One of the most anticipated plays of the 2020-21 theatrical season was a Sam Gold-helmed revival of Chekhov’s Three Sisters starring Greta Gerwig, Oscar Isaac, Steve Buscemi, and Civilians Associate Artist Quincy Tyler Bernstine. Like so many plays, however, this New York Theatre Workshop production was halted as theaters went dark in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Three months after the play would have opened, Bernstine and Buscemi teamed up to write an opinion piece for the New York Daily News advocating financial aid for New York City’s cultural organizations and the many artists that keep it afloat. Bernstine spoke to Extended Play about the creation of this op-ed and the future of NYTW’s Three Sisters.
“I was contacted by Lucy Sexton who runs New Yorkers for Culture and Arts (a tremendous coalition of arts organizations that advocates for NYC cultural institutions in myriad ways) who asked if I might like to co-author a piece with Steve using the halting of NYTW’s production of Three Sisters as a jumping-off point to discuss the urgent need for NYC arts and culture funding. Of course, I said yes.”
“At the time that we working on it (the article), it was time-sensitive as Congress was working on a stimulus. As emergency funding for NYC arts organizations was about to run out I think the hope was to somehow reach some folks in DC to remind them that they/we are still here and in desperate need of assistance.”
On the future of Three Sisters and its relevance during the pandemic:
I’ve come to understand, quite deeply over these last months, that desire to “go back to Moscow.”
“None of us really know what the theater, or the world-at-large, are going to look like whenever this is over so it’s hard to say how this production (or any other) might translate. However, I do know that I’ve come to understand, quite deeply over these last months, that desire to “go back to Moscow.” That longing for something that once was, what used to be. If nothing else, I think audiences having lived through this pandemic, will certainly be able to identify with that.”
“I think the hope is to do the play next season, but who knows what that even means at the moment. Everything remains so up in the air.”
To read “Tend to our cultural garden or it will dry up,” the Daily News opinion piece by Bernstine and Buscemi, click here.
Quincy Tyler Bernstine’s work with The Civilians: “(I Am) Nobody’s Lunch,” “The Ladies,” “Gone Missing.” NY Theater (selected credits): “Marys Seacole” (Lucille Lortel Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play); “Our Lady of 121st Street” (Lortel nomination); “The Amateurs” (Lortel nomination); “As You Like It” (Lortel nomination); “Small Mouth Sounds”; “Peer Gynt”; “Grand Concourse” (Lortel nomination); “10 out of 12”; “The Nether”; “Mr. Burns”; “Neva” (Lortel nomination); “We Are Proud to Present a Presentation…”; “born bad”; “Red-Handed Otter”; “Family Week”; “Ruined” ( 2009 Obie for Performance, Clarence Derwent, Audelco Awards); “In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)”; “The Misanthrope”; “A Small, Melodramatic Story”; “Matt & Ben, ‘nami” Education: Brown (BA), UCSD (MFA). 2019 Obie for Sustained Excellence in Performance, Cullman 3rd Award for Extraordinary Creativity (Lincoln Center, 2019); 2015 Lilly Award, Charles Bowden Award from New Dramatists.
