A dependable haven for artists in isolation, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is celebrating its fifth year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings this Friday, having offered to date over 250 conversations and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts these Community Gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, originally presented to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of COVID-19, and now to ensure that these crucial conversations continue going forward.

Register here to receive a Zoom link. These gatherings are a service for the theater community and are offered free for TRU members; non-members may also attend for free, but we ask that non-members help keep us running by buying a ticket, making a donation or joining as a member.

8/1 – A Lost Opportunity, Found: The Return of the Midtown International Theatre Festival. In the room: John Chatterton, founder and executive producer and Jay Michaels, manager, marketing and promotion of the newly revived and rethought Midtown International Theatre Festival. One of the best steps a writer can take in the development of new work is to self-produce (or be produced) in a festival. Though there are always costs involved in producing anything, the shared resources and festival marketing umbrella is a relatively low-cost option for getting a show up on its feet in front of an audience. For 18 years MITF stood as a midtown response to New York’s downtown Fringe Festival, welcoming shows with commercial ambitions as well as the experimental and non-tradition works often associated with “fringe festivals.” Let’s all find out what the plans are for this new incarnation of a New York landmark. What changes are in store in a post-Covid environment? What venues and submission costs are being considered? And crucially: what were some of the lessons learned in 18 years of producing this festival, and how will those lessons be applied in 2026? Click here to register and receive the zoom link.

UPCOMING:

8/8 – Making Music in Minnesota (and the Line between Musical Theater and Opera). In the room: Ben Krywosz, artistic director of the Nautilus Music-Theater. Founded in 1986 as The New Music-Theatre Ensemble, a program of the Minnesota Opera, Nautilus has grown into an essential platform and incubator for the creation, development and production of new operas and other forms of music-theater that are, in Ben’s words, “emotionally expansive, dramatically engaging, and spiritually stimulating.” Nautilus also offers multiple training opportunities for artistic growth. Click here to read more, and to register and receive the zoom link.

More information about upcoming interviews is available at: truonline.org/tru-community-gathering.

To receive the Zoom invitation for weekly meetings, email TRUnltd@aol.com with “Zoom Me” in the subject header. These gatherings are free for TRU members, non-members are asked to make an optional tax-deductible donation or consider joining TRU at truonline.org/membership to support the organization’s ongoing service to the community.

Videos of past Community Gatherings may be viewed on TRU’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/channel/UC43rsChi4fA23dNLeloaF_A/. And a podcast series, TRU Talks About Theater, featuring 2023 Community Gathering conversations, is now available wherever you get your podcasts; or tune in at ElectraCast: https://electracast.com/?s=Theater+Resources

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a thirty-two-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, opportunities and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings about the arts, and monthly Town Halls about current social issues; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices evening of short plays about social issues, Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.

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