Rethinking Their Life’s Work

Sept. 11 wasn’t the only event to shape the arts and entertainment world in 2001. But it had far-reaching reverberations, beyond delayed season premieres, dark stages, thwarted logistics and fluctuating movie schedules. For many, it provided a test of will: the will to create, the will to perform, the will to interpret, the will to keep on. For our annual year-end issue, we talked to writers, performers, executives and administrators from the Broadway stage to community arts centers for their thoughts about an unprecedented period in the country’s culture.

Sept. 11

Kevin McKenzie, artistic director, American Ballet Theatre: We were in Kansas City. It was the first day of a three-week tour. Then I heard on the radio that something was going on, turned on the TV and thought--here we go. When I got to the theater, things weren’t exactly in disarray, people were going about their business--but there was a general assumption that we probably would not perform. I had to get people shepherded into the idea that, No. 1, you are safe, you are in no danger here performing, but No. 2 and most importantly, there can’t be a question in your mind as to whether or not it’s appropriate to perform. You are part of the healing process.

Last night, it was going to be a fun tour. This morning, it’s a mission.

Jonathan Hensleigh, screenwriter whose credits include “Armageddon” (1998): That afternoon, I ran into somebody very prominently affiliated with the film “Armageddon” who said to me, “Yeah, wasn’t it cool the way the buildings, how similar when the plane went into it to the asteroids hitting the buildings in ‘Armageddon,’” and I stared at the person. It was one of those Hollywood moments where the mixture of disbelief and revulsion is almost overwhelming. I mumbled something like, “Yeah, really cool,” and walked away and vomited in my car.

Bill Viola, video artist: I have been living this tragedy through my work in ways that I don’t think I have ever experienced in my life, and I have been working in video for 32 years now.

I am working on a large, digital, projected fresco of sorts. It’s a series of five large panels of moving images, all interconnected, to tell a larger story.

At the beginning of 1999, the Guggenheim commissioned me to do a piece for their space in Berlin, the Deutsche Guggenheim. The first image that came to me, soon after they called, was an image of a building being flooded out from the inside, with people running out of it, terrified--screaming, running for their lives and getting washed away.

The next clear image that came to me, six to nine months later, was an image of a rescue crew at the side of a body of water in the desert, at dawn--they’d been up all night, exhausted, drained. And when the dawn light is breaking, they realize that there is no one left to rescue. There is a woman who is standing off to the side, looking out past the camera, past this body of water for a loved one who is not going to come back.

The third image revolved around my father’s death; it’s a deathbed scene. There’s a house on a hill looking over another body of water, and a boat being loaded down on the beach, with the contents of someone’s house. The side of the house is cut away, and you can see the man inside, with his son and daughter-in-law at his side, tending to him. After they leave, he dies.

When I do these big projects, I go into my early-morning schedule, waking up at 4:30, coming into the studio at 5. For some reason, I had the radio on, KCRW, and I heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, and that was all. I thought that’s horrible, but I didn’t think it would turn out to be what it turned out to be. I didn’t see any live images until late that evening. It was pretty spooky.

McKenzie: To make matters worse, we were doing “Black Tuesday,” the new creation that [choreographer] Paul Taylor had done for us in the spring [named for the day in 1929 when the stock market collapsed]. It’s about people down and out, there’s the skyline of New York, there are pistol shots. I just had to keep reminding people that you have to do this as a professional, in the best of times and the worst of times--and this is the worst of times. You can’t say to yourself: “But it’s insensitive to the audience to put that song on or not do this section of a ballet”--that’s called censorship. The truth is that this piece became all the more poignant.

Baz Luhrmann, director of “Moulin Rouge”: I arrived in Tokyo, and I turned the television on, and someone rang from London [saying] a plane’s hit and I saw the second plane hit. I stayed up all night. Like everyone, I went through trauma, then “it’s not happening” and then the humanity, and I was moved to tears. Then I had to go and do press. There was the question of whether I could face 200 Japanese journalists about a cancan film. What could I do? The show must go on. That’s the underlying message of “Moulin Rouge.” I went down and what was really interesting ... it was like therapy. We all started sharing in a really open way, about life and what was the meaning of it. To tell the story is to feel the story and to try to understand it. As part of the promotion of “Moulin Rouge,” I go around the world giving awards to nightclubs which are most like the Moulin Rouge. I’m in this club with all these young groovy Japanese kids. As I was walking by, two kids making a video for their television station ran up, and they said in their broken English, “Do you think there’s going to be a war?” This is a young person asking an older person. They want to know what’s going to happen. I [said], “Yes, I do.”

Deborah Borda, Los Angeles Philharmonic managing director: If we could have put on a concert on the night of Sept. 11, we would have opened up Hollywood Bowl for free and done it. That was the plan that [music director] Esa-Pekka [Salonen] and I had, but the county felt that it just wasn’t safe.

Jim Gianopulos, chairman, Fox Filmed Entertainment: We certainly knew there would be no business as usual. We made arrangements to inform our employees to shut down the studios for the day, to give people a chance to be with their families and to absorb the incredible events. We had typically two guards at the gate; now there’s 20 or more people there, but it’s not just the guards. We’re continually looking at ways to improve security. Virtually immediately there were some projects that we reevaluated.

Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues” and artistic director of V-Day, a movement that fights violence against women: I was on a writing retreat in Montauk [Long Island], by myself, and I was working on a play that has to do with a sniper and a therapist; it’s all about violence--is a person a war hero or a war criminal?--looking at all those issues. I had gone to bed at 4 that morning after working all night and then got a call at 9 saying, “Oh my God, get up!” I couldn’t figure out if I were dreaming it in terms of the play. It was utterly surreal. I couldn’t get back into Manhattan because all of the bridges and tunnels were shut down. All I wanted to do was go home. I cried, then called people madly, then just started to write, because I know that’s a way out of all that. I started to think about what grief is and how essential it is and how we always skip over it, particularly in this culture, and how rather than feel grief, we retaliate--because grief is such a terrifying thing, because it renders one so vulnerable. I knew we would be massing the armies. I wrote an essay that went on the V-Day Web site two days later. It’s about “what if we had a different response than what we were about to have?” Everyone was feeling we had to do something. My feeling was we didn’t. We should just sit for a second and feel what it was. I got lots and lots of letters. Other people wrote e-mails, and we started this group of activists and artists and thinkers called New Yorkers Say No to War. That group is still going on.

Sept. 12

Judy McGrath, MTV Group president: That day I had a real advantage of having a young-skewing network. Right away we had people who wanted to come in. There was the Beastie Boys, true New Yorkers, and Carson [Daly, host of MTV’s “Total Request Live”]. You were able to deal with your shock by walking into total work mode. And it was great too. The Beastie Boys talked about their feelings for New York and the community they were seeing in the streets. The places where there were once some tensions between the caretakers of the city, the police and firefighters, and some of the rest of us were instantly gone.

John Wells, executive producer of “ER,” “Third Watch” and “The West Wing”: We shut down “Third Watch,” which films in New York. And we were providing firefighters and others with emergency equipment that we had. There was also a meeting with the three show runners, in which we looked at when would be an appropriate time for our premieres. And we wanted to make sure none of the material was inappropriate.

Margie Johnson Reese, Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department general manager: We sent out a notice to all of our funded organizations to encourage them to take a leadership role in helping to navigate the conversation about, I don’t want to say racial profiling, but just about being sensitive to cultural differences, so that people continue to be aware that whatever is going on across the globe does affect the communities here in Los Angeles. In the arts programming at the centers, we began to carve out enough time so we’re just not running kids in to do a puppet show--they have a chance to express everything they’re thinking and feeling that they might not have had a chance to talk about at home or school.

At one of the meetings that the mayor called for general managers of city departments, we said: “While you are focusing your security efforts around airports and other industries, we also need you to know that arts facilities are major gathering places too. We need to have some emergency preparedness training.” I really appreciated the police chief saying to me, “We will train you and your staff to be more alert.” We had children in after-school programs, those didn’t stop. Artists who had been worrying about how to get the crayon marks off the wall had to devote their attention, at least for a few days, to questions like, “What’s our response time? Do we have the right emergency phone numbers?”

Ridley Scott, director whose current film is “Black Hawk Down”: I think it took everyone days or weeks to actually settle down and believe that something so large had actually happened. [But] you’ve got to function. [So] I called up Jerry [Bruckheimer, the film’s producer], and said what do you think? How will this rattle the effect of what we’re doing right now? Will it affect that? The first thought--we were first intending to go out in March. For this kind of movie, it’s a good release date. The thought became abstract. Should it go back? Instead, the studio and Jerry and I looked at [Scott’s cut of the film], and had thought it had come together very well. Within 12 hours, we were thinking, maybe it should go out right now. It’s entirely relevant. The subtext of the film really is about intervention and paying attention to the rest of the world. It took a few days of to-ing and fro-ing before we elected to go out sooner.

Andrea Rich, Los Angeles County Museum of Art president and director: Work on our architectural plans stopped for logistical reasons. The architects were scheduled to begin making their presentations on Sept. 12. Jean Nouvel’s team was already here, but Rem Koolhaas was on his way and got stuck in Chicago. Daniel Libeskind was in Berlin and wasn’t about to get on an airplane. Steven Holl’s office in New York is eye distance from the World Trade Center. We were on the phone with them and letting other people know that they were OK. It was quite dramatic.

Jose Llana, actor in “Flower Drum Song” at the Mark Taper Forum: We came to work the next day at the Taper, as if we were going to a memorial service. No one knew what to do or say. Half the cast and all the creative staff are from New York. The rehearsal room was dark. No one turned the lights on. Some people in the room said, “Why are we here?” I said, “Go home and read your scripts, guys. This is not some froufrou musical. It has been rewritten so it’s about people coming to America and embracing who we are.” Half the reason why the show has become such a success is because people are looking for something right now that’s about embracing America.

Sept. 13

Borda, L.A. Phil: We had Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with us when it happened, which was really quite something [the ensemble performed a new Marsalis composition, “All Rise,” at the Bowl]. Of course it was very difficult for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra personnel, because they all had family back in New York. That concert was a transcendent experience. And I think that leads to a sidelight, that is very positive, for our organization, and I would daresay for other arts institutions, and that is our job has never seemed more urgent to us, or of more importance. People have a great need right now to find ways to find fulfillment, contemplation. We love what we do anyway, but we were all rededicated to the importance of music, and that has pervaded the entire fall. I never like to say that the concerts are better [than others], but there has been an urgency about it.

Sept. 14

Borda: We made a recording of “All Rise,” which was a little triumph in itself. Our record producer was flying across the country on Sept. 11, and the plane was ordered down--he landed in Kansas City and was stuck there. We knew we could only make the recording with him, otherwise we were going to have to cancel it. They got a car and drove him to Denver, we got a car and sent it to Denver, and he arrived at 7 in the morning. We started recording at 9 a.m.

McKenzie, ABT: The performances [in San Diego Sept. 14-16] probably weren’t the most perfect in the world, but they certainly were the most focused; whatever ragged edges there were were because of exhaustion. It was one of those sort of reaffirming things. Word had gotten out that we were, by hook or crook, getting there, and momentum sort of gathered. There was a great sense of pride for all concerned. We were kind of stunned that we pulled it off. It was the first time that I had ever had to sort of consciously face the symbol of being the leader, or the father figure. I couldn’t let down my guard of positiveness. I didn’t allow myself to react, to feel. I had to keep the company going, you know?

There was a wonderfully warm, sad and healing event onstage on Friday, when President Bush declared a national prayer day for the victims. I gathered the entire cast and crew onstage for a moment of silence. And somewhere outside, within hearing distance, there was a band playing the national anthem, or “God Bless America,” or something very patriotic. I mean to tell you, it was an incredibly cathartic moment, and the moment when I could finally let down.

It was the moment in time when a group of very young people realized that it is very important to acknowledge each and every day with gratitude. Not just the obvious--thank God that it wasn’t me or somebody that I loved who got killed--but to wake up and be grateful that you have a talent, and don’t take anything for granted. They collectively came of age.

Borda: In the immediate aftermath, of course, we tried to be sensitive to programming, and that first week we didn’t do fireworks at the Bowl--we thought that would be too hard on everyone, emotionally. What now looks like an easy decision was carefully debated, but I was pretty sure about no fireworks. We’ll be back to normal next summer. People want them.

Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M; Records: The first I heard about plans for a telethon [to aid victims of the attacks] was when [talent agent] Ari Emanuel, called to say some people were thinking about putting together an event and he wanted to know if I was interested. Of course I was. I think a lot of people in our industry were wondering what they could do to help and this sounded right.

They set up a meeting the next afternoon at Scott Sassa’s house. He’s the West Coast president of NBC. It was me, Ari, Scott and [telethon executive producer] Joel Gallen, who I knew from MTV. Joel was amazing. He was responsible for a lot of the texture of the telethon. The idea was to keep the music as pure as possible, which is why the artists weren’t even identified and why there was no studio audience. At this time, we didn’t even know who would be airing the show. But we started working on a list of musicians. We just picked the artists we knew and respected. At the same time, there were other meetings going on--working out the network deals, getting the actors and actresses who would appear on the show, getting the phone banks set up. Jeffrey Katzenberg [partner at DreamWorks], Leslie Moonves [CBS Television president], Alex Wallau [ABC Television president] were totally committed, and the list goes on and on. People at other record companies--Tommy [Mottola, chairman-CEO of Sony Music Entertainment] and Michele [Anthony, executive vice president] at Sony--also played essential roles.

Sept. 17

Don Ienner, chairman of Columbia Records Group: I was in Los Angeles for the Latin Grammys on Sept. 11, along with Tommy Mottola and about eight or nine other executives, and it was just earth-shattering watching what was happening on television. When we got back to work in New York the following Monday, a bunch of us went down to ground zero a few times, to fire stations, food clinics, trying to get involved and help. But there were so many volunteers that we were turned away. It was frustrating because we wanted to help, so we came back to the office and tried to think of something. We realized we should do what we do as a company--and that’s put out a record. We could raise money for the attack victims and their families by releasing an album of the patriotic material we had in the vaults, songs like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams.” The only new recording on the album was Celine Dion doing “God Bless America,” and that was Tommy’s idea. She got together with [producer] David Foster and they cut it in one day. It was the fastest we ever put a record out in the history of our company. I think it took 10 days.

Sept. 20

Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theatres and Producers in New York: The first challenge was reopening. You had the twin problems of the emotional challenge and the logistical challenge: The city was locked down, private and public transportation was severely curtailed. Even if you wanted to perform, it wasn’t clear that anybody would or could come to see a show. Forty-eight hours after the attacks, we reopened Broadway, and that was pretty dramatic and very emotional because of the magnitude of the event. The second challenge was attacking the cost structure. Everybody anticipated--more drastically than the reality, as it turned out--that business was going to completely collapse. And sure enough, in the first week it did. Business was off 80%. So the big question on the table was, how do we cut costs to keep shows alive? You can’t buy a ticket to a show that isn’t open. If shows disappear, no matter how good the marketing--doesn’t help. And all these stakeholders in Broadway--the unions, management, theater owners, people with royalties, all got together and said, “We’re going to make it work. We’ve got to make it work, we have no choice.”

The third challenge was how do you get people buying tickets again. People had to have “emotional permission.” People had to feel that it was OK--it was not disrespectful, not inappropriate and not dangerous--to be in the Times Square area. And that task was really led by Mayor [Rudolph W.] Giuliani. Once that message came across, we knew that we had to motivate people into doing it now. If people thought, “Well, I’ll do it next week or next month,” we knew that wasn’t going to do us any good. So that led to a high degree of cooperative behavior and engendered tremendous goodwill in the community because of the urgency of the problem.

Iovine: When I spoke to Neil Young, he said he wanted to sing “Imagine” [on the telethon] and he wanted it to feel exactly like John Lennon’s record. So I called a bunch of people and got the same kind of tape machines that John used for his vocal delay. I was even lucky enough to find the original arranger of the string section on “Imagine” and got those charts for the orchestra. There were a million things like that going on all week. I’ve worked on a lot of charity projects and they are just that--work. But this thing just flowed.

Sept. 21

Iovine: I was at the show in Los Angeles and I knew it was going to be great as soon as Bruce [Springsteen] opened with “My City of Ruins.” At this point, there was no concrete plan for an album. But everyone seemed to agree during the show that it would be great to put out a record. That proved to be harder than the telethon because of all the contracts and legal clearances required, but I think the album is as powerful as the show.

Borda: We lost a number of corporate sponsors that called and said, “We are going to have to put our money into the relief fund back east.” And of course, those first couple of weeks, that was the prime of our single-ticket sales, the kickoff when we do most of our single-ticket sales, and nobody bought tickets during those weeks. So there is no question that during that time we took an income hit, and that’s something you can’t make up for later on, the concerts can’t be rescheduled.

Late September

Hensleigh, screenwriter: We walk around--half our creative time--we’re thinking, “How are they going to blow up the bridge?” It’s embarrassing, when you write action-adventure, the amount of time expended trying to figure out clever inventive ways for the bad guy to destroy [stuff], and in the wake of Sept. 11, it is an extremely disturbing aspect of my job.

I did a full script [“Gemini Man”] that was just ready to submit to Disney. I would have probably turned it in Sept 15, [but] I called up the Disney executive and said this is wrong. This is not what the studio or the American public want. Disney, to its credit, was very understanding. I changed the script, because the villains of the first incarnation were from U.S. counterintelligence, they were Pentagon, [National Security Agency], these are the people who the United States is relying on for help.... I don’t want them to be perceived as bad guys. I don’t think the American public wants to see them as bad guys. I changed it and I think I came up with a more inventive plot.

Jerry Stiller, New York-born actor who co-stars on CBS-TV’s “The King of Queens”: My hiatus began, and I flew back to New York with my wife [actress Anne Meara]. We went up on the roof and looked down on the site, and the policeman, Danny O’Brien, said, “I’ve been on duty for 18 hours, and I can’t remember my area code.” I’ll never forget those words. He was in shock. He had worked around the clock.

Sept. 27

Stiller: It was the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. I fasted. I walked up the street, and I knew about the firehouses.... I went to the one on Amsterdam Avenue off of 66th Street, and I brought in flowers.... The firefighters recognized me from the tube. I said, “I’m so very sorry.” They urged me to go inside and speak to some of the women--the wives. There were four women in their 30s with cups of coffee. They offered me coffee and cake, but I told them I was fasting. “But I want to tell you how sorry I am for what happened to your men,” I said. They thanked me, and I went back home. I really couldn’t deal with much more that day. I went back at 4 p.m. to Yizkor [a Jewish service on Yom Kippur to honor the dead] for my mother and my father.

Viola, video artist: We were looking for a location for the [deathbed] scene. We traveled around and looked at various lakes and bodies of water--most of them in Southern California are reservoirs, sort of man-made lakes. We went to this one place that was so extraordinary, Lake Matthews [in Riverside County], a main reservoir for Orange County. It has these little islands in it and everything, and one of the images I was working with was the idea of the boat going to the isles of the blessed. We had been there around Labor Day, scouting the location and we were all excited about it. We came back two weeks later, after the tragedy, and I brought my video camera--I wanted to do more shooting, we were already in the process of getting permission [to use the location]. But we were stopped by a security guy. He said the area was under FBI jurisdiction because it was a public water supply. “There’s no way you are going to get any permission to come in here.” I was really upset, because it was really like an image that I had in my mind. We ended up shooting that scene in Lake Piru, up north near Santa Clarita--that’s just a recreation area.

Bernstein: We got the print [advertising] campaign going, the unions agreed to give shows cuts, and theater owners and royalty holders came up with their own breaks. We also got the word that $5 of each ticket bought was going to the Twin Towers Fund in the print campaign and then the TV commercial and so on.

First week of October

Wells, TV executive producer: “Isaac and Ishmael” [a terrorist-themed episode of “The West Wing”] wrapped. It was an incredibly fast turnaround. We’re glad we did it.

Bob Levin, head of marketing for MGM: We had a major war film--”Windtalkers”--scheduled for release Nov. 7. The immediate reaction after the attacks was a wave of studios pulling movies that they thought were inappropriate at that time. We never thought of “Windtalkers” as inappropriate. We thought it had a message of how this country stands up and how ordinary men do extraordinary things in times of conflict. But as time went on, we watched as television in this country virtually went commercial-free.

In early October, as President Bush started to talk quite vigorously about war footing, we became concerned that we could find ourselves in a commercial-free environment, that television news programming could possibly go on a 24-hour basis. So we looked at the timing for “Windtalkers” and said, “This is a very good film which we have very high expectations for. The worst scenario for us is to spend our marketing dollars--$7 million, $8 million, $10 million, whatever figure you want to say, and open in a commercial-free environment and never get your footing back.” That seemed way too risky for us. We decided to move the date to June 14.

Ashleigh Banfield, MSNBC reporter: My greatest fear entering Afghanistan was the direction from which we would come. The plan was to come in from the north as many of my colleagues had along with the Northern Alliance. My concern was over the old Soviet helicopters left over from the incursion here a dozen years ago--they are old ... worn down ... and cannibalized ... not a reliable mode of transport. Far too many crash for it to be an acceptable risk. I hoped the Pakistani border at Torkham would soon be liberated and that we would be able to cross there.

Gianopulos, Fox: Joe Farrell [who conducts test screenings for major movie studios] had a study done, to determine how people saw their habits changing, and what it dictated was that people were affected by the event but were really eager to return to enjoying entertainment and finding ways to distract and amuse themselves. Certainly the box office results show that people have sought out entertainment.

A film like [Fox’s] “Don’t Say a Word” was a thriller that had elements of personal jeopardy for the character. That excitement of the clock and the pace of the thriller--that’s what made the movie entertaining. I don’t think movies that provide excitement or adventure or action have stopped having appeal. Ultimately it’s about entertainment and taking two hours off from the reality of the day.

Banfield: Two days later, surrounded by truckloads of moujahedeen, Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, we broached the road and made it. Kabul was a sickening sight--a sea of rubble from decades of war, buildings riddled with bullets, and no place to stay. We bunked in with friends at the crowded Hotel Intercontinental--no heat, no water, no plumbing, no roof, and bullet holes in the windows. We moved out the next day.

Linda St. Thomas, associate director of communications at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington: The first big change we noticed was that there were no school trips. They usually start in October and you can see the yellow buses lined up by the museums. But none were there.

Oct. 4

Valeska Hilbig, Smithsonian National Museum of American History senior associate of public affairs: We joined with the Museum of the City of New York to convene a meeting there. More than 70 people were there from various museums, libraries, historical associations, the History Channel. People were still really grieving, but we realized that we had to at least start a dialogue on what one does in this type of situation. We needed to express some of our distress and talk about what the museum community was called upon to do. The flier invited [participants to discuss] the history museum’s role in a time of crisis. We wanted to talk about how history museums, institutions and academic and public historians should collect, preserve and interpret materials documenting the tragic events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath.

We basically affirmed that we were going to work together and have this be a partnership so we wouldn’t be competing with each other and rushing out trying to collect the same things. We were also bouncing ideas off each other about the role of museums. Some people thought it was very important to educate folks here in the United States about Islam, to explain what happened and to try to prevent a backlash.

Oct. 7

Leslie Moonves, CBS Television president, when the bombing of Afghanistan began and the rescheduled Emmy Awards show was postponed again: That was probably the roughest day of all.... I literally zipped off the golf course and raced home, and the phone began to ring: 400 calls--”Are we on or off?” And I said, “What do you guys want to do?” ... I’m sitting alone in my den, and I realize ultimately it was going to be my call, and I had an overriding fear something bad was going to happen. You realize if something bad happens, you become [World Series goat] Bill Buckner for the rest of your life.

Moonves, on the Oct. 7 press conference, carried live on E! Entertainment Television, at which CBS and TV academy officials announced that the Emmys would be postponed: I did get a call from my daughter right afterward on my cell phone saying, “Daddy, why did you say ‘puke’ on national television?”

Oct. 12

Levin, MGM: Here we are sitting on the morning of the opening of “Bandits,” at 10 o’clock, and a letter arrives in [NBC news anchor] Tom Brokaw’s office and it has anthrax. They evacuate Radio City Music Hall and we find our early grosses [on “Bandits”] just horrible, really horrible. People are clearing out of Manhattan. We found that on Sunday evening, when people who consider themselves regular moviegoers usually attend theaters. We asked them if the anthrax scare had changed their movie plans for the weekend. We found about 20% of the general sample decided not to go to the movies because of the anthrax scare, but when we asked people if they intended to see “Bandits,” 60% said they did. Now, some might say the marketing guy couldn’t get a movie opened, so blame it on anthrax, but we believe that the movie did get harmed.

Oct. 14

Llana, “Flower Drum Song”: The show has given me the opportunity to focus on something positive. I’m glad I’m not doing some dark show about killing and death. Still, away from the theater, I was getting more and more depressed about not being in New York. My best friend canceled a trip out here because of the anthrax scare. She’s usually at every opening night I have. But my parents came out for the opening from D.C.

Oct. 20

Ienner, Columbia: We got involved with “The Concert for New York City” when [VH1 President] John Sykes called to say he wanted a lot of our artists for the show--Billy Joel, James Taylor, Five for Fighting, John Mellencamp. The idea was to do something totally for our city. It was another night I’ll never forget. David Bowie’s “Heroes” was amazing and seeing so many tears when Five for Fighting did “Superman,” which has become the unofficial anthem of the tragedy. There was also the emotional power of the Who, but the moment that defined the evening for me was when Billy Joel took the stage. He sat down at the piano and he put this dusty fireman’s cap on the piano in front of him and then he started playing “New York State of Mind.” I still get chills thinking about it.

We had three recording trucks and five mixing engineers working on the music. Within 48 hours, we had the record completely finished. My hope is that the passion of the music we saw in these concerts continues, and that we have more artists who think first about their music, not how many records they’ve sold this year or how skimpy their costume is. The conviction of the artists reminded us all of a power and passion that have been all too rare in recent years.

Late October, Early November

Bernstein, Broadway producers’ group: In late October, I used the expression in a meeting, “I guess the ‘Kumbaya’ phase is over.” It was one of those times when the group was being contentious about something, not necessarily even having to do with our office but just with each other. As we moved away from Sept. 11, it became harder to reach consensus. Which is what you would expect.

Llana: That was also the week they decided to extend the show into mid-January, and I felt such a mixed bag of emotions. First I was ecstatic, because I knew we needed it. The extension was great for the show. But then we got the holiday schedule: “Oh God, we’re here for the holidays, even New Year’s Eve. I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in New York for seven years--how can I not spend New Year’s Eve in New York?” I feel so guilty that I’m not there with my friends right now. For the rest of my life, I’ll always feel a bit of a loss for not experiencing it with my fellow New Yorkers.

Nov. 5

Moonves, when ratings for the Emmy Awards, finally held Nov. 4, came in at the lowest level since 1990. (The news followed the postponement of the Latin Grammys and President Bush’s decision to address the nation the same night CBS premiered “Survivor: Africa.”): I was relieved [when the Emmys were over].... We had the trifecta. No other network had the bad luck we did.

Nov. 23

Ensler: In the middle of all this, my play “Necessary Targets” opened in Hartford [Conn.]. I started writing this play during the Bosnian war in 1994, when I went there to interview women refugees. It’s gone through many readings. Now, of all times, it was scheduled to open.

It’s about two American women who are sent to Bosnia to “help” refugees. One of their lives is completely changed. It looks at our attitudes toward other countries, what we do and what we think we’re supposed to do. In the course of the play, Bosnian women tell stories, but it’s about the Americans’ journey.

It’s ironic, but people think I’ve written it since Sept. 11. But I haven’t really done any rewrites where I’ve injected any politics. It’s just that with what the play is about, it could not have happened at a better time. The discussions after the play have been very exciting. It’s fantastic to hear how people really are concerned about what we’re doing in the world, in foreign policy and war and the role of women. The play is to some degree an examination of American values. What are our verbs? To make it, to have, to strive, to get, to consume. The play and Sept. 11 are questioning those verbs.

Early December

Lois Weisberg, Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner: After this happened, I personally felt that everything was inappropriate. I used to go to the City Council all the time and say, “If a child is exposed to one artist, that is as good as a policeman saving their life”--I just don’t say that anymore.

Mid-December and Beyond

Hensleigh, screenwriter: I am hoping particularly in action-adventure there is less glibness. If that is the only outcome, that’s good enough for me. I don’t want to see death being made fun of. Do I think there are going to be pictures where bad guys are trying to blow up cities? Hollywood is not going to depart from that. It’s the tone. I don’t think that the American audience is going to have problems watching a film about a nuclear terrorist. They’re going to want it intelligent, intense and real after Sept. 11, not glib and yuk-yuk.

For me, part of my career personally is over. I won’t do it anymore. Maybe I’ll have a picture with my name on it that someone has come in and put in high school humor [but] I’m not going to be responsible for it ....I’m going to do the same kind of films, but not featuring that style of humor or entertainment.

Hilbig, Smithsonian: It will take awhile for us to start collecting items. We are working with professional organizations, including fire and rescue organizations and associations of structural engineers at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We are dealing with history here; we don’t want to set up a memorial. We just want a few items that will very clearly show what this event was, when we look back on it a year from now, 10 years from now or 100 years from now. We have objects in the museum’s collection--like the top hat Lincoln wore the night he was killed--that are symbolic of an event. That’s the kind of thing we are looking for.

Iovine, Interscope Geffen A&M;: People ask me if Sept. 11 will change anything in music and I think it will. If you are a real songwriter who writes about inner feelings and things in the world, you are either impacted by something like this or you’re going to be left behind. I notice it already. Artists in other countries are already familiar with terrorism, but here I think artists feel more vulnerable and that has affected their writing.

Borda, L.A. Phil: I’ve spoken to other orchestra managers, we’re in fairly close contact, and every kind of performing arts organization experienced a trail-off, but we’re actually doing fine now. We were a little slow to come back, but we’re getting back to normal. I’d say it took about six weeks.

First of all, the case for the need for a wonderful orchestra is obvious--people respond to that. But the other is that the people who support the Philharmonic, who are not just ticket buyers but donors, are very loyal to us. Obviously there are strongly competing needs, and it is a time for us to rely on our dearest and closest friends. And it’s too soon for us to say anything about this, because this is our biggest month.

Bernstein, Broadway producers’ group: Two or three weeks into it, when I thought, we’re going to be OK, I immediately leaped forward. I thought, “We’re going to be OK until Christmas, but what happens to the first quarter of 2002?” And that challenge is now every bit as real as it was three months ago. The advances are very soft. The strength of the comeback has plateaued at 12% to 15% off of last year. We had climbed back from 80% off to dead-even compared to the same time last year. But it’s dipped down and kind of flattened out. If we allow that to become the new norm, then the industry is really in trouble. We can’t survive at 85% of potential, and we’re now facing the most difficult two months, January and February. It could be very far-reaching and that’s going to have to be coped with.

I’m pretty nervous. If five or six shows close, that’s 50,000 people a week that go to Broadway, and that economic impact on our business and surrounding businesses will be severe. Maybe that’ll be to the good: re-energizing New Yorkers about going to Broadway. All teasing of “Kumbaya” aside, we’ve built a foundation of group cooperation that should help us over future problems.

McGrath, MTV: I couldn’t stop playing that Moby record [“Play,” the critically acclaimed 1999 album]. Nonstop. I’m still playing it. It’s emotional, spiritual. Over the days and weeks as we went back to work and calmed our nerves about being in Times Square, broadcasting live, it helped ... but all of it, after living in New York for so long and loving it so much, it felt like being at a funeral forever. A long, long, long funeral.

McKenzie, ABT: I think, from the artist’s point of view, the company has gone back to normalcy with a vengeance. The level of dancing has popped up, their concentration is better in the studio, it’s remarkable.

And as an institution, we had started bracing for what’s coming, keeping a wary eye on ticket sales and contributions and whatnot. The truth is, I think our ticket sales for the Oct. 23-Nov. 4 performances at City Center in New York were slightly down. But subscription sales are slightly up. People are coming to the theater. We are making all kinds of contingencies to tighten our belt for forces we can’t predict, changes in foundation support, individual support--it’s still a little bit too early to tell. We were suffering a little bit with contributions being slow to come in, but as of last week, all of a sudden, everything is starting to come in.

Scott, director: The first time I sat [watching “Black Hawk Down”] with an audience that was above 20 or 30 people was in London two weeks ago, at the [British Academy of Film and Television Arts] screening where I had 1,300 people. I was kind of stunned. They all stayed afterwards for a lot of questions. They found it oddly emotional. If you hear someone creeping around the garden, the first thing you do is call the cops. If you have a smell downstairs in the kitchen, you call the fire brigade. These guys in those jobs which we regard as services, they regard it as something more than that. They certainly don’t do it because they get paid. They have a passion for it, because they can make a difference and be a useful part of society.

I think we have a habit of recovering. You have to get on. You have to remember I’m a war brat. I used to be whisked under the stairs when we were bombed every night, because I lived in Ealing [in London]. The back of our house was on the main line and the Germans were going after all the communications. Then being British, from time to time--it’s nothing like Israel and Palestine--we have the perpetual Irish problems. You’re always living with a shadow of it. My office building in London has terrorist insurance on it. One of the main security advisors in Israel said, “Now you know how we live, every day.” It’s called pay attention and really try to do something about it. Can’t turn away from this.

Luhrmann, director: I was lecturing at Yale two days ago, and before that I was doing lectures in Los Angles, UCLA, and Oxford University. There are really intense young people standing up and ... the disregard for cool, and the fearlessness of pushing artificial cool aside, the connection with those ideas and the need to feel. I think before that day, the truth is we had trouble feeling. We were about the carnival of violence. That’s in no way to judge that. But you sort of had to see a building being blown up and people screaming to feel. That was something we went to the cinema to experience. If we can be clear about anything, people aren’t having any trouble feeling at the moment.

There’s been an initial wave, which was very extreme, “The world has absolutely changed,” then came the apparent feeling, “Oh, it’s OK. It’s under control.” But underlying that, what’s undeniable is that the tectonic plates that govern the audience and everybody have shifted. It’s this feeling that we’re not quite sure where we are, we don’t know who we are and what we are, and more importantly where we’re going, while there’s a feeling that the show must go on.

Ensler: I have moments when it all hits me. A wonderful actress just started doing “The Vagina Monologues” in New York. Her husband was killed in the World Trade Center, and she had a baby three weeks later. The play is the first thing she has done, and I felt honored that she chose to do this play. When I thought of what she had been through, I was really moved.

The theater can absolutely make a difference. “The Vagina Monologues” has taught me everything. It’s in 45 countries. In most of those countries, it has linked up with grass-roots movements to end violence against women. I believe in theater more than I believe in anything. It’s the one place left where people are in communities, and where things can happen that are not necessarily planned. There’s some mysterious radical thing that has the potential to transform you. Culture is the one thing we have to break through on different levels.

Luhrmann: I think we storytelling folk, we have a lot to do. We have big job, and we better get on it. We need to be reminding human beings of humanity. At times like this storytelling has many functions, and we need to get on and do that work.

Viola, video artist: The other thing that has happened--talk about pre-envisioning something!--there’s a piece that I’ve wanted to do for about seven years now, there’s a guy walking toward you in this big, dark kind of space, and as he gets really close, a giant cloud of white powder falls on him and sticks to his body and turns him all white like a ghost, and as the cloud clears, he continues toward you--but from that point on, he is totally bewildered. I’ve called it in my notebooks “White Powder on Man,” and I was planning to use a black man as the subject of that piece. For some reason, it never got made. So seeing those images after the collapse of those people covered in dust was very haunting, in a way. You know what? That’s one I think maybe I won’t do. Maybe later--but right now, with this thing only months in the past, I don’t think I would do it. I don’t generally make art based on current events--the place I want to connect with people is as broad as possible, and that “White Powder on Man” piece, in the context of what we have seen on TV, would be quite literal. Maybe in a year or two.

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After the Attacks: Three Months in the Life of a Nation’s Culture

Sept. 11--American Ballet Theatre opens its fall tour in Kansas City, Mo. It is one of the few major performing arts organizations that choose to perform the night of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

--The Emmy Awards, scheduled for Sept. 16, are postponed.

--All Broadway performances are canceled.

--The movies “Collateral Damage” and “Big Trouble” are postponed because of potentially sensitive story lines.

Sept. 12--Architectural presentations for the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art are postponed; several of the candidates cannot get to Los Angeles when air traffic is grounded.

Sept. 13--Broadway, dark for two nights, reopens.

Sept. 14--After sending a car to Denver to rescue a producer stranded by the ban on air travel, the L.A. Philharmonic and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra record “All Rise.”

Sept. 20--On the heels of announcements that a host of plays would close, the League of American Theatres and Producers meets to construct a battle plan for keeping the New York theater world afloat. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani urges New Yorkers to return to their normal lives--and go to the theater.

Sept. 21--Television networks simultaneously show “A Concert for Heroes,” hosted by top Hollywood stars and featuring top pop music acts. An estimated 89 million viewers watch; $150 million is raised.

Sept. 23--MSNBC broadcaster Ashleigh Banfield, whose early reporting on the World Trade Center garnered attention, flies to Pakistan to report for the cable channel.

Sept. 28--”Don’t Say a Word,” a New York thriller starring Michael Douglas, grosses $17 million in its opening weekend. The next weekend, “Training Day,” a tough L.A. police corruption drama, replaces it as No. 1, with $24 million, indicating movie audiences still want to see action films.

Oct. 1--MGM postpones the big-budget World War II movie “Windtalkers,” starring Nicolas Cage and directed by John Woo. The film moves from Nov. 8 to summer 2002.

Oct. 7--The rescheduled Emmy Awards are postponed again when the U.S. begins bombing Afghanistan that morning.

Oct. 12--MGM’s “Bandits,” starring Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton, opens. Its disappointing $13-million weekend gross is blamed in part on the anthrax scare.

Oct. 14--”Flower Drum Song” opens at the Mark Taper Forum.

Oct. 20--”The Concert for New York City” is broadcast on VH1.

Oct 30--As U.S. forces make strong advances in Afghanistan, studios announce the early release of two war movies: Columbia’s “Black Hawk Down” moves from March to Dec. 28, and 20th Century Fox’s “Behind Enemy Lines” is announced for Nov. 30.

Nov. 5--After two postponements, the Emmy Awards are held. Many nominees and winners do not attend. The CBS broadcast, competing against the seventh game of the World Series, receives its lowest rating in more than 10 years.

Nov. 23--A new work by playwright Eve Ensler, who wrote “The Vagina Monologues,” opens in Hartford, Conn.

Nov. 27--CD of “The Concert for New York City” is released.

Dec. 4--CD of “A Concert for Heroes” is released.

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Interviews by Rachel Abramowitz, Robert W. Welkos, Suzanne Muchnic, Diane Haithman, Don Shirley, Brian Lowry, Greg Braxton, Patrick Pacheco, Dana Calvo, Elizabeth Jensen, Geoff Boucher and Robert Hilburn.