 "Flatlands Little Remarks," written by Linda Mussmann, performed by Claudia Bruce and company: Beverly Au, Deborah Auer-Brown, Brigitte Bley-Swinston, Semih Ferincioglu, Amy Guggenheim, Harry Mann, Mary Ann Raph, and Ingrid Reffert. |
Mussmann: Because we were emotionally attached, there was an initial concern about working together. We thought about it for five minutes and we said, "The hell with that, let's get busy." We had a lot to do. And Claudia has been on the center of my stage for 30 years. We live together, work together, and make these arts experiences and projects all happen. The idea of living and working together—most people find that daunting even to imagine. Claudia and I have rarely been apart. It's still pretty amazingly fascinating, interesting, and endlessly exciting and filled with the unknown. The best part of a relationship is never really knowing what's going to happen, and we've always filled each other with surprises.
 "Harbors Wait" rehearsal at the TSL Storefront, 1985. |
Mussmann: We were working with extreme avant-garde ideas. Some were around language, some were working with form, and then those ideas all cross-talked. We were drawing ideas from all those resources. And we were training actors. In those days, we had a company, eight to ten actors who worked with us every day. We'd rehearse in the morning and we'd perform at night. I had small fees I would give them and they would drive cabs. It was the heyday of a lot of incredible, intense work, which we were able to do in New York when real estate was cheap, and when the opportunity to make mistakes wasn't so hard on people. People were arriving in New York with all kinds of dreams and fantasies and hopes that they could fulfill their visions of why they came to the city. We all met there, and did intense work there, and for 22 years, we had an amazing experience in our little storefront.
Reaganomics
Mussmann: [In the 80s] the funding game got intensely competitive, you had to spend more money, you had to pay for more things—it was less fun and more of a grind. If I wanted to do a show, then I had to hire a press agent, and that cost a couple thousand dollars. A couple thousand dollars here, couple thousand dollars there, and all of a sudden to produce a piece of work for a couple weeks it cost you thousands of dollars. The experimental avant-garde was turning into big business. People were arriving with trust funds and buying apartments while we were still renting. We were continuing to dream that we could remain on the edge in New York when the edge was closing, and pushing people like ourselves out. AIDS also knocked out a tremendous number of people of our generation. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected, and that began the dismantling of the arts. The arts were a target of Reaganomics. And it always takes time before something like that sinks in. It took about 10 years, and in 10 years you saw the impact of that kind of hostility toward culture. So, to say that the artists don't contribute, or they're not worth supporting was a ridiculous thing to say, especially for an actor. [In 1990, Mussmann and Bruce returned a $10,000 NEA grant to protest the NEA's decision not to fund works it deemed "obscene."]
 Matthew Thompson and Linda Mussmann for "My Dinner with Matthew," created and performed in 1994 by Thompson and Mussmann, with assistance by Claudia Bruce. |
Bruce: Theater is the heart of who we are. We basically do two new pieces every year, whether they are grand projects or little chamber pieces. It's our lifeblood, we have to do them. The influence of the theater and everything we've learned from the theater has spilled over into what we do—the films, the art, the youth projects, the community get-togethers. It's all part of this theatrical vision—we took it all on as a theater piece. The stage is just bigger.
 Linda Mussmann in press photo for "Waxworks" (photo by Mussmann), a new musical in 1998 based on an idea and lyrics by Zoey Wilson with book and direction by Linda Mussmann, performed in collaboration with Claudia Bruce, John Musall, and Vincent Bilotta. |
Mussmann: I've never spent a day in my life that I haven't been an activist—in testing the limits, in saying the unsayable. Our idea of activism is a very complex idea about how do you engage in a dialogue, rather than insisting that I'm right and you're wrong. Or, us versus them. Or, I know how to do it and you don't. Or, I'm smarter than you and you're not smart enough to get it. Our attitude is that we're here, you're here, let's try to figure out how to make this all better for everybody and work together. And that's a scary concept for many people. People come in and want to apply their principles on someone else. I think art and culture's good, but maybe not for everybody. Some of the movies we show, not everybody's going to like. I think that's okay. There are a lot of ways to access the energy here at TSL. You don't have to like it all, you don't have to agree with it all. I think the power of this space is that it is all-inclusive, all-intending to invite everyone in.
What's in it for you?
Bruce: That's something that stumps people about us. We do things because we do them. People want to know: What's in it for you? The "init" for us is building a future, building an idea here. It stumps people. They don't understand that attitude. We don't need a lot—we could always use a little more, the building, the roof, stuff like that. Our idea for the community, as Linda says in [the soon-to-be released film about Hudson] Two Square Miles, "I want to get as much power into as many hands as possible." That way, everyone's ideas, their means of being, the possibilities in their life increase. It sounds totally naïve, but we're not naïve—we're pretty cynical. But we don't stop.