Don’t miss June 9, 2011 at 1:40 am by Philip Morris
I am on the train returning from my last of the season trips to Manhattan to see shows in order to vote for the Tonys.
It is definitely one of those responsibilities that falls into the wink category of “tough work, but someone has to do it!”
After a giggle, though, it is actually not easy scheduling enough time, while the shows are still running, to travel and, typically, pack as many shows as possible in three or four days per trip.
Admittedly, too, seeing some great performers doing some great work makes the late night trains or missed family time seem like a fair trade.
This year’s list of shows worth seeing is really long, but a few are particularly notable. I would say even, don’t miss them. While one or two of these might come to Proctors over the next few years, if you love the theater and like going to The City, I recommend them:
First, War Horse. A remarkably told story of a young boy and an amazing steed sent off to the continent to fight for England in World War One. Amazing puppets, lighting, acting. One of the best plays ever.
Second, and with an acting job by its lead, Mark Rylance, that amazes, the play Jerusalem. Also a British import, it is an “blow away” character study.
Third, Book of Mormon. Risky, outrageous language bordering and going over the line of sacrilegious, this musical dares to place myth and faith in context of human life.
Fourth, The Normal Heart. A play, with an unusual story of how it came to be produced, that focuses on the personalities of the early efforts to gain public attention and resources to acknowledge and research the beginning AIDS crisis. If you are near my age, this is a haunting telling of a time when the arts world was shaken and many friends lost.
Finally, and maybe oddly, Catch Me If You Can. I liked the film and read more about its amazing character, Frank Abagnale, Jr., but this musical tells the story surprisingly well using the “show” as metaphor for the two years or so of Frank’s “made up” life. It was my biggest surprise this spring.
So, hope you might partake and certainly share your reactions if you have or do!
Posted in General | 2 Comments 2 Comments » Must be nice to attend all these shows at taxpayer expense. $30 million taxpayer money into proctors, proctors alleges $5 million brought in from Lion king alone, but makes the homeowners in the city pay the taxes on the building, won’t even pay a pilot. It’s a non-profit? Since when are major broadway productions with tickets going for close to $100 indicative of a non-profit?
Comment by Barbara S — June 9th, 2011 @ 6:56 am
Barbara, it continues to amaze me that comments like yours, not grounded in fact, prevail whenever I write. So, to correct you, again.
1) Proctors did not get 30 million dollars of tax payer support. It received 9.5 million from Metroplex and about 600,000 dollars from State and Federal sources. We spent a total of 40 million dollars including the power plant
2) Proctors receives 35,000 per year from the New York State Council on the Arts for programming. There is no other annual tax based operating funding. Our budget is 15,000,000 a year.
3) therefore, seeing shows in New York to vote in the Tony’s is NOT tax payer supported.
4) While we do 6 or 7 weeks a year of Broadway, we also do over 1,000 other things all year long that bring people to downtown and activate our economy. Yes, Lion King gave us a surplus, but over the last five years we have broken even and have accumulated no riches.
5) We collect and pay sales taxes, we pay business taxes and we support out local governments through the generation of both other businesses taxes and increased property values
6) we are an exempt organization with extensive education programming, access programs so people of all means can attend events and reduced cost usage for all community based organizations. We will continue to be exempt based our our community value and mission.
Comment by Philip Morris — June 11th, 2011 @ 11:16 am
Oh that Morris is such a funny guy! Affordable shows...for the community? Ask how much school districts have to pay to see a show or a movie. It's FAR from a bargain.
Also, he forgot to mention his salary...well over $100K.
And increasing property values? Then why did Transfinders just purchase 440 State for less than $300K - its assessed values is listed at over $1 million dollars.
Oh that Morris is such a funny guy! Affordable shows...for the community? Ask how much school districts have to pay to see a show or a movie. It's FAR from a bargain. Also, he forgot to mention his salary...well over $100K.
And increasing property values?
Increasing property values? Where? At the Schenectady Armory or Gillette House! People are starting to examine his "record". A lengthy answer that fails to address why he alone refused to pay Stratton's Fair Share Tax. Boys and Girls Club, Ellis and Union all paid to keep pools open.
BTW How's Morris/Key Hall doing? Don't say it's never used. Just this week hosting a DEM fund raiser for City Council. This must be the Key to Proctor's educational tax exemption. Contempt for taxpayers, arrogance, refusal to repay anything-while he keeps taking Downtown properties off the City tax rolls.
Many Schenectady County non profits have lost their tax exempt status from the IRS. MSM is working on the story right now. Let's see if OSM/Proctors/Key Hall that is sponsoring a DEM fund raiser keeps it's nonprofit tax exemption. Having DEM fund raisers and showing plays is not exactly "educational".
Quoted from benny salami: Let's see if OSM/Proctors/Key Hall that is sponsoring a DEM fund raiser keeps it's nonprofit tax exemption.
I just received the invitation to "Leesa's Flag Day Fundraiser - For the Love of Schenectady". Campaign kick off at Key Hall at Proctors. Hors d'oeuvres, cocktails, and jazz jam. There's "no ticket price for thie event. Campaign contributions are welcome"
Benny,
You are on to something here. If the venue, refreshments and/or entertainment are in any way being paid or subsidized or discounted by Proctors, that is a violation of the guidelines for which Proctors will lose its non-profit or not-for-profit tax status. Because the contributions are optional, I question who is financing this elaborate event. The candidate's campaign filings better show expenses (at the market rate) that include the renting of the venue, the food and entertainment or there will be a report filed against both Proctors and the candidate.
Regardless of who pays for the event, I feel that it's improper for this non-profit, that receives signficant funding from county government and from the Metroplex, to host a political event. I also suspect that there will be other patrons, like myself, who take exception to this.
These are the things that have to be plastered all over the news media. Sounds like a story for "You Paid for It." Actually, they need another feature called "You PAY for It." Present tense. And it should be the facts on all this stuff.
Perhaps we all need contact our state and/or federal reps (wait, they mostly are all the socialist big spenders---give money to millionaires), to get laws changed, or somehow convince them that a luxury theater that charges $100 per person for big huge productions and alleges all to have brought in $5 mil, simply does not warrant tax exempt status, not when it's CEO is living high of the hog.
Good, I'm glad someone told him off. Let's all do it.
NFP status is really to mean you don't make profit, and salaries/wages paid should be typically in line with that of the community, i.e, lower middle income. I know that isn't something in law, specifically, but NFPs are there to provide NECESSARY services for the poor, not to be making millions and having a rich income and living in a castle
And Morris denies that they got $30 million!?
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
The DEM full monty continues! County gives Morris $200,000 for "education"-Morris goes to NYC to review plays {as a Tony voter?} on the taxpayers dime-Key Hall/Proctor's holds fund raiser for DEM Leesa for City Council-Morris/Proctor's refuses to pay anything to the City Fair Share Plan. Nobody can believe the nerve of these DEMS. The gig is up but they can dancing !
This info should be sent to that Greg Floyd on channel 6!!
It appears that if this is true about having a political event at proctors.....it should be exposed.
And what property values is morris raising???? Instead he is contributing to RAISING TAXES.
And by the way, all of these lucrative trips that he takes to see all of these broadway plays in nyc at the taxpayer's expense.......how is that helping the city? Boy....can I have his job?????
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Proctor's is one of the great gems not just of the city or the county --- but in all of upstate New York. Let's keep supporting such a fine venue for Arts and Cultural events BOTH through purchasing tickets and providing it with necessary grants.
The Nattering Nayboobs of Negativity oppose support of the Arts and Cultural Events because they take after their mentor and icon -- a certain mustached man who served as Chancellor of German ... who tried to exterminate the Intelligentsia and the Artists. They won't be happy until everyone is wearing brown shirts and goose-stepping down State Street.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
I look forward to seeing how many posts Mr. Morris allows in response to his latest blog entry.
The TU has a pretty strict comments policy I believe. That unless it is insulting (I forget the exact terminology), it has to be posted unedited. (Although it is possible that just applies to their featured blogs, not all of them?)
I look forward to seeing how many posts Mr. Morris allows in response to his latest blog entry.
The TU has a pretty strict comments policy I believe. That unless it is insulting (I forget the exact terminology), it has to be posted unedited. (Although it is possible that just applies to their featured blogs, not all of them?)
What exactly constitutes an 'insult'? Is a persons opinion, perception or opposition considered an insult????
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
The Nattering Nayboobs of Negativity oppose support of the Arts and Cultural Events because they take after their mentor and icon -- a certain mustached man who served as Chancellor of German ... who tried to exterminate the Intelligentsia and the Artists. They won't be happy until everyone is wearing brown shirts and goose-stepping down State Street.
As being of Polish decent I had relatives killed in concentration camps, some never heard from again, and wifes of relatives who were tortured. ex. their fingernails pulled out because they asked where their husbands were.
And I'm sure I'm not the only one here who have lost relatives in the holocaust.
We oppose what is going on with Proctors because it is draining our tax dollars, dollars that could and should be used to repair the roads in our neighborhoods, get rid of boarded up unfixable houses etc etc.
Do your relatives realize just how warped and evil your mind is, calling taxpaying citizens lovers of Hitler? I doubt it.
God if one of your aunt complains of an ache or pain do you compare her to a Nazi?
You should go to confession and tell the new priest, oh excuse me the new deacon how you use the evils of the holocaust to put people down.
And after your relative was one who helped build.... a Polish church. Betcha the deacon really loves you.
Why does DVOR hate those of Jewish faith? It appears that the progressive Democrats hate the Jewish people. This is clearly evidenced by Obama's foreign policy toward Israel and the Arab nations and his news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Logged
Increasing property values? Where? At the Schenectady Armory or Gillette House! People are starting to examine his "record". A lengthy answer that fails to address why he alone refused to pay Stratton's Fair Share Tax. Boys and Girls Club, Ellis and Union all paid to keep pools open. 
Many Schenectady County non profits have lost their tax exempt status from the IRS. MSM is working on the story right now. Let's see if OSM/Proctors/Key Hall that is sponsoring a DEM fund raiser keeps it's nonprofit tax exemption. Having DEM fund raisers and showing plays is not exactly "educational".
