A dependable haven for theater professionals, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is in its sixth year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings, having led over 300 consecutive conversations about aspects of the arts. The series has offered the theater community information, inspiration, and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts these gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, originally presented to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of shutdown, and now to ensure that these crucial conversations continue going forward.

Click https://truonline.org/events/intro-to-pdmp-fall26/ to receive this Friday’s 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 $12 ticket, making a donation or joining as a member.

8/14 – Free Introduction to the TRU Producer Development & Mentorship Program. In the room: Master class instructor Jane Dubin, producer (Is This a Room, Dana H., The Prom, Tony winning The Norman Conquests, Farinelli and the King, Bandstand, Peter and the Starcatcher and An American in Paris; plus off-BroadwayAbsolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, The 39 Steps, Ann) and Foundations instructor Blair Russell, Tony-nominated producer whose experience ranges from fringe festivals (Edinburgh) to Broadway and Off-Broadway shows (Slave Play, Still and Sweeney Todd). A free meet-and-greet info session about our Producer Development and Mentorship Program, the only theater production program to offer in-depth instruction from accomplished producers at an affordable price. The FALL semester will start in Late September or early October. Prospective applicants will have the opportunity to learn from and network with our commercial producer instructors. You will also meet and hear from successful program graduates at this Intro evening. PDMP’s purpose is to give members the knowledge and resources to become commercial theater producers, non-profit theater producers and/or self-producing artists. Click https://truonline.org/events/intro-to-pdmp-fall26/ to register and receive the link.

Panelists

JANE DUBIN is a Tony, Drama Desk and Drama League Award-winning producer and the President of Double Play Connections, a theatrical production company committed to supporting the development of new work. Jane is a graduate of the CTI 14-week (NYC) and O’Neill (CT) Producing Workshops and Director of TRU’s Producer Development Master Class. Ms. Dubin is co-Chair of the Board of Houses on the Moon Theater Company, a past Board member of the League of Professional Theatre Women and was a Tony voter for seven years. She is a member of the Broadway Women’s Alliance, Off-Broadway Alliance, LPTW and Off-Broadway League. She serves as an evaluator for Bethany Arts Community’s residency program. She is a frequent panelist and guest lecturer on theater-related matters. Jane serves on the advisory boards of Elizabeth Mascia Child Care Center, Axial Theatre and Dirty Laundry Theatre. Jane has an MBA in Finance from NYU and was a partner in an investment advisory firm prior to her theater career. Productions: Recent: The Village of Vale – an original fantasy musical (Adirondack Theatre Festival), Still, starring Melissa Gilbert and Mark Moses. Broadway: Is This A Room, Dana H., The Prom(Drama Desk Best Musical), Farinelli and the King (Mark Rylance), An American in Paris (4 TONY Awards, London, National Tour), Ann, (Holland Taylor) (Lincoln Center), Bandstand, Peter and the Starcatcher (5 TONY Awards), The Norman Conquests (TONY). Other: Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, Beebo Brinker Chronicles (GLAAD Media Award), Groundswell, The 39 Steps, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (London). Film: Radium Girls.

BLAIR RUSSELL is a producer who specializes in developing new works for the theatre. Recent projects include the off-Broadway play Still with Melissa Gilbert which he found at a TRU Speed Date, new musical Lizard Boywhich has been performed in 4 countries including Off-Broadway, For Tonight, which premiered in concert on the West End at the Adelphi Theatre, DIVA: Live From Hell! (Edinburgh, Off West End), and Pop Off, Michelangelo!(Edinburgh, Off West End). He was a producer on Slave Play which held the record for most Tony-nominated play in history, is developing the new musical Salem which has over 50k followers on social media, and executive produced the first two concept albums in the EPIC series which have over 150 million streams globally. Other projects as co-producer / investor include The Wiz (National Tour/Broadway 2024), Sweeney Todd (Immersive Off-Broadway 2017), and Gypsy with Imelda Staunton (West End 2014). Blair is Co-Chair of the Board of The New Harmony Project and a member of the Board of Trustees of Goodspeed Musicals and SPACE. He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a BFA in Technical Theatre/Stage Management.

UPCOMING

8/21 – Celebrating the Power of Music: Bringing Three Worlds Together in One Spotlight. In the room: members of the crossover consortium pianoFORTEpianoFORTE!: avant-garde jazz-classical pianist Ethan Iverson, classical-to-contemporary pianist Beth Levin, and vocalizing contemporary pianist Kathleen Supové. We’ll talk with these three diverse artists about their chosen artistic paths, what shaped their musical aesthetic and their careers, how they met and came together to create pianoFORTEpianoFORTE!, and how their individual styles offer contrasts and complements. What do they find inspiring about each other? Click here to read more, register, and receive the link.

8/28 – How a Playwright/Producer Found Himself Running a Theater. (More Than One.) In the room: Tony Sportiello, playwright (LOL, National Pastime, Tickets, Please, Contract Time), librettist/producer (off-Bway’s National Pastime, Sessions, An Evening at the Carlyle, The Devil and Billy Markham), current artistic director of ATM Theater in NYC. When did creative artist Tony dive into the business side of the arts? At one time a playwright actively involved in the running of the artist consortium The Workshop Theater, he went on to form Algonquin Theater Productions and settled into the vacated Blue Heron theater space, overhauling it into The Algonquin Theater with partner Al Tapper. Fast forward to post-pandemic 2022. Tony and Al took over the former 45th Street Theater and turned it into the AMT Theater. Click here to read more, register, and receive the link.

More information about upcoming dates 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 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-three-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 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 (adapting short plays into films), 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 Leibowitz Greenway Foundation, Stewart F. Lane & Bonnie Comley, Merrie L. Davis, Dunbar Hofmann Productions 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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