant specifically for someone on the floor. But I digress.

Susan’s play is about animals in the Middle Ages that were placed on trial when they hurt or killed a human. Over a thousand such trials were documented in France, Ireland, the USA and England.

A horse was assigned a defense attorney when he kicked a man. Bees were tried after stinging a woman in 18th century England. But the bees didn’t show up for the trial. Animals were almost always found guilty but there was an occasional appeal. The main character in the play is a sow, a 400-pound mother pig, who ate a human baby, which apparently was quite common in those days.

Many trials were on bestiality, which always involved a man and a female animal “paramour” who were put on trial together. The most famous was in New Haven. In the 17th Century a man and a Jewish woman went on trial for bestiality because Jews were not considered human.

In fact there are so many of these cases that Susan is faced with the problem of which fascinating stories to cut from the script.

The play is narrated by the first attorney to defend animals, when in 1521 he represented a group of rats who ate crops, causing famine. The rats won on a technicality.

The play asks the question “What kind of justice do we give to those whom society sees as lesser creatures?” Could this pertain to Abu Ghraib, blacks, the poor?

How do you define suffering? Does a fish suffer? as a Swedish animal rights attorney asserted after a fisherman was tried for showing off his catch flailing on the hook? Where do we draw the lines, personally and societally?

Even God makes an appearance in this play. And why shouldn’t he, since most of the defense and the prosecution use the Bible as argument?

Susan’s subject reminds me of when I first read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and had the revelation that justice changes with the decades. Susan’s play magnifies that revelation using centuries. What was seen as just in the 1500s is laughable today. And how will we look back at justice in 2013? Will we laugh or be appalled?

That question can be found deep within Hermitage Fellow Rey Pamatmat’s play based on the trial of Trayvon Martin. But that’s for another blog….

The Hermitage is thrilled to welcome Laura Kaminsky, Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City and an accomplished and award-winning composer, to our Board of Trustees. Laura is the first Hermitage Fellow to serve on our Board. “No one can better represent the insider’s point of view – that of the Hermitage fellow – than someone who has that title. And no one can represent the national point of view from outside this community better than someone living in a distant cultural center. As a Hermitage fellow in music, living in New York City, Laura meets both those qualifications,” said Executive Director Bruce Rodgers.

It took less than a minute for the Hermitage to cast a spell on Kaminsky, who came for her first residency with her partner Rebecca Allan, a painter. The two were collaborating on Horizon Lines, a multi-media work. “Driving up the narrow road and seeing the wooden structures and the dunes glowing under the midday sun was confirmation before ever stepping foot on the ground that this was a special place to nurture one’s creativity,” writes Kaminsky. “I could tell that there was going to be the space to be reflective and therefore productive.”

Kaminsky says that the Hermitage meant “everything” to her as an artist. “Time. Quiet. The stimulating conversation among the artist fellows. The closeness to nature. The sound of the waves. The light. All of this created a perfect environment in which to let loose and to reel in, both of which are necessary to making art.”

And she hasn’t wasted any time in making a difference. Inspired by a conversation with Rodgers, Kaminsky conceived the idea for NOVEMBER 21, 1963: THE DAY BEFORE, a multi-media one-night-only performance that will feature contributions from more than 60 Hermitage composers, writers, filmmakers, and visual artists to contribute original work around the theme of life on the eve of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. “Laura’s deep commitment to the Hermitage was obvious from the beginning. The exciting partnership the Hermitage has with Symphony Space, for whom she is artistic director, is an obvious example of this commitment,” said Rodgers.

The performance, taking place at Symphony Space on November 8, 2013, has already attracted tremendous media attention, has sold out and will be a highpoint of the upcoming Hermitage Artist Tour of New York City. “The outpouring of interesting responses to the challenge from the hermitage fellows has been exceptional and I know we have a great evening in store”, said Kaminsky.

As an artist and Fellow, Kaminsky believes she can bring a unique perspective to the Hermitage Board. “Having lived the artist’s life there I hope I can speak directly to the board from the perspective of one who has benefited from a residency in ways that can lead and inspire the board to continue its good work.”

Laura Kaminsky’s works are frequently performed across the U.S. and abroad; Kaminsky has received numerous commissions, fellowships, and awards. She has received four ASCAP- Chamber Music America Awards for Adventuresome. She currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Chamber Music America and has been a board member of the American Music Center and a member of the Artistic Advisory Council of the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is Artistic Director of Symphony Space in New York City. From 2004-2008, she served as dean of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College/SUNY, where she is currently professor of music and faculty-at-large for the School of the Arts