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Vanessa Williams, William Spencer Reilly & Ken Jennings Preview the Season Ahead at the Sheen Center
May 17, 2024
On July 30, I had a great time backstage at the Sheen Center, interviewing Grammy and Tony-nominated singer/actress Vanessa Williams, Executive Director of The Sheen Center for Thought andamp; Culture William Spencer Reilly and Drama Desk Award-winner Ken Jennings (Broadway's Sweeney Todd, Side Show, Grand Hotel) about the Center's exciting lineup for their fall season. This was followed by a sneak peek at some of the events, introduced by Williams to an audience of supporters.
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Hi there, it's Eugene Emner. I am at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture
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We are at an exciting preview celebrating the upcoming fall season. We have some extremely
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special and interesting guest interviews, so we'll be right back. Back with the one and only superstar Miss Vanessa Williams. How are you today
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I'm very good, good to see you. You're beautiful as ever. It's such a pleasure to be here with you, but more important
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More importantly, we're very excited that this is a preview to the and the celebration
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in the upcoming fall season. We understand that you're hosting this evening
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I'm hosting this evening and I am a recent board member. So, uh, besides actually performing here a few years back, that's when I was first introduced
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to the museum center. Father Edward Beck did a great, um, kind of talk back with music, uh, called Broadway
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Bears soul. Oh, we like that. And, uh, and it was one, he's a dear friend of mine
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and just a brilliant priest, but also an amazing human. So we got a chance to kind of talk about the past
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and the future and do it with song. And that's how I was introduced to the Sheen Center
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And I was so hooked that I became a board member. And now I'm doing, introducing the fall lineup
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but I'm also teasing my, we're doing our first gala this year
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And I am singing at it. So that's November 18. What we love to hear you sing
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Is it gonna be a little bit of all your different styles? We're kicking off the holidays here
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season. Yeah, so it'll be, of course, my hits. And your Christmas albums. I think you have up to what
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three? I have two, but I've got... And then a collection, different collections. I have all of them
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Go and get them for the Christmas season. But more importantly, if you're in New York City
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you've got to check out her benefit on November 18th, but also visit their website at the Sheen Center
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because they have so many wonderful opportunities, projects, shows, everything from theater to film to music
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It's unbelievable. Really an untapped resource. It is. There are. and culture and I love the thought and the culture because it really goes down to more of that
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heart place and you can also hear debate and people aren angry they speaking which is so valuable right now We don have to argue We fine Exactly Exactly I love something that you read on the website about for the good and the true and the beautiful
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And that's what we need more than ever. And I think that's what you represent in your life
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Yes. Well, thank you. Well, of course. We appreciate you. Thank you for all that you do. And everyone, please check out more about the Sheen Center of what's coming up
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And Ms. Vanessa Williams on November 18th. That's right. plays how are you today
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I'm fine yourself good are you excited about this preview and celebration of the upcoming fall season
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oh very much I'm more excited about this than I was about Sweeney Todd you're in town side show
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I'm more excited about this than I am about anything wow then this is amazing oh yeah now what is your involvement with the Sheen
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Center are you a part of one of the productions that's upcoming I am I've memorized the entire gospel of John I did this as a prayer
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really but then I I had it memorized so I thought well I'm not as well I was
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will offer this to some churches, so it's just doing it for free. But then the Sheen Center heard of it, and they said, well, we'd like to say it
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And so I showed it to Bill Riley and Andrew Levine and David DeSerto and Julia O'Brien
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And amazing, I said, we want to produce this. We want to really give this a production
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So we'll be doing this over the Christmas holidays. I think we open November 30th and run until December 29th
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I think that's a perfect time for that, don't you? Perfect time for that. People will really be drawn to that and be drawn to that
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to you because they know how brilliant you are. Oh, thanks very much, sir. Of course. What is it for you when you think of thought and culture with the Center
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Is that special to you? What their mission is of being able to unite people through that
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Well, I think of this as being more about prayer. And that's certainly with the Gospel of John
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Yes, you know. So thought and culture, but I think prayer is also part of thought
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I think so. I think of the spirit, you know. And so I think of the Sheen, Archbishop Fulton J
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He's already been venerated a step toward beatification, you know? So, who knows where that will lead
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You know, that's what's named after. I'm old enough, I used to watch his show on TV with my parents
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Yeah he was quite the trailblazer Oh really the trailblazer And what an amazing TV personality I agree I think he be very proud of you I sure he looking down and smiling right now
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knowing what you're going to bring to the center. So thank you for today, and we look forward to this coming up at the end of November into December
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Oh, thanks very much. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jean. And I am very honored to be standing here at the executive director, Mr. Bill Riley
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How are you? Well, very well. Good to be here. you guys could cover us. Well, thank you. We're really excited about this preview and the celebration
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of the upcoming fall season, but more importantly, the fact that you are the executive director
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and what you've had an incredible pass as a TV producer from ESPN to more thought and culture-based
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television, right? So how did you get involved of becoming a part of this amazing center
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Well, it's amazing. I got a call out of the blue from David DeSerto, who said, you know anything
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about Machine Center, it haven't opened yet, and I looked on this website. I said, oh my goodness
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look at this facility and I went in and offered them some advice I thought you know free
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advice is good advice and a little did I know that 15 minutes into the conversation I said
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is this an interview and they said yeah and so anyway the long and the short of it is I
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felt like I died and went to heaven I got this job because it's really a confidence of everything
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I've done in my life between working in the Broadway theater and the off Broadway theater
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and then in television which is what she and that's one of the reasons I had nothing to do
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with the construction of this space. But the one thing I did suggest is add the video cameras
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So we have five cameras in the Loretto Theater. So it's also a broadcast studio
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So we can do live streaming of our events and concerts and everything else. That's fantastic because really as we know about Mr. Schen and you, that brings it all together
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And then being able to promote positivity and thought and culture through so many outlets
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Yes. Everything from if people don't know, everything from theater to film
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to music, to talk events, which is really what the thought comes into
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Yeah, absolutely. And you know, what I'm most proud of this year is at the Loretto Theater is now unquestionably established itself as the nicest
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newest opera rea theater in the city. That's an honor. Yeah when we did our Christmas show All Is Come the Christmas Truce of 1914 just won the Drama Desk Award And that theater is such a beautiful gem of a little space And then downstairs in our Black Box which is an off theater
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we had John Glover and a tour of the cast to doing all our children. So I think we've arrived, and both of these theaters are now legitimate for the theater community
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but equally important for the thought community and for music and for film
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and for people interested in other genres. We do have an equal mix of theater and music and film and talk
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I want to let you do that. And congratulations on the recognition. That's always nice to feel validated in that way that you're really appealing to the public and to New York itself
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Now, when you, as a position of executive director, is important for you with all of the different
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ventures and projects to come in? Do you have a special board that reviews all of this
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Or do you have a final say? How does that work on? I do, but I have a great team
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David DeSERgo is the director of all. program administration. He has two terrific people, Julia O'Brien and Victoria Hannity
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who work with him. And so among the four of us, we basically then all of it. And then, yeah
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I have to sort of make the final decision, but they do the line share of work
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Right. And I read something about, you can have up to 75 different projects or shows or productions
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within one year? Well, actually, on, actually in this year alone in both theaters
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if you count all the nights we had stuff, we had over 293
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things going on. There might have been something that I was past reading
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That's fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. In many nights there's something going on in both theaters
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Tonight's definitely a preview of more of a kickoff. When is the actual kickoff to the fall season
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Well, I mean, we start in September, and so that's why we're doing this tonight to give people. And it was interesting when Ken mentioned about the Gospel of John, I'm particularly
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interested in that. He was very humble because for to play all of the roles in the Gospel of John, one guy doing it
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and bringing his dramatic skills to it is really what's kind of... I think blow people's minds, whether they're believers or not
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It's going to be incredible theater. And people will hear the gospel in a new way that they've never heard him
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mainly because he's such a great actor. Right. I think that's truly an honor for him
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and I'm thankful for that, and we encourage everyone to come out for that. So thank you for spending time with us today
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Great. What's terrific. Thanks for all that you do. All right. Thank you
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