By Jennifer Kroot and Robert Holgate–
Ed Decker is the Founder and Artistic Director of The New Conservatory Theater Center (NCTC) in San Francisco. Since 1981, NCTC has presented high quality, queer, and allied theatre productions, as well as youth education programming.
Just prior to the shutdown, we saw their incredible productions This Side of Crazy and Head Over Heels. We wondered how NCTC is surviving the pandemic, so we looked in Robert’s rolodex and gave Ed a call.
J&R: Hi Ed, thanks for speaking with us. How’s NCTC doing after a year of sheltering in place?
Ed Decker: We’ve navigated through this unexpected time and reinvented ourselves. We felt our community and our audience needed our voice, even if the voice was in a format that none of us understood, and we didn’t always know what the hell we were doing!
J&R: So, how have you reinvented NCTC?
Ed Decker: Last April, we created a radio serial, In Good Company, about a little, queer theatre company in San Francisco that gets shut down because of a health pandemic. Sound familiar? We made ten 15-minute episodes and aired them weekly. At the time, Trump was still in office, and then we had the murder of George Floyd and many other things that we simply couldn’t ignore. Since we were telling a story in real time, everything became part of it. Usually, theatre is told a little bit more in hindsight!
Patricia Milton’s play, The Law of Attraction, was supposed to be in our season last year, but got canceled, so we reimagined it as a two-hour radio play.
And over the holidays we put together The Mighty Queer Virtual Variety Show. We invited young, queer artists of color to create five-minute performances around the theme, “hope is where the art is.” We had spoken word, composers, a Middle Eastern dancer, and local drag artists hosted it.
We also revamped our education program. Now kids can continue training online, since we can’t tour schools in person. We produced a series of video lessons for SFUSD teachers to use free of charge. It’s based on the book Puppy Mind, by Andrew Nance, about mindfulness for kids. We created five, four-minute lessons that teachers can use to help settle their classroom. Filming was an adventure because everything’s done remotely. When we filmed the scenes between the puppy and the kids, we shot them separately, then edited them together. And we’re not even a film company!
J&R: How has your audience responded?
Ed Decker: We shattered the boundaries that confined us, in terms of audience. For our podcast, In Good Company, around 4000 folks have invested in listening and they’re from all over the world. It’s clear there are not enough queer stories being told out there. We’re launching a whole new aspect of programming, creating LGBTQ+ journeys that can be listened to around the globe.
J&R: Can you tell us about some upcoming projects?
Ed Decker: We’re creating another virtual show for spring, The Transnational Cabaret. It features trans artists, locally and from across America, looking at the trans experience through a variety of different creative disciplines.
And we commissioned another audio play called Interlude, by an author we’ve worked with before, on This Bitter Earth, about a young, queer, black playwright. Interlude goes back to that story and looks at what it’s like to be living in America in this moment.
J&R: The pandemic has hit many local arts organizations financially. How’s NCTC doing?
Ed Decker: We’ve done everything in our power to keep our small team employed. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we’ve kept 80% of our staff. But, we had to lay off two positions: our house manager, because there’s really no house to manage, and our master electrician. That broke our hearts.
J&R: And how about you? Has sheltering in place affected you personally?
Ed Decker: I’ve been with my husband for 34 years, and was worried that being at home together might impact us. I’m a theater guy and the good thing about being married to a theater guy is that he’s at the theater a lot. Suddenly, like many folks, we were thrust into the same fate, for an extended period of time. At first, I kept thinking at any minute he’s gonna strangle me. However, we realized that our 34 years together are built on a solid foundation of love, caring, and kindness towards one another. That’s been a magnificent discovery.
For more information about NCTC, visit: https://www.nctcsf.org/
Jennifer Kroot is a filmmaker, known for her award-winning LGBTQ themed documentaries, including “The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin” and “To Be Takei.” She studied filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she has also taught. She is a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
A humanitarian, as well as a designer, Robert Holgate is dedicated to critical social issues. With his hands-on approach to philanthropy and social justice, he supports the advancement of local and national social causes. For more information: https://www.rhdsf.com/
Published on March 11, 2021
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