Tag: NYC

Betty Corwin receives Lifetime Achievement Award for archiving thousands of NYC theater productions

Betty Corwin receiving her Lifetime Achievement Award at Sardi’s Restaurant in NYC on November 8, 2017. (Photo/Ellis Gaskell)

Betty Corwin is going to turn 97 this month, but she says she still feels like a baby.

“If you feel young, you are young,” says the native New Yorker, enthusiastically.

This month was an extra special one for Corwin. She received the Special Lifetime Achievement Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW) for founding the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) in 1969. In 2001, she also received a TONY Award for her dedicated work.

It was because of Corwin’s vision, and untiring effort, that TOFT has been filming and archiving video recordings of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theater productions for nearly 50 years. The archive is located at New York City’s Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts and is open to the public.

“There are over 8,000 titles now – shows, interviews, dialogues, and over 4,000 are theater productions, and it continues to grow,” says Corwin, proudly. “It’s considered the largest archive of its kind.”

What’s perhaps most impressive about her extraordinary feat is that she only began this immense project when she was 50.

“I got married in 1944, and my husband [a doctor] decided to practice in the country – so we moved to Connecticut,” says Corwin.

She says it took her forever to get used to life in the country, but she did eventually. It’s there that she had, and raised, her three children.

After they were grown, Corwin started to commute to NYC to volunteer in a psychiatric emergency room of a hospital. It was while filling out an application for a scholarship that she realized her true life’s calling.

“I had to write a brief autobiography, and I found myself saying the most exciting time in my life was when I worked in the theater,” recalls Corwin, vividly. “When I was 20, I wasn’t married…I was a production assistant at the theater and script reader for three years.”

Because of this revelation, the next morning, she went straight to Lincoln Center and told the head of the drama department her plan to make an archive of all theater productions.

He asked, “What makes you think you can do this?”

Corwin answered, “I can try.”

He said, “I’ll give you a desk and a telephone and see if you can get it off the ground.”

So, straight away, the unstoppable Corwin started calling foundations in order to get the money to fund her vision.

“It was two and a half years just to get through the unions — I had to tackle them one at a time,” says Corwin, as if it were only yesterday. “I was persistent. I worked hard for it. Even when it was difficult getting union clearances, I pushed ahead.”

Betty Corwin with the video tape recorders in Lincoln Center in 1998. (Courtesy Betty Corwin)

She remembered literally walking into the offices of executives, after not getting callbacks, in order to get contracts signed. Sometimes it’d take up to an hour of convincing why the archive was necessary, but she says she wouldn’t leave until she got the signatures she needed.

“Musicians have a lot of privacy rights. They didn’t trust anyone, or me,” says Corwin. “We finally had all the unions to be able to tape on Broadway, and I had also been raising money throughout…I did that for 31 years – getting up at 5:30am to catch the 7:31 train, and I loved what I was doing. I really did love what I did.”

Corwin’s love for the theater began as a young girl. Her parents would take her to see shows on Broadway. It was then that the seed was planted, and she began feeling someone had to preserve these shows. Little did she know that person would be her.

“I was always a spectator. I never acted,” says Corwin. “When you go to the theater, you’re lost in another world.”

She says she also loves theater, because it can shed light on controversial topics happening in the world, like “The Normal Heart” – about the AIDS epidemic – which TOFT got to tape in 1985.

Her favorite memory of her career was being able to watch a special finale of one of her favorite plays, “A Chorus Line” – which she says is also the longest running Broadway show.

“The actors emerged from all over the theater,” says Corwin. “The orchestra and audience were in evening clothes. It was thrilling.”

What thrills Corwin nowadays is seeing her beloved archive continue at New York’s prestigious Lincoln Center.

“We have viewers coming from around the world,” she says. “I continue to work for the library, and I’m also on the jury for the Outer Critics Circle…I feel good.”

What is her most important piece of life advice that she’d tell her 20-year-old self?

“Just enjoy life and keep doing what you love. That’s the most important thing – to just keep going.”

November 13, 2017
How writing her life story led a woman to inner healing

Maria Aponte (Photo/George Malave)

Maria Aponte was born and raised an only child in East Harlem, otherwise known as “El Barrio,” in New York City, to Puerto Rican parents.

Because she lost her mother at 16, and her father at 22, loneliness was a battle she fought most of her life, but it was also what made her the undefeated warrior and artist that she is today. And perhaps, the eternal yearning for parental guidance and wisdom, is what drove her to create a non-profit which honors elders later in life.

At 60, Aponte has achieved much. She has written and performed two one-woman plays, the autobiographical “Lagrimas de mis Madres,” and “I Will Not Be Silenced,” based on the life of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. She has also written a poetry book, and a memoir, “The Gift of Loss,” which most recently hit shelves. In addition to working full-time in career development at Fordham University, she also started a non-profit called Latina 50 Plus four years ago, through which she honors other Latina pioneers over the age of 50.

“I got the opportunity to tell my story in “Lagrimas de mis madres,” says Aponte about the play based on the women in her family, which she wrote during her undergrad years.

Aponte performing in her one woman show, “Lagrimas de Mis Madres.” (Photo/Elena Marrero)

She says the story came easily, because she wrote the script using the poetry she had written throughout her youth.

“I wanted to tell this story, because I was the last woman in my family, and I thought it could help others,” says Aponte, adding that she knew her work touched the audience when people would wait in the lobby to thank her for her courage to tell her story. “Eventually, it became a full-length play on off-Broadway. I took it on the road for 10 and a half years around the country.”

Because she was not the “typical looking Puerto Rican actress” of the time, she explains, like Rita Moreno – but more Afro-Latina in appearance, Aponte says she found she would get more work if she wrote plays herself. Her next play about Sor Juana de la Cruz, she also developed into a one-woman show and took it on tour around the country.

“I was an introvert, and I think the arts saved me,” says Aponte, about how she dealt with the early death of her mother. “Even though it was painful, I was always able to use my art to deal with my pain.”

She says she knew she was born to be an artist as young as age 7.

“I knew I wanted to be in the theater ever since I was a munchkin in the school play, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ – I connected to the stage,” says Aponte. “I was jumping up and down one day, and I smelled dust from the wooden planks of the stage, and I loved the smell. My first influence was my drama teacher at 13 – I was learning lines and stage plotting…I knew then that I knew I would be an artist, and I always have been in some form.”

She adds that her favorite medium will always be theater.

“I love live theater,” says Aponte. “When I do a poetry reading, I end up performing…To me, it’s not just memorizing lines but developing character and taking the audience on a journey. I fell into the poetry thing in the 80’s, and that’s when I started writing more. My saving grace was the Nuyorican Poet’s Café. When I walked in, I felt like I was walking into El Barrio. That’s where I discovered my Puerto Rican pride, and where I connected with elders like Pedro Pietri.”

She says she also learned a lot from the late Miriam Colon who was the founder and director of NYC’s Puerto Rican Traveling Theater.

“My elders taught me about my history and my culture,” says Aponte, who moved to the Bronx in the 1980’s, where she still resides today with her husband and fellow storyteller, Bobby Gonzalez.

Now that she’s older, she would like to return the same favor and be an example for the youth she encounters.

Aponte has led a structured presence, in her otherwise diversified creative life, working full-time at Fordham University for the past 19 years. She has spent time in various departments, but has stayed in career services for the past 11 years – in the managing diversity initiative, and in 2014 she simultaneously completed her MA in Latino Studies.

“I don’t think you should stay stuck,” says Aponte. “I love the life I live today. A typical month could also involve sitting on panels and supporting other artists’ work. My heart is in the betterment and development of women of color.”

For herself, she realized how life growth happens in stages, over time, and she tries to teach that to others.

“I was always telling my story in pieces. I have played my grandmother, mother, myself as a child, and as a woman,” says Aponte. “I would never address my father. My parents separated when I was two. My dad was actually not a bad person, just an alcoholic. He was a percussionist and could sing…but I never experienced him myself, just from what I heard from others. I wanted to write also about forgiveness.”

Through her writing, Aponte says she has documented the amount of years it took her to become her own woman.

“It is about coming to terms with who you are, and thinking, ‘Wow, I went through all that,’ she says. “I have a tremendous gratitude for life. Like right now as I’m speaking to you, I’m smiling.”

She adds that most people don’t want to deal with emotion, but everyone has to at their own timing.

“People say I’m so calm, but I say it’s a lot of work,” says Aponte. “The best I can do is plant a little seed.”

Why she created Latina 50 Plus?

“In the industry I work in, career development, I felt that older Latina women were disappearing,” says Aponte. “I felt I needed to create a space where their history wouldn’t be lost. We need to honor the elders who rolled up their sleeves before us.”

Latina 50 Plus is a non-profit currently in its fourth year. The fourth annual luncheon, taking place on June, 24, will be honoring seven women in the fields of art, community service, education, medicine, law and literature.

The next goal, she says, is a mentoring program.

Her advice to her younger self?

“Being a child caregiver, I would ignore myself,” says Aponte. “I had to really work hard on that. That’s how my brain worked. That could be your own obstacle…You have to have passion and persistence, because if you don’t, you can get swallowed up in the mundane stuff. You must discover yourself. Ask yourself, ‘Who am I?’ Everyone is going to have that moment. Don’t be afraid of it. Accept yourself with all of your imperfections. It’s ok if you mess up.”

June 21, 2017
Bibi Ferreira, 94, performs in NYC and shares her life

Bibi Ferreira (Photo/Willan Aguiar)

Bibi Ferreira is an entertainment powerhouse in Brazil — she’s been singing, acting, directing and producing for the past 75 years. At 94, she is also a force that doesn’t quit.

The “Grand Dame,” as she is often called, was recently in New York City performing “4 x Bibi” at Symphony Space, a show saluting her four singing peers — Frank Sinatra, Édith Piaf, Amália Rodrigues, and Carlos Gardel.

“They are not my favorite singers, but they are the best,” says Ferreira, in her deep, strong voice, about why she chose these four to tribute. “Piaf was a composer herself.”

Although born in Rio de Janeiro, Ferreira speaks perfect English, as well as Spanish, French and her native Portuguese.

“I had a lot of work to do,” she says about her childhood. “I was brought up in a British school. My mother was very tough with me. I spoke five languages at the age of 15. I also learned the piano and violin. It was a very, very busy life. I did whatever my mother wanted.”

Ferreira’s mother was Spanish ballerina, Aída Izquierdo, and her father, the prominent Brazilian actor, Procópio Ferreira. So the stage became Bibi’s second home from when she was still only months old.

“A very special night for me was an opening act with my father on February 28, 1941,” says Ferreira about her professional stage debut at age 18 in the Italian play “La Locandiera.” “My father – the greatest actor from Brazil – taught me everything I know.”

Bibi performing in “La Locandeira” at age 18. (Courtesy Montenegro y Raman Art Productions)

Throughout her career, Ferreira brought some of Broadway’s biggest musicals to Brazil in the 1960’s — as well as starred in them — such as, “My Fair Lady,” “Hello, Dolly!”, and “Man of La Mancha.” She sang and acted, touring worldwide, and even hosted various television programs, including Curso de Alfabetização para Adultos — a televised literacy course which taught more than 30,000 people in Brazil.

“It was one of the things that most honored my career,” says Ferreira, who takes the art of communication very seriously. “My career has been a success – one on top of the other…The most important thing for an actor is to make yourself understood.”

It wasn’t always an easy ride for Ferreira. She was married five times and had one daughter. Her last, and most successful, marriage was to Brazilian playwright, Paolo Pontes. However, after only eight years together, he died of stomach cancer at the age of 36, and she never married again.

“Since I remember at the age of 12, I never decided anything in my life,” said Ferreira about her professional life. [My parents] decided my life…It’s a very severe way of living, but I like music very, very, very much – I really prefer the musicals.”

These days, although she still performs and tours occasionally, she is now free to wake up when she wants.

“I wake up, have my coffee and milk, go for the mail,” says Ferreira. “Sometimes I play a little piano which I adore. Then my assistant tells me what I have to do. I get ready, get dressed.”

What is her most important piece of life advice which she wishes she could give her younger self?

“Try to be simple. I think simplicity is the most important thing in life. It’s very important to just be yourself…The most important thing in life is to communicate. Just be happy. I could eat everything I want, and my health is good, so I’m happy!”

September 28, 2016
Jazz piano legend advises to talk less and listen more

Bertha Hope (Photo/Richard Somerville)

Bertha Hope has been surrounded by music all her life. Her father Clinton (Henry) Rosemond was a dramatic baritone singer who traveled all over Europe to perform, she married two legendary jazz musicians – pianist, Elmo Hope and bassist, Walter Booker, and she herself became an award-winning jazz pianist.

In late 2014, after a full career touring Europe and Japan and playing with a diverse group of artists, Hope was named a Living Legend by the Bronx Music Heritage Center at age 78.

Originally from Los Angeles, she has lived in New York City since she moved there with her husband Elmo in 1961. She says her first husband was one of her biggest musical influences, and they met while he was touring in LA.

“I was trying to learn his music, as I was beginning to be interested in the Be Bop era – listening to Billy Holiday and modern jazz quartets,” remembers Hope. “I had a good ear. That’s what I was doing with Elmo’s music, and I was trying to impress him without seeming too school girlish.”

Sadly, Elmo died from heart failure when he was 43 and Bertha was 31. They had three children, and their daughter, Monica, became a singer.

“Being able to talk the same language was wonderful,” says Hope about her marriage. “I was in awe of Elmo. For a long time, I didn’t let him hear me play. I would practice when he wasn’t home. Eventually, we did play together and did an LP. We sometimes went to practice together, but I was always nervous and a wreck.”

She says Bud Powell’s style was also a big influence on her in the beginning, as well as Duke Ellington, and later, Mary Lou Williams. Hope says there have always been women musicians, as long as she can remember, because of the “church influence.”

“Blues and church music have very similar elements,” says Hope, explaining it was most common for women to play the piano. “When I was growing up, I met one woman who played the saxophone in LA…I wanted to play the trumpet, but my mom said it was too masculine.”

So she ended up dabbling with the violin, cello and clarinet, but sticking to the piano, because she says those instruments were acceptable at the time for girls. She sometimes regrets not pursuing the trumpet, however.

“I wasn’t aggressive enough to pursue another instrument,” says Hope. “I wasn’t brave enough to persist.”

She says she was around 12 or 13, however, when she was certain she wanted to be a musician for her life’s career.

“I come from a musical family. I took lessons starting at 3, and in a great public school in Los Angeles, I was exposed to instruments at a very early age,” says Hope. “The first time I realized it was what I wanted to do was when my father asked to help vocalize him. He hired me at age 12. That was my first salary – $7 for the concert. I hardly make that much now.” (laughing)

She says one of her all-time favorite accomplishments in her career was putting the band Jazzberry Jam! together in the late 1970’s. The four-woman band has played at New York City’s Gracie Mansion, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Renaissance Jazz Festival in Indianapolis, and was featured in a 1999 award-winning documentary, “Les Femmes du Jazz.”

“[Forming the band] helped us turn the corner of being a band that worked occasionally to a band that played a lot,” says Hope. “We performed at The West End for eight weeks straight. The people that came to support was mostly musician’s wives, and we still perform today. “

Bertha playing at Minton’s in Jan. 2015 (Photo/Kristina Puga)

Hope is currently in residency at NYC jazz club, Minton’s, where she plays with the Minton Players every other weekend.

If she could tell her younger self one piece of advice about life, with the wisdom she has now, what would it be?

“Stay in school, and stay open. Stay focused. Listen more than you talk. Take in a wide amount of musical experiences, and stay true to yourself. Find people that do the best of what it is you want to do, and try to learn from their experiences.”

January 28, 2015
Comedian Howard Feller Gives Up-And-Coming Comedian Advice

Born and raised in NYC, Howard Feller, now 60, started writing comedy in his mid-20’s. Throughout his stand-up career, he’s also been a sidekick on “The Jon Stewart Show” and had various roles in films such as, “I Hate Valentine’s Day” and “Awakenings.” Most recently, he’s appeared on the 2014 TV series, “The Following.”

Here, he gives advice to up-and-coming NYC comedian Gabe Waldman at the iconic Stand Up NY comedy club.

Kelly Carrion, is a multimedia journalist who believes in the incredible influence storytelling has on people, and how they view the world. That is why she has made it her mission to tell compelling stories about extraordinary people. Her articles have been featured on NBCNews.com, NBCLatino.com, LowellSun.com and Nashoba Publishing. She is a recent Boston University graduate. Follow Kelly on Twitter @kellycarrion12.

October 30, 2014