News
Check out FCT's
calendar of events.
****************************************************
****************************************************
Flint City Theatre Needs Your Help
Dear Patrons of the Arts
Recently the Flint Journal has made a decision to stop
reviewing theatre productions. This decision will have a
serious effect on theatre attendance in Flint as most of the
local theatres rely on the Journal reviews as a source of
information for patrons. Good or bad, a review gets the word
out the there is a show going on. The cessation of the
reviews will mostly likely mean a drop in attendance for
second and third weekends of shows. The critical review is
an invaluable piece of publicity most of us can't afford to
lose
I'm writing to ask for your help. Please do three things:
1] Write a letter to the editor of the Flint Journal and
urge the powers that be to reconsider this decision
explaining that, though it may save the Journal a few
dollars a year it will hurt several non-profit companies in
the process at a time of financial strife. Send your letter
to:
John Foren
jforen@flintjournal.com
fax (810.767.7518)
snail mail
The Flint Journal, John Foren
200 E. First St.
Flint, MI 48502-1925
2] Come to Flint City Theatre's 12th Night, opening tonight
at 8pm at the Good Beans Cafe (running through next
Saturday) and write your own review in the form of an op ed.
Send that to:
letters@flintjournal.com
fax (810.767.7403)
snail mail
The Flint Journal, Your Views
200 E. First St
Flint MI 48502-1925
3] Send this information to all of your friends.
Thank you for your help and support.
Dan Gerics, Flint City Theatre
PS The info below is from the Flint Journal website.
Tips for getting published in The Flint Journal
• Include your first name, middle initial and last name.
Letters without names are not used.
• Include the township, city or village you live in as well
as a complete mailing address and day and evening telephone
numbers. Only your name and community you live in are
published. We are more likely to use letters from those in
our community.
• Write concisely and exclusively for The Flint Journal.
• When responding to something published in The Flint
Journal, please include date the item was published,
headline, and page number.
• Limit your submissions as each writer may have only one
published letter per month
• To be fair to the candidates, we will not publish election
letters after the Friday before an election. Letters
received in the last weeks on an election run a greater risk
of not being published due to volume.
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
Here’s an email forwarded to FCT in response to the
Journal’s decision.
FYI....
----- Original Message -----
From: [anon]
To: John Foren ; jhiner@bc-times.com
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 11:14 AM
Subject: Support Real Art!
Mr. Foren and Mr. Hiner,
While I'm not pleased with the changes the Journal has
taken, I was going to wait until after I had a full 3 days
of newspapers to read over.
But I received an email this morning from Flint City Theatre
director, Dan Gerics. While the Journal has gone downhill
the past few years in terms of covering the Fine Arts and
artists, hearing that there will no longer be a reviewer of
theatre is doing a huge disservice to this community.
The Flint Journal and other papers like it have turned to
pop culture, fluff and other insignificant items. While I
understand that a newspaper has to target its audience, and
make it appealing, it's sad that it is no longer
enlightening the public when it comes to the fine arts. (I'm
saying "fine" arts, as opposed to student art, crafts, and
the like.) Years ago, the Journal had a qualified art and
music critic. Sure, some folks in this little blue-collar
town were hurt when it was printed that their daughter was
not the star of the show, but we learned from the
experience! We learned the difference between what was good
and what was not so good and how to make it better. That's
the job of the art critic and the newspaper itself. A friend
of mine plays in the Flint Symphony. He and the other
orchestra members are weary of reading "descriptions" of
their concerts not a true review. They're professionals.
They're tough - they can take it!
When I called a few years ago and asked why the Journal
didn't have a qualified art critic with a full page devoted
to the Arts, (Christopher Young comes to mind as a good
critic because of his background) I was told - believe it or
not - that the staff of the Flint Journal was told to "dumb
down" their writing and news choices because we were a blue
collar town!
Please! I urge you think about reviving an Arts Page (not
just a "digest"!) complete with intelligent reviews, and the
people will thank you for it. Even if some people just don't
"get it" and want more fluff...I'm sure they'll thank you in
a very short time.
Thank you,
Patricia L. Warner
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
And another:
From [anon]
to jforen
show details Jun 2 (2 days ago)
Reply
Follow up message
John -
I must express my great disappointment that the Flint
Journal has decided to cease reviewing theater productions.
It appears that the new managers of the Flint/Saginaw/Bay
City group don't understand the great potential of local
theater in Flint. The situation here is likely much
different than in Saginaw and Bay City.
One of the hopeful signs for Flint's recovery is its local
arts scene and nowhere is that more evident than in theater.
There are no fewer than eight active groups producing live
theater in Flint. They include the Flint Community Players
(over 80 years of continuous production), Flint City
Theater, Vertigo Productions, McCree Theater, the Kearsley
Park/Theater in Our Parks collaboration, Buckham Theater,
Mott College Theater and the UM-Flint Theater program.
UM-Flint has long made a major commitment to theater with a
world class facility, which has produced a cadre of
well-trained young performers and technicians, who not only
go out into the broader world but also stay in this
community and continue to work with other groups.
The Journal review has always been a critical form of
communication and promotion for all of these groups.
I earnestly urge you to reconsider what I believe to be a
short-sighted decision. You will save a few hundred dollars
a year by canceling these reviews but is will be a blow to
our community's recovery.
____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________
And yet another
From: [anon]
Dear Mr. Foren:
The news that the Flint Journal has decided to stop doing
local theater reviews raises several pressing questions.
1. Are you crazy?
2. The paper has one foot in the grave already -- do you
really want to jump in with the other?
Just about all you have left is local news. There is no
community as eager for provide coverage and to read coverage
than the local arts community. If you give up local news,
you are giving up the only grounding on which you can
survive. Local coverage is what we need and what I, for one,
will continue to pay for.
But if you abandon local news, there is no reason left to
read the Flint Journal. Thus you sink or swim on local
coverage.
As I urge you urgently to rethink this self-destructive
decision, I think not just of the theater community, a cadre
of imaginative and heartening local survivors, but also of
the Flint Journal itself.
I hope this perplexing decision doesn't mean that you have
been given the gloomy task of speeding the newspaper to its
grave; if that is the case, surely you are doing your job.
flintcitytheatre@gmail.com (877) FCT-SHOW [328-7469]