LETTER: Flushing Town Hall is stepping up with remote entertainment

Ellen Kodadek is the executive and artistic director of Flushing Town Hall. Photo courtesy of Flushing Town Hall

By Ellen Kodadek

This is an impossibly difficult time. Our hearts are breaking for our community members and their families who have become ill or lost loved ones.  We give infinite thanks to the daily sacrifices of our first responders, and all those who are on the front lines, keeping our cities and neighborhoods safe.

The arts have always brought solace, healing, self-expression and comfort during difficult times.  The arts give us a way to express our joys and sorrows, and explore the very nature of being human. You only have to look online to see how people naturally are turning to the arts in unprecedented ways and massive numbers, to educate and engage their children, take a workshop, learn a new skill (I’ve been exploring collage art with household materials), and enjoy music and exhibitions, dance and puppetry, theatre, and much more.

Like many of the museums, theatres, cultural institutions, living collections like zoos and gardens, across the globe — both big and small — Flushing Town Hall is stepping up, learning new technologies, and exploring best practices and possibilities for adapting to this new online world.  

While we have temporarily had to close our physical doors, we are bringing the best of Global Arts for a Global Community, and Global Arts for Global Kids to audiences online, featuring pre-recorded concerts and new Teaching Artist programming through Flushing Town Hall at Home (which you can experience at flushingtownhall.org), plus hosting weekly community and artist hangouts on Zoom.

Our staff and teaching artists are at home, diligently working remotely to bring you programs in the comfort and safety of your homes to keep you engaged, educated, entertained, and most importantly, connected.

We are going into an uncharted future together.  We are grateful beyond measure for the elected officials, donors, members, volunteers, audiences, artists, Board of Directors and Staff who have supported us for over 40 years, in the best and the worst of times.

We have been bringing people together through global arts for more than four decades and look forward to the day when we can once again welcome audiences — in-person — back to Flushing Town Hall. Stay well and healthy.

Ellen Kodadek is the executive and artistic director of Flushing Town Hall.