Spotlight On:

(Unofficial) UTA Turkey Trot to Support Food Bank for NYC

by Artistic Directors Laura Clinton and Daniel Walton

Later this week, many of us will gather with friends, foes, and family alike (sometimes all in one King Lear adjacent relative) to celebrate Thanksgiving.

In an attempt to express our gratitude and pay homage to Shakespeare’s iconic "Exeunt, pursued by a bear” stage direction, The Underground Theatre Alliance will be running an (Unofficial) 5K around Hession Lake in Bear Mountain State Park at 10 AM on Thursday, November 27th. Join us, or simply be pursued by the bear. It’s your choice.

As you probably already know, we here at The UTA have quite a lot to be thankful for. Between our talented community of artists, our beautiful and iconic audiences, and the readers of this newsletter that allow us to gush about them in incredibly long sentences such as this one, we are eternally grateful to everyone who considers themselves even a small part of this alliance.

One of the reasons we identify as an “alliance” (edgy, cool, mysterious) as opposed to a traditional “theatre company” (boring, tired, “sometimes profitable”) is that we truly believe the act of creating and sharing in art is inherently rebellious. In a world that demands we consistently tune ourselves out, art asks us to tune into our inner world and translate that experience to those around us. It is an incredible privilege to be able to engage with and create art, and one that we all deserve access to as we navigate the fundamentally messy experience of being human. Art gives us the ability to contextualize our lived experiences and connect with each other in a deep and meaningful way.

But for as much as art can feed your soul, it cannot feed your stomach.

Core to our mission as an alliance is to always center the needs of our community. Food insecurity is not a foreign problem – it’s in our backyards, impacting our friends and neighbors every single day. In 2024, more than 1.2 million New Yorkers reported using a food pantry as a form of assistance. SNAP benefits are losing funding, and so many of those we know and love will be impacted by these critical changes. We hope that you will join us in supporting the work of Food Bank For NYC, who deliver food and resources across every borough, background, and barrier.

To thank you for your support, we’ll even bribe you with a fashion statement. Send us a screenshot of your donation on Instagram or email it to us at [email protected] to get a one-of-a-kind (Unofficial) 5K T-shirt designed by alliance member Renee Hapeman!

Party with Us:

UTA Performance at The Rat this December!

Word on the Street:

Hear the Buzz about All’s Well That Ends Well

Over here at the Underground Theatre Alliance, we are in serious denial that our last creative endeavor, All’s Well That Ends Well, is actually over. In an effort to cope, we have been scrolling nonstop through our amazing production photos (captured by longtime UTA photographers Alicia Vnencak and Stephanie Roberts), while lamenting that we are not providing the sensation that was that show nightly. It was THAT good. But don’t take my word for it, a humble widow of this production, hear it from two important people who took a gamble on us and (up until the publication of this newsletter) do not regret it: Elissa Weil of Dominican Academy and Vilma Hodo of G-Gallery:

For the second production in a row, the Underground Theatre Alliance has brought their show to eager high school students at Dominican Academy, where UTA founder Kiera Egan works as a teacher. We are beyond happy for the collaboration we have with the school and are forever grateful that we’ve had such incredible first audiences for our last couple of shows.

And of course, the show could not have been what it was if not for the wonderful collaboration we had with Vilma Hodo at G Gallery. At every step of the way, G Gallery understood our vision and was an incredibly supportive and integral space for the event’s overall execution.

Cheers to many more productions, collaborations, and happy audiences in our future!

If Food be the Food of Love, Eat On:

Thoughts on Shakespeare’s Dinner Scenes

by the UTA Production Team: Julia Cahn, Laura Clinton, Fiona Egan, Kiera Egan, and Daniel Walton

With Thanksgiving approaching, the Underground Theatre Alliance wanted to reflect on what some of the joys of the holiday — decadent food and open displays of humble gratitude — meant to the people of Shakespeare’s world… till we remembered the Brits have never really done either of those things particularly well. So, instead of ranking the slop Billy’s characters ate, or monologues about “gratitude” caked in layers of subtext and irony, we decided to revisit and reflect on the scenes of the canon wherein people eat a meal together.

From supernatural happenings to accidental lover mishaps to human-flesh revenge pies, we have to give our dear Billy Boy his flowers, because somehow, he penned some of the spiciest dinner scenes of all time — without using a single spice.

What Willy Said