When Bob Rais was driving to work on Sept. 12, he thought,“What a frivolous activity to be involved in.”

        Mr. Rais is starring in the one-man show Fully Committed, a comedy about a Manhattan restaurant reservationist, at Ensemble Theatre through Sept. 30. One day after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, he went on with the show.

        “Then when I got to the theater and was doing whatever it is I do to prep for the show, I told myself, "I'll just get through it.'

        He walked onstage. “I heard people laughing and I realized, "This is where I should be, this is what I need to be doing.'

SALUTE VOLUNTEERS

Do you know someone who is an unstinting arts volunteer? Somebody who took on a special project this past year for love? Someone whose sweat equity deserves to be celebrated?    Our annual recognition of the region's arts volunteers will be printed Nov. 18, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. We need your help.    Please send nominations and their stories to Jackie Demaline, c/o Tempo, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202, fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jdemaline@yahoo.com. Color photographs would be welcome. Deadline is Oct. 31. Questions? Call 768-8530.

        “People can't think about it 24/7. And this is a nice play about a place people love.”

        Local theaters were mobilizing their response to America's tragedy last week.

        By the time Ensemble raised the curtain on Fully Committed on Wednesday, the theater had installed a donation box for the American Red Cross and a Boot for the Firefighters Drive. ETC has dedicated the remainder of the run to the people of New York.

        :Playhouse in the Park immediately started collecting donations after performances of King Lear. They raise about $500 a performance.

        The Broadway Series will promote the relief effort in the Aronoff Center lobby throughout the run of Phantom of the Opera. The national touring company (cast, musicians and crew) has raised $13,000 among themselves and donated it to American Red Cross.

        Falcon Players at Westwood Town Hall dedicates its run of Working, based on stories by Studs Terkel, to the working people who lost their lives in the attack.

        Contemporary Dance Theater has added a moment of silence before classes and performances.

        Northern Kentucky University's theater department opens Stephen Sondheim's dark fairy tale musical Into the Woods Thursday.

        “We have had problems getting materials we have ordered for the show here in time,” department head Joe Conger reports. “I've admired the willingness of students and faculty to "keep on going.'

        “This generation of college students have not really experienced a national tragedy. I believe they're coming to terms. Despite our divided attentions, students have continued in earnest not to let it affect their daily routine.

        “They're an admirable lot, these young people. In many ways the attack has made them more introspective, but outwardly more patriotic and, indeed, American.

        “Since the second act of Into the Woods is about death and loss, the words seem to mean so much more. "No One Is Alone' may be indelibly a part of their memories of this time.”

        At Xavier University, students in a playwriting class are writing one acts inspired by the words “terrorist attack” or “peace.”

        With performing seasons in place, immediate artistic response is most likely to come from smaller, less cumbersome institutions.

        ETC artistic director D. Lynn Meyers reports that this year's intern company was already working on an Off-Center project based on the April riots.

        “The events of the 11th will have an impact,” Ms. Meyers says. “You can be assured of seeing something on our stage this season in response to current events.”

        Like Mr. Rais, actress Anne E. Schilling, whose role is at the center of Cincinnati Shakespeare's dark comic fable Fuddy Meers, had big questions about the relevance of performing, particularly when “I was watching the news constantly, I was only wanting to be around the news.”

        Early this week she talked about how she found focus through her amnesiac character, who gets to play detective and rediscover her life. “I realized — you can make decisions. You can come through catastrophes. Maybe come out of them a little stronger.”

        In a larger sense, once the nation has moved beyond its initial grief, Ms. Schilling thinks this tragedy may provide a political wake-up call for her generation. “For us, news has been "Madonna is going to have a baby.' ”

        And a wake-up call for art. “Theater has a purpose, and it's strayed,” she says. “Theater should be asking "what are you doing in your community? In your national community?' Art has to start reflecting what's going on.”

        Cincinnati Shakespeare is fortunate, she says, in that artistic director Jasson Minadakis is a political animal. “Hopefully, we can bring some of what's happening into what we're doing” particularly, she adds, with upcoming titles like Othello.
       By midweek, Cincinnati Shakespeare's ensemble was having “volatile, wrenching” discussions, Mr. Minadakis says. Now in rehearsal for Shakespeare's charming romantic comedy Twelfth Night, opening in October, there's great debate as to whether the festival should instead be stepping forward with a timely artistic response.

        “Our mission is to do work in a contemporary, relevant style that speaks to our city right now,” Mr. Minadakis says. And because the festival has a resident company “... we (would) be able to throw down one script and pick up another.”

        The big question: When to hold up that mirror to society? “Now?” Mr. Minadakis wonders. “Four months from now?”

        One work that will be directly informed by the terrorist attack will be the commissioned play that will close the festival season in June 2002.

        Last week Mr. Minadakis had a call from playwright Jeff Arca, announcing his intention to set aside the play already in the works. Mr. Arca is based in New York and told Mr. Minadakis, “I watched (the WTC towers) falling from my roof. I have to write about what I saw.”

        While Playhouse in the Park is too large to turn on a dime, producing artistic director Ed Stern shares these programming considerations. “It's what I've been wrestling with all week,” he says. “What to do about programming in general. To be impervious to what's going on would be ludicrous.

        “I can promise you that twice as much thought will go into every Cincinnati theater season as went into this year's — and great thought went into this season.”

        Unlike Europe and the rest of the world, which has been consistently political in outlook and awareness, most American news has dwelled on personal stories for years, Mr. Stern ventures, and most drama on domestic issues.

        He expects a transformation and has been heartened by response to King Lear, which should be an accurate barometer for audiences' inclination to accept tough subject matter.

        “Last weekend, we had "bravos,' and in 10 years here I don't know from bravos. A man came out and told me "I feel really good,' which is what tragedy is supposed to do.

        “There's more resiliency than I would have thought possible.”
       As in all times of world crisis, artists will create work that responds to it. The latter half of the 20th century saw a harvest of performing and visual art that thoughtfully addressed and explored issues from the Holocaust to the AIDS epidemic.

        While it will be some time before we know what this beginning of the 21st century will bring, Ms. Meyers reports a guerrilla theater effort already under way in lower Manhattan by last year's Playhouse MFA acting company.

        Inspired by their work on the docu-play The Laramie Project last spring, most relocated to New York, where they are embarking on The September 11 Project.

       
       Contact Jackie Demaline by phone: 768-8530; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jdemaline@yahoo.com.
       

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