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Former Trump official Peter Navarro reports for prison sentence
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“N/A” playwright Mario Correa on the power of removing labels from politics
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I’ve never met anyone who didn’t already have a hard and fast opinion about Nancy Pelosi or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
So when I set out to write a play inspired by the tumultuous relationship between the first woman Speaker of the House and the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, I knew my characters would remain nameless: “N” and “A.”
“N/A”; photo by Daniel Rader
In our incredibly polarized nation, even someone’s name can cause us to shut down, to close off.
Pelosi. AOC. Trump.
Still with me?
There is power in a name. But there is power in putting a name – a label – aside.
My first job was in politics, as an aide for a Congresswoman named Connie Morella. She was, and is, a Republican. She is also a liberal. Yeah, that used to be a thing.
I loved my boss and my job. But just by working for a “Republican,” I’d soon be labeled, too. Unknowingly, I’d picked a side.
I got out of politics.
Fast forward to after our show: A man in the audience – a big theater lover – tells me he’s just returned from a week in Milwaukee. “I bet I’m the only person here,” he whispers, “who just came back from nominating Trump.”
A Trump-loving theater-geek. As labels go, unexpected!
Over the next few months, we’re going to hear a lot of labels thrown around. “Childless cat ladies” barely scratches the surface.
Maybe one day, our politics will be less prone to labels and name-calling. Maybe we’ll even get back to a time when just hearing a person’s name doesn’t end a conversation.
(Maybe…)
For more info:
- “N/A,” at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, Lincoln Center, New York (through September 1) | Ticket info
Story produced by Annie Iezzi. Editor: George Pozderec.
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Walden Pond: An endangered treasure
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Saving Walden Pond: How a treasured landmark is under threat
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A half-an-hour drive from Boston, Massachusetts, in the town of Concord, sits one of the most revered literary landscapes in the world: the 2,680-acre Walden Woods and Walden Pond State Reservation.
Annually, over a half-million people pay homage to the storied pond and spiritually-nourishing woods where Henry David Thoreau wrote his 1854 classic book, “Walden.”
During his two years, two months and two days living there, Thoreau treated every creature he encountered, from a scampering red squirrel to warring ants, as kin.
As Thoreau wrote at the outset of “Walden”: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
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Tragically, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed the Walden Pond and Walden Woods as one of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.” Blame a proposed Hanscom Airport expansion near Walden. This aviation project would add 6,000 private jet aircraft takeoffs and landings a year, shattering the solitude of enchanted Walden.
Environmental threats to Thoreau’s retreat aren’t limited to those from the air. Just a stone’s throw from the pond sits a 35-acre former landfill. Without conservation protection, this parcel could be open for commercial development.
The American people should call for the conservation of the former landfill, and demand an immediate cease-and-desist of the jetport enlargement. No developer has the right to destroy the historic essence of Concord, which includes the Minute Man National Battlefield of the American Revolution; the former home of Ralph Waldo Emerson; and the place Louisa May Alcott wrote “Little Women.”
By defending Walden, we save the birthplace of an American literary shrine, and honor its inspiration: the sublime of the natural world.
For more info:
Story produced by Liza Monasebien. Editor: Karen Brenner.
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