Theater Resources Unlimited Town Hall to Address Art and Censorship
Moderated by Bob Ost, the town hall will feature Cheryl L. Davis, Jessie Fahay, Elizabeth Larison and Ludovica Villar Hauser discussing First Amendment issues.
Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) has announced Town Hall - Can Art Survive in the Shadow of Censorship?on September 29, 2026 at 7PM. This is the latest of a series of Town Hall hybrid events presented live with a zoom component to welcome in the TRU Community outside of Manhattan. Networking begins at 6:30PM. Sign up for the town hall here and please note that both live and virtual tickets are available for purchase.
Co-hosted by Cheryl L. Davis, vice-president and co-founder of TRU, general counsel for The Authors Guild and Emmy-nominated TV soap writer (Beyond the Gates); Jessie Fahay, founder and artistic director of Ripple Effects Artists; Elizabeth Larison, Director of Arts and Culture Advocacy at the National Coalition Against Censorship; Ludovica Villar Hauser, director, founder and artistic executive director of Parity Productions. Moderated by TRU executive director Bob Ost.
TRU conversations continue about issues of current cultural significance as we move from discrimination against specific groups to the broader topic of censorship. Stephen Colbert was cancelled. Under pressure from the FCC Chairman, Disney suspended Jimmy Kimmel's nightly show. The NEA was pressured to limit or eliminate funding to organizations that applied for support for programs that focus on amplifying Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Our administration has clashed with major news outlets and tried to limit press access for reporters who are critical of policy. A Trump Executive Order declared that sexual identity is exclusively determined by birth, effectively nullifying the spectrum of human identity we have grown to accept and understand. A woman's right to sexual autonomy has already been uprooted, and gay marriage seems next on the hit list. YouTube limits the reach of any TRU interviews that contain anything their bot considers political or controversial, and social media feeds a new norm of cancel culture, shaming people for their opinions and removing certain topics from discussion.
What are the ramifications for artists? Are there effective ways for us to keep making art, and retain our artistic integrity and our lives as we know them? We'll be looking at all this a few days before Banned Books Week. Yes, books are being pulled off library shelves. Is it possible for us to fight back against these attacks on the First Amendment - and if so, how?
All attendees are welcome to participate in this conversation. Doors open at 6:30pm for networking and roundtable introductions of everyone in the room - come prepared with your best 20-second summary of who you are, and what you need. The Open Forum will start at 7:00pm. Free for members of TRU, Polaris North and Parity Productions; $15 for non-members (with a $5 ticket option available to anyone who needs it). Please use the bright red reservation box here on our web page, or email or phone at least a day in advance (or much sooner): e-mail TRUStaff1@gmail.com
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.
.jpg?format=auto&width=365)
