April | 2020 | Intimate Excellent

A personal message to you from Artistic Director Stephen Sachs.

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Tagged #GivingTuesdayNow, artistic director, Fountain Theatre, Giving Tuesday, Giving Tuesday Now, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre

by Stephen Sachs

I have two children, two sons. Ask any parent what they wish for their child, the most common answer is happiness. “As long as they’re happy.” “I just want them to be happy.” I want my sons to be happy, have happy lives. More important to me is that they have lives that are meaningful. Happiness can be fleeting. Meaning is eternal. It’s why I chose a life in the theatre. I am in the meaning-making business.

A meaningful play tells the story of people overcoming adversity. “Theatre is conflict” is the number one rule of a well-written play. That’s because it is true in life. Buddha’s first teaching was that in life we experience struggle and change. It’s not the adversity itself that leads to meaning and growth. It’s how we respond to it.

In a play, conflict is the engine of storytelling and change is the destination. It’s why we see plays in the first place. We experience, from a safe distance, how people face a life-threatening challenge. We feel what they feel, we watch what they do, what decisions they make, and how they are changed by it. A play can show us how to grow through adversity. That makes each of you who come to the Fountain meaning-seekers.

What does this pandemic mean? I don’t know. For today, we must find the courage to live with uncertainty. And then do the same tomorrow. Soon, the Fountain will reopen, and we’ll explore and express what it means, together. On our stage.

Stephen Sachs is the Co-Founding Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre

Posted in Arts, arts organizations, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, plays, Theater, theatre

Tagged East Hollywood, Fountain Theatre, Happiness, Los Angeles, meaning, Stephen Sachs, theater, theatre

by Stephen Sachs

Last Saturday, I was taking a walk with my wife and son around the Hollywood Reservoir. Daily walks have become our morning routine to break out of our home isolation. We normally stroll through our neighborhood or stride the perimeter of a nearby park. Saturday, to break the monotony, we chose to walk the 3.3 miles around the Hollywood Reservoir. There, we encountered an unforgettable woman.

I spotted her as we circled Lake Hollywood. Her zeal caught my eye. She strode ahead of us, a spring in her step. Despite the surrounding catastrophe, the loneliness of physical distancing, she walked with a kind of energized elan. Spirit in her step.

Suddenly – she burst into dance. A spontaneous, improvised ballet. Right there. On the public path. She leaped into the air, arms twirling, legs flicking, an impulsive pirouette. She sashayed down the street, spinning, bounding silently to graceful music only she could hear.

I grabbed my iPhone and taped her. You can see my video above.

This stranger, this Lake Hollywood dancer, inspires me. She is the power of art. Like a flower pushing its way through cement, she is the Fountain Theatre, the Los Angeles theatre community, finding a way, against the odds, to urge itself upward toward the sun, to bloom once again.

In the midst of emergency, we keep dancing. Not to be trivial or irresponsible.  Not to fiddle like Nero as Rome burned. To dance in the face of catastrophe as an act of defiance, of rebellion. Driving forward the Life force. A refusal to be defeated. Despair will not win. Art finds a way.

Stephen Sachs is the Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre. 

Posted in Art, artist, Arts, arts organizations, Dance, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Los Angeles, non-profit organization, performing arts, Theater, theatre

Tagged coronavirus, Dance, Fountain Theatre, Hollywood, Hollywood Reservoir, hope, inspired, Lake Hollywood, Los Angeles, Stephen Sachs, theatre, thetaer, virus