Veteran Outreach PROGRAM

Photo: Still from Bedlam’s Veteran Outreach Video

Veteran Outreach PROGRAM

 

In 2022, Bedlam’s free weekly meetings of its Veteran Outreach Program continue. Led by Zuzanna Szadkowski these meetings are back to in-person gatherings at The Sheen Center for the first time since March 2020.

Bedlam’s work with veterans began in 2015 and focuses on the power of the performing arts to aid veterans in their ongoing reintegration back into civilian life. In profound gratitude for their service to our country, Bedlam’s Veteran Outreach Program offers a place where veterans can find community with one another, explore classic texts or create new work, and express themselves through theatre. Check back here for a full calendar of programming, live performances, and opportunities.

Veterans only, please. For more information, email: info@bedlam.org

FREE Acting CLASS FOR VETERANS

When:

Monday Evenings
(Ongoing) | 6pm–8pm

Where:

SHEEN CENTER FOR THOUGHT & CULTURE
18 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012

VETERANS ONLY.

Please email: info@bedlam.org for more information.

Edward Damato in the Bedlam Veteran Outreach Program reading of COST OF WAR

By EDWARD DAMATO, a member of Bedlam’s Veteran Outreach Program:

Veterans’ Day – 2023

I was drafted into the US Army in 1966. I received my letter from President Lyndon Johnson beginning with the infamous, “Greeting” and the attached subway token to get me to the Whitehall Street US Army Induction Center. After nine months of training, I was sent to Vietnam. In February of 1968 I was honorably discharged and 2023 marks my 55th year of being a veteran. I wasn’t proud of the war I was dealt. I spent my first ten years being active in the Vietnam anti-war movement. I wasn’t thrilled being a veteran afterwards.

Cut to 2011. I started doing volunteer work at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. I worked on their veterans project identifying Civil War soldiers and veterans buried there. I even got to be a docent at an exhibit marking the 150th anniversary of the end of the war. Later I was privileged to write biographies of World War I soldiers. Those along with the Civil War soldiers’ bios can now be read on line on their website. At their Memorial Day concert, a couple of years later they asked all army veterans to stand up. I stood up with the voice of Private Thomas van Ripper Joseph in my ear, and for the first time I publicly recognized my “veteran-ness.”  

For the past seven years I have been a proud member of the Bedlam Theater Company’s Veteran Outreach Program. We did a public zoom program based on soldiers and vets buried at the cemetery. I wrote about Thomas van Ripper Joseph a private killed in December, 1862. He had written home to his wife a week earlier, “We are used like dogs.” One hundred and five years later in February, 1967, I wrote home “They treat us like shit.” I am reminded of the old saying “The more things change the more they stay the same.” Private Joseph has his own holiday, Memorial Day, for those killed in battle. I have Veterans Day, for those of us who came home.

In our veterans’ outreach class we are a group comprised of Lou, a Korean War era vet to Lucas, an Afghanistan vet and many in between. Despite our different experiences we are all veterans of the same system: the basic training, the turning of a civilian into a cog in the military machine, the KP, the guard duty, the insufferable sergeants, the mess hall, the traumas.  When someone comes in and says “I am a veteran” we can say we understand this person. It is a great honor to me that Bedlam has provided us with this class that lets us explore and find comfort in the redemptive power of theater, from all the soldiers and veterans of William Shakespeare to the modern plays such as Arcadia. On this Veterans Day I feel at home.

 

our INSTRUCTORs

Headshot of Zuzanna Szadkowski

ZUZANNA SZADKOWSKI (VETERAN OUTREACH)

Zuzanna Szadkowski played Dorota in the CW’s hit drama series “Gossip Girl”. She can be seen as Nurse Pell on the Cinemax series from Steven Soderbergh, “The Knick.” Other television credits include: “Search Party,” “The Good Wife,” “Elementary,” “Girls,” “Guiding Light,” “The Sopranos,” “Law and Order,” and “Law and Order: Criminal Intent.” Film credits include Pigeon, Growing up and Other Lies, Loserville and Butterflies of Bill Baker. Off-Broadway theater credits include queens at LCT3, Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet (WSJ Performance of the Year 2018) with Bedlam and Peter Pan also with Bedlam, The Comedy of Errors as part of the Public Theater’s Mobile Shakespeare Unit, and Nora and Delia Ephron’s Love, Loss and What I Wore. Regional theater credits include The 39 Steps at The Actors Theater of Louisville, The Merry Wives of Windsor at Two River Theater and The Nerd at Bucks County Playhouse. Zuzanna is a Master Teacher for YoungArts in Miami. She received a B.A. from Barnard College

Eric Tucker headshot

ERIC TUCKER

Wall Street Journal DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR 2014. Off Broadway: Bedlam’s The Crucible, Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet; Pygmalion; Peter Pan; Vanity Fair; Sense and Sensibility (Off Broadway Alliance Award, Lortel nom., Best Director, Drama League nom., Best Revival); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Drama League nom. Best Revival, WSJ Best Classical Production 2015; NY Times Critics’ Pick), Bedlam’s Saint Joan (NY Times/Time Magazine Top 10; Off Broadway Alliance Best Revival 2014)Bedlam’s Hamlet (NY Times Top 10; Time Out NY/Backstage Critics’ Pick); Tina Packer’s Women of Will.  For Bedlam: Hamlet/Saint Joan: McCarter Theatre; Central Sq. Theater (Elliott Norton: Outstanding Visiting Production/Outstanding Ensemble, Boston Globe Top Ten); Dead Dog Park, New York Animals (World Premiere by Steven Sater/Burt Bacharach), Twelfth Night and What You Will (NY Times Critics’ Picks), The Seagull (WSJ Best Classical Production 2014), Sense & Sensibility (NY Times Top 10, NY Times/WSJ/Time Out Critics’ Picks). Other: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Two River), Disney’s Beauty & The Beast (OSF); Pericles (APT); Sense and Sensibility (The Folger Theater, 8 Helen Hayes nominations including Best Director and Best Production), Copenhagen (Central Square Theater), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (HVSF), Mate (The Actors’ Gang). Eric received his M.F.A. from the Trinity Rep Conservatory. He resides in New York City where he is Founder and Artistic Director of Bedlam.

Outreach Support

In addition to our free veteran classes and scholarship, we also offer discounted tickets for veterans to all Bedlam productions. For more information contact: info@bedlam.org

Our veteran’s program is made possible through individual contributions from donors like you and from additional support from:

Anonymous, Victoria Anderson, Sarah Bellin, Valerie Blair, Merilee Blaisdell, Kathryn Burke, Jo Burnstein, Martha Chapman, Ellen Cohn, Janet Conrad, Everett Cox, Maurine Greenwald, WaiChing Ho, Leon G. & Anne G. Hoffman, Melissa House, Nancy Jacobs, Loretta Janca, Kristine Lupi, Roger Lyons, Claudia MacDermott, Jodi Malcom, John McCartie, Susan Moore, Ruth Otero, Andrew & Danielle Pfister, Mary Popovich, George Reed, Lysa Rohan, Chuck & Karen Schader, Kate Schwartz, Elizabeth Seamans, Ann-Judith Silverman, Lanier Smythe, Eric Tucker & Susannah Millonzi, Alice Tufel, Ebony Vines, Kevin von der Lippe, Arthur Weitz, Jeffry Wells, Ann Winton.

This donor list is current from February 1, 2021 – February 1, 2022. We apologize for any inaccuracies. To learn more about donating to Bedlam’s Veteran Outreach program, or to advise of any needed corrections, please contact Susannah Millonzi, Director of Development, at development@bedlam.org.