This week, GBH Executive Arts Editor Jared Bowen discusses Mayor Michelle Wu's plan to uplift the arts in Boston and a new show that centers on Parkinson's disease.
Mayor Michelle Wu on the arts
Watch her full interview on Open Studio with Jared Bowen March 17
Jared Bowen sat down with Wu last week to talk all things arts in Boston. The Mayor was raised with a passion for the arts — specifically, music, which is evident from the upright piano that now resides in the mayoral office. She tells Bowen music was something that allowed her immigrant family to connect to their Chicago community. As Wu puts it, "Music transcends everything."
"The arts are the thing that bring us together, whether you're outside, experiencing public art or going to museums. And so this is why she understands, again, that the arts are going to be key here as we come back as a city," Bowen says.
"She's also somebody who understands that the arts are an economic engine, that when people come in to see shows or they go to museums, they're hiring babysitters or paying for parking," he goes on. "So this is why this is central to the city — and is only going to come to life once the arts become central here once again."
Bostonians can see the arts front and center at City Hall with #ARTWORKSHERE. It's a public exhibit that looks at the Humphreys Street Studios' campaign keep their space inside the city. "We have so much development here, a lot of artists are losing their spaces and the performing arts organizations are losing their rehearsal spaces," Bowen explains.
The mayor's plan to provide funding to the arts begins with federal pandemic relief funds. Wu says she hopes to support art organizations and artists and to also lay the foundation of systemic arts investment going forward.
“Everyday Life and Other Odds and Ends”
Now playing at the Emerson Paramount Center’s Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre through March 27 & streaming April 1-10
The latest Arts Emerson production, "Everyday Life and Other Odds and Ends," highlights the challenges faced by people living with Parkinson's disease. Playwright Charlotte Meehan, whose husband lived with Parkinson’s for 10 years, introduces audience members to three separate couples all dealing with the disease in the nonlinear play.
"What this play does is it take us into those — as the title says — the other odds and ends. Those little bits of challenges it takes when you have somebody who is suffering from disease," Bowen says. "You, of course, you see foundational love, but that is supremely tested when you're in these sorts of circumstances, when financial pressures come to bear, when you have to consider mortality and other life issues."
The play incorporates an overhead screen that displays therapist conversations with the actors on stage. Dance and movement are also key to this performance, allowing characters to communicate their emotions in what Bowen describes as a "very holistic experience."
