* * * SIGN this petition: NYS needs to suspend commercial rents & evictions without penalty NOW! and this BILL going to NYS * * *

We at Town Stages have built the largest independently women-owned and women-led cultural space in New York City. We did it without funding. We did it without government land or subsidy - to ensure that work done under this roof remains radical, accessible, ethical, pioneering and downright dope. We are home to the one of the largest Fellowship & Residency programs on the eastern seaboard and we make this space free year round to workers in the arts, media, social justice, and small business. We have just tripled the size of our program, and these luminary creators are depending on Town as their home; as are many young community leaders to come.  

Before COVID19, we thought we’d seen it all. Our one small and scrappy family fought so hard to get a lease of our own, and we’ve endured countless hardships opening our doors and keeping them open since. Let’s be honest -our industry was already in crisis. Our rights and our wages were pretty upside down. But now there is not a bar, restaurant, cabaret, nightclub, nor independent theatre or cultural venue like us that hasn’t been crushed by this pandemic, and we haven’t seen the likes of it just yet…

Our co-workers and collaborators are vulnerable and exposed - and we are not all about to go out like this. 

This is a shout out to New York’s Cultural and Hospitality spaces.

This is a shout out to their artists and workers, who make NYC the place to be.

This is a call for this community of ours to MOVE AS ONE.

 Independent rehearsal, cultural, and hospitality spaces are the cultural engine that power New York City.

This is a call to KEEP US HERE AND SHINING BRIGHT.

Spaces small, medium, and large in New York have been the grassroots & front line organizations that have proven to be a critical and irreplaceable incubating ground that feeds directly to commercial arts programming - both on and off broadway.

The future makers of our industry freely explore and ignite their unique voices in the spaces WE provide.  We do it because it’s what the world needs. We do it to serve. We do it because this is the New York we all came here to build. 

We build these spaces with our own hands, and keep them open with our full hearts - against all odds. We hold the rehearsals. We hold the galas. We hold the power lunch hours. We hold the readings, concerts, keynotes, and all. We are where you come for inspiration and transformation. We are where artists light your fire!

We pioneer the misbegotten basement places, rescue the vacant storefront spaces, cobble together the 60 seaters, 99 seaters - 199 seat theaters on up - so that Broadway and Off Broadway Stages can glow bright.

But now where’s our light?

As of 8pm Monday night, the Mayor ordered a total shutdown to the public. We all watched in utter shock as Broadway itself went dark. From then on down like dominos - all cultural and hospitality spaces large, medium, and small - have been ordered to close in response to COVID-19. It was the right call, and we all did our part.

But we are also the spaces that hold our own leases and have to pay our own rent through hell or high water, so that this community we all love has a place to convene, connect, work, and dream.

So where are our leaders? While our businesses & institutions grind to a halt, our rent clocks have still not been stopped. The payroll our people depend on has not stopped and cannot stop - and there isn’t a business or institution we know of who’s got what they need to take of their people for much longer, if they haven’t already furloughed across the board.

April 1st is upon us. We want a way to pay our people in this crisis, and we want a world to return to when this is over.

Town Stages has called out to our government leaders to halt commercial rents and commercial evictions, but there’s been no reply. They could be giving us a way forward, and they still haven’t. There are hundreds of spaces shouldering hundreds of thousands of local workers who’ve been left in the dark with no foreseeable way to meet our financial obligations. Our leases have no “out” for this. Our insurances do not cover this. The longstanding cracks in our system have broken open wide, the choices some are making are terrible, and others are simply throwing up their hands while we fade to black.

This letter is a call to regroup. A call for community triage - and it can be done.

After all - we are the engine, We are the spark. so, let’s get to work. 

For most independent operators like Town Stages, rent is big bill #1, and payroll is not far behind. One can’t exist without the other; it’s a covid catch 22. We are calling on you to take this action because suspending commercial and residential rents IS the most holistically effective way to ensure that this ENTIRE COMMUNITY of independent small businesses and theaters and their workers to have a chance to survive. We don’t want to hear about theaters asking for pay back from their playwrights! We don’t wanna hear our favorite mom and pops are already emptying shop. This is not okay!

Town Stages stands firm as ever - that access to affordable and equitable space should not be a privilege. It is a human right. That paying a living wage is the ONLY way to do business.

We are asking for your advocacy to hold onto Town Stages, every space, and every worker we can. We want to continue our mission of reimagining equity and access in New York City. The advocacy we all do here can help all our beloved New York City cultural and nightlife spaces and workers stay afloat and burning bright. 

Can you do more than share, tag, and sign?

• If you are in a privileged enough position to financially contribute - PLEASE DONATE 

• If you know a foundation or institution, company or individual who can help CONNECT US (via tag them, email them, messenger, or carrier pigeon . . . )

• If you represent a Foundation or Institution - EMAIL US at connect@townstages or call us at 212-634-6790. We’d love to illuminate (see what we did there) more about what we do.

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We know throughout this crisis and thereafter, we are all facing unprecedented challenges. But in COVID19’s wake we’ll need our cherished spaces to come home to and heal in. Taking inspiration from the great Leonard Bernstein - In this time of great uncertainty, our most powerful response is from those who insist on meeting fear with art and making that is done more intensely, more beautifully and more devotedly than ever before.

It is then our moral responsibility to make sure that the rooms where this making happens are protected, fought for and preserved.

It is OUR PLEDGE at Town Stages to continue helping fellow independent local spaces survive and thrive. We will need our community’s artists, organizers, and entrepreneurs to have a home, after this crisis subsides. We will fight for them from the dark, and we will fight for them when our doors are open once more. This team will never stop advocating for the visibility and crucial contribution of our artists, our organizers, our workers, and our visionary young cultural leaders to build the world we all want to live in - where we can gather, overcome, and move as one.

In solidarity, strength, and love -

Robin Sokoloff, and The Leadership Team at Town Stages

Town Stages is a cultural space and institution in Tribeca building equity for arts, hospitality, civic and social justice workers.