Hermitage Response to COVID-19
Hear from our Artists…
Want to support Hermitage artists and the creative process?
Needless to say, this is a particularly challenging time, and we are heartbroken for the losses – personal and professional – that our friends, colleagues, and alumni are facing. Now, as we consider the next chapter of the Hermitage and how this virus may impact our plans, we too need your help.
We hold high hopes for the future of the Hermitage and everything we can do for this community and the broader artistic landscape. However, without you, we cannot realize this vision. We provide artists the invaluable space and time to create the content that fills the theaters, concert halls, and museums that we all know and love. Without the artists, there is only a blank page and an empty stage.
Hear from our Artists
Why The Hermitage Matters Now More Than Ever...
DOUG WRIGHT
Pulitzer-Prize Winning Playwright
President, Dramatists Guild of America
At the Hermitage, I was afforded solace, hospitality, and natural beauty to write. I was able to sit with my thoughts and forge them like raw clay into something approximating art –that’s the great gift of the Hermitage. It gives the necessary time and solitude for artists to do their best work.
The Hermitage is reliant on its supporters to stay in operation and continue to contribute to the American cannon. These are difficult times.
The future of art is uncertain at the moment, and institutions like the Hermitage – which are so vital–are questioning their futures in profound ways.
I beg you to support the Hermitage. Artists like me all over this country and beyond will be lastingly grateful.
Claire Chase
Flutist, Composer
MacArthur Fellow, Avery Fisher Prize Winner, Harvard Professor
“I’m so fortunate to be in the Hermitage Fellow family. I wanted to make this musical offering for all of you who so generously support this amazing organization. The Hermitage is so much more than a space for artists. It’s a sparkplug for ideas and collaborations and friendships – a miraculous co-mingling of music, literature, visual art, theater, nature, wildlife – and I think for all of us, for artists and audiences alike, that co-mingling inspires and nourishes a deep inner reflection, and also an expansive outward imagination, and thirst for possibilities.
In this time of fragmentation and isolation, we need that collaborative and imaginative ethos more than ever before. It’s in this spirit that I ask you all to support the Hermitage with a generous contribution. In these uncertain times, thank you for joining me and all of my fellow artists in supporting this organization that we love. I look forward to seeing all of you and serenading you on the other side of this.”
Because of the Hermitage, some of the most beautiful plays have been written, and the most beautiful music has been made. In times like these, we are in danger of losing those places that most matter to our culture, to our souls, and to the truth.
Let us do everything we can to support the beautiful Hermitage.
Emily Mann
Playwright and Director
Tony Award-Winning Artistic Director, McCarter Theater
The Hermitage is one of my favorite places on earth. This is the time to reflect on why art matters. The Hermitage lets artists dream and think deeply about the truth.
Because of the Hermitage, some of the most beautiful plays have been written, and the most beautiful music has been made. In times like these, we are in danger of losing those places that most matter to our culture, to our souls, and to the truth.
Let us do everything we can to support the beautiful Hermitage.
Adam Gwon
Award-Winning Composer and Lyricist
The impact of the Hermitage extends far beyond the weeks that we are in residence there. The inspiration that we draw there – we take back home with us.
I keep shells and shark teeth from the Hermitage close by, because what the Hermitage offers artists and writers like me is truly rare.
Craig Lucas
Tony Award Nominated Playwright
Hermitage Greenfield Prize Recipient
Thank you for all the help you have given to us artists through the years. The Hermitage has been invaluable to artists, to help us earn a living.
I urge each and every one of you to support an organization that does more for artists in America than any I have encountered. It enabled me to keep a roof over my head.
If you have a roof over your head, I urge you to help the Hermitage stay afloat, to thank the people at the Hermitage for bringing you this culture.
Camille T. Dungy
Author
Poet
American Book Award Recipient
The quiet of this stretch of coast and the long hours of self-directed time were phenomenal. Dreamy and productive, it was the perfect balance of interaction with the other artists and time to write and think.
It was like a little window of heaven had opened up for a brief time. I came here not sure I had been particularly productive for the last few years. My time at the Hermitage gave me an opportunity to look carefully and collectively at my work.
I completed my next book of poetry, started on my next major project, and even dabbled in a few creative endeavors I would never have the time or liberty to undertake at home.
I worked for hours every day and still had time for long walks on the beach at sunrise and sunset. This residency was an amazing gift.
Christopher Merrill
Poet and Non-Fiction Writer
Director, The International Writing Program, University of Iowa
It is in these times of digging deep that we find the things we most desperately need to say, and we make the greatest advances.
It is exactly in these times when artists and writers will find out ways to help us live our lives. I hope that you will find a way to support the critical work of the Hermitage.
ZOE Sarnak
Award-Winning Musical Theater Composer
“The Hermitage was honestly one of the most beautiful, inspiring, and peaceful settings I’ve ever experienced. I still remember the exact spot where I would play in the early morning, and the sunlight would stream through the window onto the piano and warm my hands as I played.
One thing really special and unique about the Hermitage is the time you get to spend with artists across different mediums. We were incredibly inspired by the writing that the novelists who were there would share with us at nights – this kind of community is truly unique. The programming that the Hermitage provides is free to the public and really depends on support from people like you. In this moment, art is all the more important, so I truly hope you’ll consider donating to the Hermitage – thank you.”
It is exactly in these times when artists and writers will find out ways to help us live our lives. I hope that you will find a way to support the critical work of the Hermitage.
Emily Kaczmarek
Playwright
Screenwriter
Librettist
The Hermitage was a life-changing experience.
There’s nothing that can compare with the setting and the respect that is given to deep work. We were able to make headway on a musical named Afloat. The show deals with climate change, and it felt apropos to work there on the beach, feeling so connected to the earth and to nature.
Hermitage programs are free to the public, so this incredible institution is dependent on our generosity and donations. Particularly in a moment like this when we are hunkered down at home and taking so much comfort in the arts – movies and books, etc.
I believe in the importance in donating to organizations like the Hermitage, which has been so liberating and supportive for me as an artist working in this very unique moment in time. I can’t wait to be back there looking at the ocean as I write. Thank you very much for your support.
Eric Booth
Education Leader
Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Juilliard, Stanford
Americans for the Arts Leadership Award Recipient
I am speaking from quarantine, home with the COVID-19 virus.
On the Hermitage National Curatorial Council, I am able to select teaching artists who will be able to take particular advantage of the exquisite experience that the Hermitage provides for artists. The Hermitage is one of those rare precious organizations that supports artists in the way it is most meaningful for them.
In this most vulnerable and precarious time, I will step up my support. I can’t bear to see artists lose this rarest of opportunities to have their work nurtured in a way that makes for change.
From my experience knowing artists who come through a Hermitage residency, with glowing gratitude for the contribution it made to their careers, I want to make sure the Hermitage not only survives – but thrives – because it gives so much.
Lisa Diane Wedgeworth
Los Angeles-based Multi-disciplinary Artist
I produced The Calling, a new video while at the Hermitage. I had been reflecting on home, the land of my family. A calling, a tugging at my spirit to return there, if even for a brief visit to set foot upon the land my ancestors toiled, built, walked and raised families upon. Traveling through Alabama with my mother, visiting civil rights monuments and memorials, a deep kinship with those who endured and survived the Domestic Slave Trade stirred within me and the American South felt as much as my home as any place. While at the Hermitage, the water of the Gulf of Mexico conjured images within my mind’s eye and whispered new work, The Calling, in my ear.
Reggie Harris
Songwriter
Storyteller
Kennedy Center Teaching Artist
Woodrow Wilson Scholar
I have been to the wonderful Hermitage Artist Retreat to develop new projects, like many artists who have come from all around the world.
The Hermitage is a place where people like me can, in safety, work on their dreams. Right now, the Hermitage needs you to keep the dream alive.
I ask you to go to their website and give a good donation so that dreams can continue to come true.
Mark Campbell
Light shall lift us every one
As sure as there is a sun
Light shall lift us
Light shall lift us
We shall soar
In darkness never more
Light shall lift us
Those of us with ailing hearts
Those of us with broken souls
Those of us without sight
Shall all, shall all, shall all take flight
Light shall lift us
To a place of everlasting grace
Light shall lift us every one.
In my life I’ve been blessed with support of the artistic community of which the Hermitage has played a very significant role. I was fortunate to be at that magical place three times. While there I wrote an oratorio libretto and three full opera librettos that have premiered at among other places Carnegie Hall and the Santa Fe Opera and won a Grammy last year for best new opera. I really owe the Hermitage for giving me a quiet place to think about that oratorio.
The reach of the Hermitage goes far beyond those humble houses on the Gulf. The work produced there is seen and heard around the world, helps bring people together, forces us to confront issues that may be difficult or troubling, and guides us toward, as faint as it sometimes may be, the light in our humanity. The support you give us is lasting. It is crucial. It makes a big difference.
I’d like to share this work with you that I wrote with composer Paul Moravec for a benefit concert after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It seems apropos now.