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OutLOUD's Press Clippings

The North Shore At Night
Staten Island Advance Editorial, Friday, April 18, 2008
Copyright 2008, Staten Island Advance

What downtown Staten Island can offer to visitors after dark was brilliantly displayed when a pair of adjacent cultural events attracted nearly 1,000 people. Saturday night, April 5, clearly hinted at the potential of the North Shore to become a round-the-clock destination for visitors on a regular basis. Just steps from each other, audiences flocked to the magnificently restored St. George Theatre for a concert performance by the Staten Island Philharmonic of Verdi's "La Traviata" and to Brighton Heights Reformed Church around the corner for a memorial tribute by Staten Island OutLOUD to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"This is some of the greatest music ever written for the human voice," said conductor Alex Guzman of the Staten Island Philharmonic about the popular opera. The performance, which drew over 700 people, featured English subtitles, a first on an Island stage, along with 60 singers selected by director Marina Alexander from the Richmond Choral Society and the Arcadian Choral.

Nearby, Staten Island OutLOUD, which does free volunteer readings of the classics and other works, presented "Tell Them I Tried to Love Somebody," marking the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's death.

Beth Gorrie of Staten Island OutLOUD noted that the standing-room-only audience of nearly 250 was ethnically diverse and ranged from children to seniors. She called these two lively cultural events "a pretty fair indicator that Islanders support the arts."

We agree. Besides, going out for a night on the North Shore is easier than traveling to Manhattan.

Let's hope for many more such evenings here.

Reading honors Black History Month
Staten Island OutLOUD attempts to foster cross-cultural understanding by reading great works

Staten Island Advance, Sunday, February 10, 2008 By JODI LEE REIFER ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When Dorothy West's mother died, she told herself at least her mom wouldn't intrude into her life again.
"There was silence where there had been sound and fury. There was no longer that beautiful and compelling voice bending us to her will against our own," wrote Ms. West in her essay, "My Mother, Rachel West" published in 1982. But over time, Dorothy began reciting her mother's sayings, realized the wisdom in them, and that she was better off for them.

It's a story almost any one can appreciate, but perhaps more so by African-Americans. "Black mothers are so vital to the preservation of black culture," said Michele Evans-Arrindell, who read from the Harlem Renaissance writer's essay yesterday during a celebration of Black History Month in St. Philips Baptist Church, Port Richmond. The reading was presented by Staten Island OutLOUD, a nonprofit that aims to foster cross-cultural understanding by reading aloud great works of literature. Black mothers have played a significant role in handing traditions from one generation to the next, said Ms. Evans-Arrindell, an attorney from St. George.

Still, West's story transcends race and class, said fellow OutLOUD reader, Edwina Martin of West Brighton, also an attorney. "It so captures that tense relationship mothers have with their daughters," she said. "I find that as you get older, you find mother really does know best."
Ms. West was known as "the Kid" of the Harlem Renaissance circle of writers and artists in the 1920s. She was rediscovered seven decades later when her novel "The Wedding" was published and became a best-seller. Ms. West began writing stories at age 7 in her family's four-story home in Boston. She was only 19 in 1926 when her short story "The Typewriter" won a prize from the Urban League's Opportunity magazine.
Her first novel, "The Living Is Easy," was not published until 1948, when she 40 years old. Her second, "The Wedding," about the aspirations and anxieties of black people living on Martha's Vineyard, appeared in 1995, after she was encouraged by Jacqueline Onassis. By that time, Ms. West was 88.

"We hope that this inspires you to go to the library and pick up a book by Dorothy West," said Beth Gorrie, producer and founder of Staten Island OutLOUD. Ms. West is a role model for anyone who thinks they're too old to start writing, said Ms. Gorrie.
Jodi Lee Reifer is a reporter for the Advance. She may be reached at reifer@siadvance.com.
© 2008 Staten Island Advance © 2008 SILive.com All Rights Reserved.

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Coretta Scott King's memoirs, presented by Staten Island OutLOUD
Posted on Staten Island Notebook – Staten Island Advance by Kathryn Carse January 26, 2008

I came home from a reading of " My Life with Martin Luther King," Coretta Scott King's memoirs, to read an email from my sister that contained a link to a Bill Moyers' segment in which he addressed the reaction to Hillary Clinton's giving LBJ credit for getting the Civil Rights Act passed. Moyers was stating a fact of history -- the role of a president in responding to the people's demand for justice, for fidelity to the constitution -- but it was picked up by the media as Hillary Clinton saying that Dr. King needed a white man to get things done. The clip is a powerful piece with Moyers’ narration, because he was an eyewitness to history as LBJ' assistant. The Moyers clip contained historic photos and news clips that highlight MLK’s heroic role in the real politics of that era, and of all the people who demanded civil rights. It is also stands as an interesting observation on journalism and the media.

At the reading, hosted by the AAUW (American Association of University Women) and Staten Island OutLOUD, we read the chapter of Coretta Scott King's autobiography that dealt with her education. It was humbling to hear the suffering her family went through. Her family's house was burned down and later her father's saw mill destroyed down because he starting to prosper. After the reading, someone commented that what struck them was how materialism was absent from their life. Whatever successes her father experienced, when he was a target of hatred, maintaining his integrity and self-respect was paramount, more valuable than anything he lost.

Sometimes when someone becomes so famous, you don't imagine that they had to deal with such adversity. Or you forget that they had to deal with it before the spotlight was on them. She reflects on the telling of one family story: "Today it is still very true that black children have to be prepared for discrimination. They are not always going to be treated as equals. I think one of the problems that we face today is that we have not prepared our children for the racism they will encounter. Young people are very cynical and very bitter because they did not expect to find that what they have found. They thought the battles had been won. One of the failings of the Movement was that, while we taught people to fight against the system, and how to respect themselves, we didn't teach young people that they would have to fight all over again. As long as we have a democratic system we are going to have to work to protect our freedom and self-respect. And that is for blacks or whites or whatever color. Freedom is never guaranteed forever; you have to fight for it."

The event was in the Kelleher Center at St. John's University and featured Viva Voce, a chamber quintet, which played a number of pieces inspired by spirituals, and a Scott Joplin piece. The center has floor to ceiling windows through which bare trees and a watery grey winter sky were visible, a counterpoint to the warm tones of the music. It made a nice connection to Scott King's life, for whom music was central. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music when she met Martin Luther King, who was then studying for his doctorate at Boston University. One of the members of Viva Voce had also studied at the conservatory and his path crossed Scott King's. He recalled her as a truly charismatic person. Mrs. King was a talented singer, and he reckoned she would have wanted to have a professional career. He wondered if there were any recordings of her singing.

Mrs. King went to Antioch College in Ohio where her voice and love of singing was nurtured, and where she was made aware of her race in some subtle ways. One not so subtle instance was being turned down to teach in the public school system; she challenged that decision, and looked for support from the college administration. They did not support her, and she was unsuccessful in gaining entry to the classroom as a practicing teacher. She said, "Though I could not change the system, I knew that I had to stand up for what I believed in. In the end, my efforts helped those who followed me." In fact, all Antioch students were given the opportunity to teach in the public school system years after she left. One of the things she concludes about what she learned at Antioch is it "taught me not to expect too much, and to make allowances for, without condoning, the inbred things white people have difficulty with."

One of the participants noted how important music was for Scott King, lamenting that opportunities for studying music did not seem to be available for students today. In fact, all three of my children who, went through public school, had music as an important part of their lives and their education. But then it came back to me that when my oldest daughter was in elementary school in the 1990s, the band was all white, and it didn't change until a woman of color became principal and had something to say about who was in the honors classes and who was in the band. In intermediate school, it seemed to me that a chorus and theater teacher made a difference in the music department, and in the casting for a major production that reflected the racially mixed population of the school. Of course, the experience was all the richer for all the students, musically and socially.

Finally, one of the younger participant's response at OutLOUD’s event today, observed was that it was good to read the stories of people like Scott King who had to struggle and overcome adversity; for one thing it helped you appreciate the things you took for granted -- like getting an education. It may sound a little cliché the way I have put it down here, but hearing it from this young girl - and having just read this chapter of Scott King's life, the truth of it was tangible.

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STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE Saturday, September 15, 2007 By STEPHANIE SLEPIAN Advance writer

Soldiers' letters: Some things never change
Staten Island OutLOUD performance tomorrow highlights letters to the home front during World War I

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Letter sent from somewhere at sea: "I just received the box you sent me. I sure did enjoy unpacking it. Everything comes in handy and it will all be used. Thank you very much." This one from somewhere on the front lines: "All the items from the package went to good use and nothing went neglected. Keep up the excellent work. We will continue to do our best and look forward to coming home to our friends and family."

Same sentiments. Different wars.

"Somewhere at Sea" wrote his letter from the decks of the USS Mississippi on July 28, 1918; the second was transmitted via e-mail 89 years later from the front lines of Iraq. "These letters could have been written today," said Beth Gorrie, founder of Staten Island OutLOUD, thumbing through boxes of yellowing, mud-splattered pages written in the trenches by World War I soldiers to Annie Cole, their former teacher at PS 5.

'A WAR TO END ALL WARS'

The Annie Cole letters will be the highlight of "A War to End All Wars," a spoken-word performance to be presented tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. by Staten Island OutLOUD and Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries in Fountain Cemetery, New Brighton. The letters, Ms. Gorrie noted, put a human face on a war now far removed from the American consciousness, though one she believes still resonates in today's political climate.

Dateline: "Over here," July 18, 1918. "Well I suppose you would all like to get some news direct from the old country in regard to what is happening here, but Mr. Censor doesn't allow such news to pass so I will have to wait until it can be told in person," Henry C. Hall wrote to Miss Cole. From George Stiles, "Somewhere in France" on May 8, 1918: "You will see there is a little mud on this paper. Well that is right from the trenches in France. Show it to the class. I was walking through a trench and I accidentally dropped it. The paper is muddied but I don't think that will spoil it. You will have a souvenir from the battlefields of France."

When Ms. Gorrie decided on her latest OutLOUD project, she turned to the library at the Staten Island Historical Society, where Carlotta DeFillo and Dr. Phil Papas led her to two gray file boxes overflowing with dozens of letters written to Miss Cole throughout World War I.

MISS COLE'S LETTERS

Little is known about Miss Cole, but Ms. Gorrie's research reveals she lived on Johnson Avenue in Tottenville. A longtime teacher at PS 5, she later became principal of the Huguenot school. Like modern-day support groups, she did not let the politics of the war get in the way of sending pieces of home to her boys. The letters sent back to Miss Cole indicate the children of PS 5 sent care packages and wrote letters of encouragement to former students stationed overseas. They were mostly written in pencil on military-issued stationery, sometimes three and four pages long. In a day when letter writing was considered an art, the soldiers wrote in elegant script and with painstaking detail.

The tone of the letters bears a striking, almost eerie, resemblance to those received by Staten Island Project Homefront, a not-for-profit military support group founded in 2003 by Jack Semich, Nicholas Purpura, John Rudolph and John Friscia.
Some of the Project Homefront letters come by snail mail, but many arrive by e-mail, Internet slang included. No matter the method, the soldiers of then and the soldiers of now, all appreciate the work of those on the home front.

While the Project Homefront letters are not part of tomorrow's OutLOUD performance -- which also includes other spoken and musical selections -- the connections between the two eras are not lost on Ms. Gorrie. That is why "A War to End All Wars" will honor veterans along with the victims of Sept. 11. "At first, people may not think about a connection between Sept. 11 and World War I," Ms. Gorrie said, "but it has echoes in the conflicts we face today. Ninety years ago, the U.S. entered into a war 'to make the world safe for democracy,' but no one foresaw its aftermath.

"When the U.S. joined [World War I], it transformed our place in history and set into motion a series of events that affect our lives now," she continued. "It's worthwhile to pause and to reflect on that history and on the sacrifices people made so many years ago -- the same sacrifices people are still making today."

Stephanie Slepian is a news reporter for the Advance. She may be reached at slepian@siadvance.com.

Staten Island Advance Sunday, July 22, 2007 By KATHRYN CARSE ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

Just the right spot for Melville
With its soaring seaward views, Fort Wadsworth provides more than a few links to "Moby Dick' author

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- One of the first places Beth Gorrie discovered on Staten Island was Fort Wadsworth. Considering it "one of the most spectacular sights on the Eastern seaboard," it's the first place the Minnesota native brings visitors, and with its soaring seaward vistas, it is the site she chose to stage Staten Island OutLOUD's annual reading of "Moby Dick."

Saturday will be the fifth OutLOUD reading of the American classic at the historic site, a place that turned out to be more powerfully appropriate than Ms. Gorrie could have anticipated. The director of Staten Island OutLOUD, Ms. Gorrie has made reading an "event" by convening groups of neighbors, large and small, for the simple and elegant experience of hearing works, familiar and exotic, read out loud.

When OutLOUD participants requested a reading of Melville's classic, Ms. Gorrie re-read the formidable tome and was "absolutely astounded" by Melville, appreciating again the meditative sections on whaling and life at sea, as well as the suspense of Ahab's maniacal pursuit of the Great White Whale. Snug Harbor Cultural Center would have been an obvious place to host the reading since Melville was known to have visited his brother Thomas when he was the Governor at Sailor Snug Harbor when it was a home for "aged, decrepit and worn-out seamen." But Gorrie chose Fort Wadsworth because it seemed an "evocative place to read 'Moby Dick.' It overlooks the starting point of Ishmael's journey as he sets off from 'the Island of the Manahattoes...' " before joining Queequeg and the crew of the Pequod.

POWERFUL CONNECTION

When she was preparing for the first reading, she was amazed to find an even more powerful connection between Melville and the Island, one that inspired transcendent images in his writing. She asked National Park Ranger Phil Melfi, site manager at Fort Wadsworth, if Melville was ever known to have visited the Fort. Melfi went to his file and pulled out a paper by English professor Frank Pisano. Pisano's paper linked "Redburn," one of Melville's first novels, and "Daniel Orme," his final short story, with the very spot where the reading takes place, up on the overlook across the Narrows and out to sea.

Written in 1849, "Redburn" is the account of a penniless young man who goes to sea for the first time -- not unlike what Melville himself had done. As the ship sails toward the Narrows, Redburn looks up at the bluffs and reminisces about a time when he was young and visited there with his father and uncle, a sea captain. Something Melville was also known to have done.

In "Redburn" Melville wrote, "And once I saw a black goat with a long beard, and crumpled horns, standing with his fore-feet lifted high on the topmost parapet, and looking to sea, as if he were watching for a ship . . . . Yes, the fort was a beautiful, quiet, and charming spot. I should like to build a cottage in the middle of it, and live there all my life."

"Daniel Orme," written in 1891, the year of Melville's death, is the profile of an old sailor with "short nails like withered horn" and an "iron gray beard broad as a commodore's pennant," living out the end of his life on the Island's North Shore. Melville writes that Orme is "discovered alone and dead on a height on the seaward slope of the great haven, to whose shore, in his retirement from the sea, he had moored. It was an evened terrace, destined for use in war but in peace neglected and offering a sanctuary for anybody. Mounted on it was an obsolete battery of rusty guns. Against one of these he was found leaning... He faced the outlet to the ocean."

FAMILIAR BLUFFS

The bluff in both stories is familiar to many Staten Islanders, but until Pisano published his paper in Studies in American Fiction in 1989, the academic world had not made the connection. Pisano connected the dots when he was a doctoral candidate at Penn State in 1988, studying with Philip Young, author of, among other works, "The Private Melville." In an essay titled "Melville's Goodbye: 'Daniel Orme,' " Young rescued Melville's final story from near oblivion. In it, Young related the common wisdom that Melville was known to have visited the Island, but that the location in the story was fanciful.

But Pisano knew the exact place existed because he had been there while on a fraternity scavenger hunt when he was an undergraduate at Wagner College, Class of 1980. The "evened terrace, destined for use in war but in peace neglected and offering a sanctuary for anybody" was a description that particularly resonated with him, marveling at the "accident of history that it is preserved as it was."
"In the 19th century, it was open for people to peruse and picnic," he said. "Now returned to parkland again, it has brought back that 19th century ambiance." Pisano, who wrote his dissertation on "Redburn," said, by e-mail, "I think Orme's is, in Young's words, 'a dreamwork projection' of Melville himself; and the sailor's quiet passing a wish of the writer to die at the place that so enchanted him in childhood."

THE MELVILLE CONNECTION

Pisano mused that it would be great for the National Parks Service to acknowledge the deep connection between Melville and that corner of Staten Island. "The Parks Service is prohibited from placing plaques to an individual, and my hope is that a congressional measure might be approved, naming the land just beneath Battery Weed, 'Melville Point.' " In the meantime, Ms. Gorrie relishes the opportunity to combine the setting and the reading of a work of one of the great American authors. "The power of the description in 'Redburn' and 'Daniel Orme' is evidence of Melville's connection to the Island. It is part of a strong spiritual heritage that we ought to know and celebrate," she said.

Loose threads from Melville story
Posted by Kathryn Carse July 23, 2007 Staten Island Advance, Notebook blog pages: Our Town

Intertwined in Melville's connections to Fort Wadsworth (Our Town - 7/22/07) are some spiritual threads, that, although they didn't make the printed page, were part of the richness of the story. Prof. Frank Pisano, who made the connection between Melville and Fort Wadsworth while studying with Philip Young at Penn State, was very appreciative of Young's role in discovering the short piece titled "Daniel Orme," which Pisano said, had been excluded from virtually every collection of Melville's work. According to Pisano, when it was first found in the 1920s, it was thought to be an outtake of another of Melville's stories, "Billy Budd." However Young established that it should stand on its own.

In an e-mail Pisano wrote, "Young adroitly assessed the story as Melville's 'Nunc dimittis, a hymn taken from Luke (2: 27-32), said or sung at evening prayer: "Lord, now lettest thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Young concludes by writing that Orme has not seen salvation, "But the end of 'Daniel Orme' is a sort of prayer anyhow. . . . It fades in the hazy air with the dim sails coming or going or at anchor, a part of the natural serenity in which the story dissolves."

Staten Island OutLOUD director Beth Gorrie, who "discovered" Frank Pisano, had her own reasons for choosing Fort Wadsworth for the place to stage a Moby Dick reading. The view suggested the panorama visible to the lookout of a whaling ship. She wrote in an email :

"There's a tiny side chapel at St Peter's (which is high on a bluff overlooking the harbor and the Narrows, where Ishmael set off for New Bedford and Nantucket). Monsignor Dorney offers early morning Mass in that chapel; he's the chaplain of the Coast Guard, and sometimes Mass in that little chapel is reminiscent of the scene in the Whalemen's Chapel in New Bedford, when Ishmael hears a sermon by Father Mapple to the assembled sailors and retired seamen." Monsignor Dorney's summer vacation always coincides with OutLOUD's Moby event, but she has had other local ministers fill the role.

It elevated the week's work to be working on the story with these two people who cared so much for the written word.

“COMING TO TERMS”

Staten Island Advance April 29, 2005 From the “Inside-Out” column, by Carol Ann Benanti benanti@siadvance.com

Staten Island OutLOUD, a community dialogue and performance project, has invited survivors of the World War II bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to speak at its cross-cultural gathering titled "Hiroshima-Nagasaki Reflections." The survivors will share their personal stories and how their lives changed after the bombings in August, 1945.

Co-sponsored by Peace Action Staten Island, the free event will be held on Saturday at 8 p.m. at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. "This event honors the United Nations visit of the 'Hibakusha' -- survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," said Beth Gorrie, director of OutLOUD. "We're proud to welcome these ladies and gentlemen from Japan. We're delighted to bring them to Staten Island, and we look forward to sharing a dialogue with them."

Sally Jones, coordinator of Peace Action Staten Island, said, "The Hibakusha will visit the UN for a nuclear treaty conference, and they were interested in meeting people who live in our community." The program will also feature music by WaFoo, an ensemble of Japanese-American musicians who live on Staten Island. Kazuo Nakamura (bass) Yuuki Koike (flute), Masashi Sonoda (guitar), and Takeshi Asai (keyboard) will play.

There will be a candlelight procession and a moment of remembrance for the war dead. Island youth will read bilingual poetry and audience members are also invited to do so. The evening will conclude with refreshments that have a Japanese twist. Rev. Michael Delaney, pastor of St. Andrew's, noted, "OutLOUD is planning a most unusual evening. The historic setting is evocative and magical. We'll share creative conversations among ourselves, and with our honored guests, and I hope this dialogue will continue to grow."