Union Square Celebration of Union Movement
ITHACA, N.Y. -- In celebration of Labor History Month, the public is invited to take part in a special performance Saturday, May 15, from 11 a.m. to noon in New York City's Union Square that will evoke the square's central role in the American trade union movement.
The performance is sponsored by a unique coalition of academic, labor, business and arts organizations, among them Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. It also features some of the city's most accomplished actors and musicians, who have donated their time and talents to recreate historical events that took place in and near the square in the late 19th century.
The tree-shaded, bench-lined square on 14th Street with the statues of Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi is a natural showplace. The first U.S. Labor Day parade began there in 1882. Nineteenth-century labor leaders like Samuel Gompers stood on soapboxes to make some of their most stirring speeches there. Active trade unions like the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America had their headquarters nearby (Amalgamated, now UNITE, is still nearby). In 1998 Congress declared Union Square a national historic landmark for its central role in labor history.
The May 15 event, called "Marching to Union Square," is billed as a walking tour performance. It begins on the southwest corner of the park, by the statue of Gandhi. Cornell labor historian Dorothy Fennell wrote the script and is co-producing the show. Last year actor Ossie Davis performed in a similar event in the square, also co-produced by Fennell, to commemorate the first Labor Day parade. "This year's event is more risky and ambitious," said Fennell. "All the pieces of the walking tour performance will come together for the first time only at the event itself, just like at any other parade or demonstration."
Involving passers-by will give the performance spontaneity, according to Obie-award winner Matthew Maguire, the event's co-director, but the complexity of combining the various elements "will be challenging to the actors."
"Marching to Union Square" is free and open to the public, and Fennell suggests that the audience might want to attend in period costumes, dressed perhaps as their favorite labor leaders. This year the narrator will be Obie-award-winning actor Marty Pottenger. Colin Hodges will co-direct. They will be joined by actors from the Screen Actors Guild and Actors Equity Association and a brass quartet from Associated Musicians of Great New York Local 802, who will perform some of the music heard at the first Labor Day parade.
In addition to the unions and Cornell, the event is sponsored by New York University's Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, the New York City Central Labor Council, the New York Labor History Association, Creation Production Co., the 14th Street--Union Square Local Development Corp., and a group of businesses on the square including Barnes and Noble, Con Edison and Amalgamated Savings and Loan. Rachel Bernstein and Debra Bernhardt are co-producers. Some funding for the project was provided by a Cornell Council for the Arts faculty grant.
The event is the first in a series of performance walking tours that the sponsors hope will become a regular feature of public arts programming in Union Square. If it rains, the May 15 performance will take place at the UNITE union hall, 31 West 15th St. For more information contact Dorothy Fennell, (212) 340-2817; Rachel Bernstein, (212) 998-2637; or Debra Bernhardt (212) 998-2640.
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Additional contacts:
Rachel Bernstein, (212) 998-2637
Debra Bernhardt (212) 998-2640.
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