Earthlight's Brightest Light & WOODSTOCK'S Unrequited Revival

My Woodstock experience with the critically acclaimed theater troupe “Earthlight” is nothing short of the best adventure yet. After a winter in NYC performing in a mafia store front in little Italy we came to Bethel, converted a barn to a theatre and performed somewhat traditional and experimental theatre.  Earthlight became the primary conduits that saved the venue-less & in jeopardy Woodstock festival by connecting Woodstock Venture’s staff with Max Yasgur’s farm. Then Earthlight brought in Swami Satchidanda; is seen with him on stage; and did street(ensemble theater) throughout the festival as seen in the Director's cut of the Woodstock documentary and rather recklessly re-created in Ang Lees 2009 "Taking Woodstock."

  Cut to August 2019, Earthlight remains superhero hippies for their1969 humbling heroics, however inadvertently, but we couldn't save Woodstock twice, could we? flash-forward to this current hot summer, Michael Lang’s darkest cloud follows him around as his 2019 Woodstock Revival Fest is finally put to bed with no party and no performances but he marches right along to the beat of his own cool drummer - and the rest of us? We will ever get back to the garden? What are your thoughts?

EARTHLIGHT NEWS🌈 BLUES & REVIEWS

WHATS GOIN' ON⁉💥 Earthlight Co-founder/producer Allan Mann Is doing a revival of Earthlight. When I first heard about it in mid-2017 it seemed kind of old school. When Trump was elected and the whole country was turned upside down...I realized the true significance and longevity of this show. Earthlight has both an ethereal and eternal quality, but don't just take it from me - here's what the critics have said:📡 "It {Earthlight} suggests how it {society) is now and what it could be, it leaves me with the real positive sense of human potential.” Symposium (Northwestern U). "leaves one feeling ... HOPEFUL...It's something everyone should see." The State. "Wow, do they celebrate"'...The Boston Herald Traveler. Allan Mann with co-creator Jane Richardson had thegenius, foresight and vision then & still has it now. I can’t wait to see                                                 how he'll do it this time;
                                       

...circa 1970

...circa 2010

Earthlight's 40th reunion took place at the Drake Hotel in San Francisco on Oct. 16, 2010 and Oct. 17 at co-founder and internationally acclaimed artist Lady Jane Richardson Mack's house.

Woodstock 's Original Earthlight

Reunites in San Francisco

Setting the Record Straight  

Critically acclaimed EARTHLIGHT THEATER was the only theater company to perform at the original Woodstock Festival in 1969 and be seen in the Directors Cut of the documentary.  They will reunite after some 40 odd years at Bar Drake in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel at Post & Powell on Saturday, October 16 from 4:30 until 7:00 PM. The press and public are welcome to join in this first stop in this reunion celebration.

          EARTHLIGHT reveals the true story of an era that continues to fascinate us.  They reunite to celebrate their work and set the record straight.  Having been so misrepresented and maligned in Ang Lee's 2009 "Taking Woodstock.", it should have been called "Faking Woodstock."  The LAWeekly said "As dumb a depiction of avant-guard thespians as something Jesse Helms might have said."

          In truth, Earthlight was one of the premiere avant-guard groups in this country between 1969 - 1972. They not only performed at Woodstock but were instrumental in bringing the festival to Bethel, its ultimate venue and setting the tone by insisting Swami Satchidananda open the festival. They were on stage with him as well. They were paid $1,000 ($3,500 by today’s standards).

         They were a group of highly trained actors, transforming time & space, and audiences into new dimensions and receiving rave reviews: 

** "What Joyce or Pinter might have done if they were born in this country"       
                                                                                                                  Harvard Crimson

     "The best parts of Second City, The Committee, Hair and The Living Theater”    
                                                                                                                 The Daily Northwestern 

     "Nothing less than pure essential theatre"                   Los Angeles Times

     "an unquestionable success"                                            Variety

They combined theatrical and spiritual principles and their work is as relevant and needed today as it was in the past.

        After Woodstock, Earthlight moved out to CA and had their own theater in Venice; following that year a run off-Broadway incorporating Dunhill recording artists Pure Love & Pleasure. They opened for Billy Preston, Taj Mahal and worked with David Bennet Cohen of Country Joe and the Fish.  Berkeley based in 1971 they performed in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley and Project Artaud in San Francisco and prepared for the last of their seven national and international tours. The fabled blue bus they travelled in exists in history along with the buses of Ken Keasey and the Hog Farm. 

                    Co-founders, Director, Author & Spiritual Warrior Allan Mann and celebrated Bay Area Artist, Jane Richardson-Mack join Author and Healer, Barbara Wilder, Swiss Actor, Doug Fowley; African Activist Wendy Blakely; the fabulous sisters Diskin, Porscha & Ellyn and others including members of Pure Love & Pleasure (John, Rob and Jackie) to celebrate their past & future.  A book, documentary and stage revival are in the works!   

Most of this started on comic and founding member S. Rachel Lovey’s blog, where Earthlight members continue to find each other & connect through their past to the present. 

http://woodstockandearthlightrevisited.blogspot.com

Who knows what's in store for these members of 60's royalty who are still sooooo pretty?  Join them for a toast on October 16.  They are available for pictures, stories, and interviews.

CONTACT MEDIA CO-ORDINATOR

S. RACHEL LOVEY (310) 926- 5689  srachellovey@hotmail.com

        

Earthlight did have it’s reunion on Oct. 16 & 17 and it was as fabulous as I imagined it to be. And we came together from all over the world, almost. Well Doug Fowley, the late Kim Fowley's brother came from Switzerland, Wendy from Africa , Jacque from Oaklahoma, Barbara (Porsha) from Oregon and everyone else from L.A. and San Francisco area. Most of these folks had responded to the Blog which made it even more exciting for me. (Check original comments on Blog) The experience really challenged the old adage “you can’t go home again.” “For one brief shining moment” we did time travel and for a nostalgia freak like myself, it was grand. The fact that the main party was held at co-founder Jane's house overlooking the hills of Marine was a perfect setting.
One of the surprise additions was David Mcanally,the co-lead singer of Pure Love and Pleasure, the Dunhill recording group that Earthlight joined up with after Woodstock. In fact all the musicians showed with instruments which only brought the whole experience literally back from the past. Sadly David past away a few years later. No one had heard much from Eva Nicholson, who was never in the show but was the girlfriend of Richard Williams. He was famous for his nude scene in Earthlight (very tasteful of course) who became a psychic minister & whom we never heard from after that...any ideas? Boy that Eva could sing and Jane did pretty well herself. I did a stand-up comedy routine and handed out awards to Allan, Jane, & Porscha (Ellyn Diskin's sister) who was never in the show. She was more like a mascot. Very capable as an entrepreneur, showering us with that NY spirit and essential to making the reunion happen. Sadly she passed away as well in the last few years. Everyone else got an Honorable Mention. Stan Goldstein, Chief of Staff at Woodstock and our sound engineer Off-Broadway, interviewed everyone on film. I was pretty stoned & stoked by the whole experience and I was missing a lot of teeth (which I’ve since had fixed). Sadly, Stan passed a few years ago as well. Let’s face it getting older(as they say)is not for sissies. Only good thing about all these people passing; It does make me look good, all I have to do is breathe. I don't take their passing lightly, I did dearly love these people. I hope I am taking advantage of the gift they left: this life, as we know it, will end eventually for all of us...Give it your best.

🎈HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY WOODSTOCK ✌🏼️ YOU STILL LOOK GREAT!

So I'm finally starting to write about the 50th anniversary of Woodstock and one of the two festivals planned is tentatively canceled,TODAY. I was planning to do some mc and warm-up work but that's another long story. In addition ABC is doing a weekly one hour special on (of all things) "1969'. They're flashing back and forth ...one scene is Woodstock, the next scene is The Manson Family Massacres. They happened the same week-end. Carnage and Celebration: so much for my persistent nostalgia for the past. You may have noticed the format of the blog has changed but that's another long story. I heard someone say maybe they're cancelling it because the original woodstock performers are either dead or in a home. P-l-e-a-s-e, we are not your grand-parents,grand-parents. But we have lost many great ones: The high priest (besides Swami Satchidananda who has passed as well), was Ritchie Havens whose voice flooded the festival but it felt he was just singing to me and I would say the late Joe Cocker must have done the sound track of my life. Another long story is how many others have passed but will post later. With so many deceased the fact that David Crosby & Graham Nash are not speaking or performing together could make me puke. It's criminal, pathetic and yet another long story.

NEW BUSINESS & CHEERS

EARTHLIGHT REUNION IS HAPPENING IN OCTOBER.......YIPPEE!
AFTER 40 SOME ODD YEARS THE GATHERING OF THE CLAN WILL HAPPEN...MORE TO FOLLOW.

MY EVENT "WOODSTOCK AFTER 40...DOES ANYONE CARE CELEBRATION?" IS DEVELOPING.

OLD BUSINESS & KUDOS

OLD BUSINESS
FOLLOWING ARE 3 ARTICLES I'VE WRITTEN...ONE FROM CNNireport, ONE FROM "LIFE AFTER 50"
MOST IMPORTANTLY..MY & OTHER EARTHLIGHTERS RESPONSE TO THE TWISTED & DISTORTED IMAGE OF EARTHLIGHT IN ANG LEE'S "TAKING WOODSTOCK." MUCH MORE TO FOLLOW.


KUDOS
IN 2009 MY BLOGGING & WRITING WAS ONLY ACCOMPLISHED WITH THE GENIUS AND KNOW HOW OF PARTNER ATHONY McBRIDE. MICHAEL KRAMER FILLED IN FOR ANTONY AND CONTINUES TO DO SO THIS YEAR. KUDOS TO McBRIDE. THIS IS ACTUALLY THE 1ST BLOG I'M POSTING BY MYSELF. I WAS FORMERLY HOMELESS IN CYBERSPACE, THEN HOPELESS, AND NOW,STILL KICKING AND SCREAMING INTO THE 21ST CENTURY....I'M ADJUSTING.

REMEMBERING WOODSTOCK AND EARTHIGHT STORIES MADE POSSIBLE WITH THE HELP OF EARTLIGHTERS ALLAN MANN, JANE RICHARDSON-MACK, AUGUST PETER GEORGE, ROBIN MIDE, WOODSTOCK STAFF HEAD, STAN GOLDSTEIN,AND PICTURES AS CREDITED BY ROY ARANELLA.

**RETAKING WOODSTOCK AND THE NOT SO NAKED TRUTH ABOUT EARTHLIGHT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comic S. Rachel Lovey, An original founding member of Earthlight Theater responds to Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock", and the depiction of The Earthlight Theater Company in the feature film.

I'd been blogging http://woodstockandearthlightrevisited.blogspot.com and bragging about my experience performing at the Woodstock Festival with the Earthlight theatre troupe. I was an original member of the company. For me it was theatrically, spiritually and romantically one of the best experiences of my life. Apparently I was not alone. NYU Washington Square Journal writes; "One leaves Earthlight a little more hopeful, refreshed psychologically and physically....Earthlight offers a common understanding, a beginning."

Although I knew Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock" had "taken liberties" with the authentic Earthlight story, I was surprised to see how hostile the theater troupe was presented when I went to opening night here in Los Angeles, and my friends had to hold me down as I preceded to yell back at the screen "It didn't happen that way!"

The naked truth of "Taking Woodstock" was not the Earthlight players running around naked and removing their gold robes (it never happened, they always had the lovely tie-dyed gold loincloths on underneath) but the semi-pathetic way this delightful and critically acclaimed theater company was depicted in the movie. The LA Weekly also noticed .."as dumb a depiction of avant-garde thespians as something that Jesse Helms might have concocted." It seemed someone recreating the Earthlight theater in the movie "Taking Woodstock" may have taken that "brown acid" that everyone was told not to take at the original festival and had just not recovered.

Here's some potential rehabilitation and reality checks for Elliot Tiber and "Taking Woodstock's" distorted view of the Earthlight Theater Company;

REALITY
First of all the Earthlight theater company really did exist. From 1969-72 they were regarded as one of the premier avant-garde theater companies in the country. They started in a store front in Little Italy, then moved to White Lake.

HALLUCINATION
They did not live or do "God knows what else" (as suggested in the movie) in the barn. They rented a 6 bedroom house from Elliot Tiber for $800 for the summer and built a proper and attractive theater with the help of the community that was supposedly so hostile to them. "A joyfully muddy success during the Aquarian Exposition at Bethel," said the local Times-Herald-Record.

REALITY
They not only espoused the peace and love mantras, they incorporated them into theatrical realities, as well. We were not the viscous parasites begging for a potato as depicted in the movie. "The Earthlight troupe manages to spread joy. light and love in exhilarating amounts." Phoenix Times-Herald-Record.

HALLUCINATION
Here's a classic reality check problem...Mr.Tiber contradicts himself. In the movie "Taking Woodstock" we observe Elliot Tiber reading the paper and telling the Earthlighters that he discovered that the Woodstock Festival had lost it's Walkill site. Yet, in Elliot's original 2 books Woodstock Delirium and Knock on Woodstock p(96), Elliot writes; "The troupe's director was reading the local Times Herald Record. Suddenly he got upset and read the paper to us all. Guys, the Woodstock Festival is being thrown out of Walkill." Of course the troupe's director was Earthlight's own, Allan Mann.

REALITY
Earthlighters wore gold robes and never threw them off in a hostile manner to expose themselves..We wore gold robes because we were to go on stage with Swami Satchidananda (he wore a gold robe but not the tie-dye loincloths that we had underneath). Our director Allan and first lady Jane had suggested to Woodstock producer Michael Lang using the Swami to set a peaceful and spiritual tone and he took their advice and we connected the Swami and Michael Lang.

HALLUCINATION
In the movie, it shows Earthlight did Chekhov's Cherry Orchard in the nude. We never did Chekhov, nude or otherwise. We did Albee, Genet, Williams, and developed specific exploratory theatre techniques based on the principles of open and living theater, Jerzy Grotowski, the Committee and even Hair.....The Daily Northwestern says "the best parts of Second City, The Committee, Hair and the living theater are embodied in this young, fluid and really together
company".

REALITY
We were paid $1,000 by the Woodstock Ventures, many of whom including the producer and coordinator would hang out at the theater or the big porch at the house. We performed at the festival site as seen in the Directors Cut of the original Woodstock documentary.

We bought a bus and painted it with clouds. We did 7 US and Canadian tours, had a show in Hollywood and Venice, California for a year and also ran a year off-Broadway as a musical with a Dunhill recording group "Pure Love and Pleasure." We were part of the original "Earth Day" program and at various times opened for musicians like Billy Preston, Bonnie & Delaney and Taj Mahal.

The Los Angeles Times said "Earthlight is nothing less than pure essential theater...incisively and with great awareness they glorify humanity, a reminder of what modern theater is really all about."

After I left the theater I moved to Los Angeles permanently. I just found out this summer that this flower child picture of me has been running in dozens of magazines and galleries over the years . I'm keeping my inner flower child (even my inner hippie bus) intact, I will always be an Earthlight Chick and I am Re-taking Woodstock and the not so naked truth about the Earthlight theater company.

Lovey's blog is http://woodstockandearthlightrevisited.blogspot.com
S. Rachel Lovey is a comic, actor, blogger, and club producer and has been honored and roasted at the Friar's Club and is an original founding member of the Earthlight theatre, who were featured in Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock".
S. Rachel Lovey can be reached for correspondence and interviews at 310-926-5689 srachellovey@hotmail.com

EARTHLIGHT AND WOODSTOCK ARTCLE IN "LIFE AFTER FIFTY" MAGAZINE

WOODSTOCK REVISITED Sept 2009 S. RACHEL LOVEY

40 years ago this month a group of hippies took over a field in upstate New York and made musical history

S. Rachel Lovey (Photo: Roy Arenella)
One of the lovely things about getting older is when someone mentions a past cultural or historic event and you can say, "I remember that, I was there."

I find myself on the anniversary of Woodstock—the legendary August, 1969 music festival—in a joyous state. Well, more joyous that I was there and less resentful that it was so long ago. I was not only at Woodstock on the 600-acre dairy farm in rural Bethel New York, but performed there with the Earthlight theatre troupe.


I never spoke much about my hippie and Woodstock days until about 10 to 15 years ago. Maybe I thought it dated me. Family members mistakenly thought I had taken too many drugs. Most of my friends thought I had taken too few. I had always struggled between normalcy and outrageousness, so after Woodstock I became an eccentric stand-up comic. That’s how I found my real drug of choice in the late 70's—caffeine. I haven't had a good night's sleep since 1976. 


I got a reminder of Woodstock in the mid-80’s. VHI was on T.V. and one day I hear this very familiar voice saying, "Give me an L-O-V-E.” I realize the voice is mine and the rest of the Earthlight troupe, and it's the out-takes of the original 1970 Woodstock documentary of the event, which took place in a field in up-state New York. I feel like I am looking at myself in another dimension, another time. The fact that I are wearing tie-dye loin cloth that barely covers my skinny body doesn't help. 

Woodstock 1969 is a different time—Nixon is president, the Vietnam War continues and, as a country, we readily sing along with Country Joe and the Fish. "Now it's one, two, three, four... what are we fighting for?” Assassinations are yet to occur, and we still fight racism, sexism, homophobia, uptight laws and morality.

So when Wavy Gravy from the Hog Farm yells out "What we have is breakfast in bed for 400,000," or Joe Cocker with his disjointed body and raspy voice sing "I get by with a little help from my friends," we feel close. Looking around at Woodstock’s apparent chaos we see what a new community might be. True, there is not enough food, not enough sanitation or first aid, too many drugs, too much mud; but there also is a sense that for these 3 to 4 days of music, people have come together for peace and celebration.

What a party it is. Thirty-two of the best-known musicians in the country are here, in what goes down as one of the greatest moments in popular music history.

In preparation the festival, Earthlight, my theatre troupe, rehearses at the designated festival space. We are fortunate enough to be brought on the main stage with Swami Satchidananda as he blesses the event, bringing some kind of magic medicine to the festival. History says he sets the tone for Woodstock and, inadvertently, so do we.

Earthlight goes on to do "theatre pieces," a somewhat more spiritual version of street theatre in the campgrounds. One piece is a "love cheer," another a human pollution machine—I play poison! We perform "Mine," a theatre piece in which we use one word to symbolically take over the world.

FREEDOM
Richie Havens, Woodstock’s first performer, sings "Freedom" as if he s in a trance, channelling the very spirit of freedom. It still gives me a chill 40 years later. Joan Baez not only does her stage set but, if you look closely in the movie, you can see her gathering people to sing folk songs. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young quietly evoke the haunting sweetness that lingers thru the era and until this very day.

Even my boyfriend's moaning and groaning over his 10-mile, 10-hour drive to get to the festival fail to keep me from noticing the raw wailing of Janis Joplin and near crying of Jimi Hendrix's guitar. 


Not much has changed in the four decades since Woodstock. The naysayers still say it's the hedonism, the drug abuse that bring society down, lead to the spread of A.I.D.S., and the lack of respect for authority. 


Yet, before the pre-packaged, pre-hyped events of today, before current celebrity hysteria, the paparazzi, TMZ, and Entertainment Tonight, the Woodstock Festival all those years ago resulted in an amazing “happening” of peace and music. Wow, we were something.

Nowadays I'm always blogging, facebooking and twittering about my hippie and Woodstock experience. As I get older, connecting myself to those years gives me the kind of relevance that rock and rollers have, (even old rock and rollers like the Rolling Stones) and gives me much more credibility with younger audiences, students, nieces and nephews.

Despite the drug extremes of the period I am thrilled to have been a part of that era and have had the privilege of saying, "Woodstock?, I remember that, I was there." •


Earthlight performed for a year after Woodstock off Broadway. The troupe can be seen in the director’s cut of the Woodstock documentary and loosely re-created in Ang Lee's up and coming "Taking Woodstock."

S. Rachel Lovey is an original founding member of Earthlight Theatre, a stand-up comic and motivational humorist. Visit her blog, the at woodstockandearthlightrevisited.blogspot.com. The Tie-Dyed Diaries 


CNNireports on EARTHLIGHT & WOODSTOCK

CNN producer note

iReport —
S. Rachel Lovey is an original founding member of Earthlight theatre seen in the Director's cut of the Woodstock documentary and loosely recreated in Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock" She's a stand-up comic, actor, producer, motivational humorist "The Hoping Coping Groping, Laugh & Live" and Improv's Comedy traffic experience, honored and roasted at the Friar's club for her work, seen in t.v, film and of course on youtube. Please Visit her Blog. http://woodstockandearthlightrevisited.blogspot.com


Before the hippies came to Bethel, NY for the Woodstock festival, we were the hippies in Bethel. In the winter of 68, I was working with an off-beat theatre company called Earthlight in a storefront in little Italy, sandwiched between the mafiosos that also had storefronts in little Italy on Mulberry Street. In the spring there was an ad in the paper for a barn that could be converted into a theater in Bethel, N.Y., thus, we became the theatre company that was at the converted barn at the El Monaco Motel, which became the central headquarters (command post you might say) for the original Woodstock Festival. As I remember it we heard that the producers of Woodstock were in trouble with their original location, so we told our landlord, Eliot Tiber about it. He was good friends with Max Yasgur and the rest is history and part of the story loosely re-created in Ang Lee's new film "Taking Woodstock".

Michael Lang hired us to be the "street theatre" at the festival. We were a motley group . Our director Allen Mann, a graduate of Columbia influenced by the Living Theatre, Poland's Jerzy Grotowski , the Committee, Jane his partner, an interior designer and artist of all mediums, Darlene a singer from Canada, Steve, a computer geek even in 1969, rock and roller Rodney was evading the draft, one guy was an ex-con who brought his wife and 3 kids for the summer, Paul, who's the only one I know who's passed on, celebrated his homosexuality but still had time for a moment or two or three for intimacy with the ladies. At one time there were Hare Krishna practicing twins, a Woodstock baby. and even a visiting pet monkey.
A week before the festival, we rehearsed our sketches (theatre pieces) in an empty field of Max Yasgur's and blessed the space that the multitudes would soon fill. I will admit we were under the influence of some magical medicine that I had never heard of before or since. I like to think of it as a distant cousin of LSD...
We were an evolving spiritual group, even practicing yoga. Swami Satchidananda asked us to get on stage with him as he blessed the festival. It is said that he set the tone for the festival; indirectly so did we, we had an obvious "in" with the swami and had already blessed the space a week before.
For some reason we actually designed and made these gold tie-dyed loincloths to wear for the festival, guess it was sort of a tribal thing. We looked like we were naked with big dark sores or mud all over ourselves. We worked in an open space amongst the crowds along with Tim Hardin who seemed quite out of it. Not that I remember that much myself. You know the old saying, If you remember the 60s you weren't really there. One piece was a love-cheer, literally give me an "L," give me an "O". We were a human pollution machine, I played poison in one piece, we used the one word "mine" to show how the world destroys itself and then is reborn. We were saved from being "message theater" because of our joyous and zany movements and attitudes.
We were hearing bits and pieces from the outside world that the festival was a disaster, the rain, the mud, that they had to fly in emergency food, that there was bad sanitation, bad drugs, that we had shut down the freeway and you couldn't get in or out. All the elements of a disaster were there but it didn't happened. It was like that cliche "what if they had a war an no one showed up,." What if we really could go back to the Garden and start the human condition all over again, We were comforted when Wavy Gravy announced "what we have hear is breakfast in bed for 400,000". Maybe we could do it differently. Or maybe this is just a reflection of a former hippie chick longing for the old daze. Sometimes when we talk of Woodstock it's like speaking of the Kennedy era......for one brief shining moment....and of course pychedellics makes everything seem so eternal..
For us it was a chance to be part of a groovy concert, a chance to strut our stuff and be around the big guys and the greatest music, we had no idea that history would ultimately look at Woodstock as the pivotal event of the Counter Culture, that 40 years later we'd still be analyzing the meaning of the Festival of Peace and Music at Max Yasgur's Farm. .
. .


The theatre, as I remember it, was ten minutes from the festival site. The festival week-end that trip took 10 hours. We stayed in a tent or in sleeping bags. In between sets, we helped prepare food/gruel with the hog farm, we were thrust on the main stage during a downpour and we did some kind of Indian chant to stop the rain. We were back stage trying to get next to our icons and I do remember somebody bad mouthing Bob Dylan, and said he really couldn't sing. I remember Richie Havens, the first one up, singing "Freedom" as if he were in a trance.. Joan Baez moved amidst the crowd gathering people to sing their own folk songs, Crosby,.Stills,Nash & Young surprisingly evoked a quiet haunting sweetness that lingered through out the decade and even today, Sly really did take us higher if that was at all possible. Even my boyfriend's moaning and groaning over his 10 hour instead of 10 minute drive did not keep me from being totally swept away by the raw wailing of Janis Joplin and the near crying of Jimi Hendrix's guitar, Soon we'd be wailing for both of them "Don't leave us so soon.....Don't go...Stay!".....They were both gone within the year.
Of course, when everyone slowly left the Festival, this little town of Bethel, we remained for the rest of the summer. We even became part of the clean-up crew picking up the mud fossilized boots, blankets, belts, buckles and suitcases.
Earthlight Theatre was paid $1,000 for performing at the Woodstock Festival. A lot of money in those days. Thank you, Michael Lang, the producer.. We bought a bus painted it with clouds, came to California then did a national tour, and came back to off-Broadway in New York as a musical with Stan Goldstein, the chief of staff at Woodstock being our sound director. It's been said of Earthlight Theatre "Nothing less than pure essential theatre......incisively and with great awareness they glorify humanity," LA TIMES.
The springboard that allowed Earthlight to connect itself to a broader stream of consciousness and humanity,
Rather than remaining an avante-guard group in the early days of So-Ho. We were able to travel all over the country and spread the 60's gospel. Not only "sex, drugs and rock and roll", but we can do better, we are better, we are one.(Ohm).
Ohm, Peace, Good Hashish, Ohm Shanti Boom Boom to the Maharish,
We were all into that old drug trap...What I wouldn't give for a
Good Flashback.!
That's part of my stand-up act. I didn't talk about Woodstock for 10 or 15years after the fact.Maybe I thought it dated me. Hippies disintegrated into grunge)
(making hippies appear to be well groomed) Family members thought I did too many drugs.. Friends thought I did too little. I had always struggeld between normalcy and outrageousness, So I became an eccentric stand-up comic. I finally found my drug of choice in the late 70's, It was caffeine, I have not has a good night's sleep since 1978. Being part of this Woodstock Experience makes me feel historical as well as hysterical.
No matter what events have happened since 69, good and bad: another Kennedy Assassination, racial strife, Vietnam War, the horror of the Manson family, the Nixon tapes and impeachment, Disco, the Berlin Wall torn down, AIDS, the Gulf War, the Clintons, the Clinton/Lewinski debacle, the Bush/Gore debacle, Columbine and other school shootings, 911. The Iraqi and Afghani wars, Gay Marriage, Barach Obama as President, Michael Jackson's death, we are still talking about Woodstock, 40 years later, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
S. Rachel Lovey...Formerly known during Woodstock as Sheila Cohen.

THE ORIGINAL EARTHLIGHT CAME TOGETHER IN A MAFIA STOREFRONT AND IT WAS CALLED TREEHOUSE II.

S.RACHEL LOVEY originally known as SHEILA COHEN.

The year before this Earthlight business began was the luckiest year of my life. I had been teaching and directing an afternoon theatre arts program in New Haven, Connecticut. Considered so politically correct(a word not yet invented in 69) that the avant-garde of the Yale Drama School invited me in to their inner circle and I started doing plays with them and taking classes with Joseph Papp. I ultimately moved to NYC and walked past 8Th ave and 23rd streets to catch the subway and a man stopped me and said "I can't let you just walk out of my life" and we were together for a while, I had a tiny part in an off-Broadway show with the fabulous character actor Elsa Raven. A snooty, self-absorbed, actress played the lead and had a starring role on Broadway as well. She had a nervous breakdown and I became the leading lady. My ex-roommate in New Haven, who had stolen a few of my boyfriends as I remember it, was recovering from her own nervous breakdown and told me about a friend of hers who was starting a Theatre in Little Italy on Mulberry Street and that I should look her up.


ALLAN MANN

Allan Mann, the originator of Earthlight, became the director and had a profound influence on the writing and spiritual basis of the group. He was into "new age" and "new thinking" before they even coined the phrases. Later on as the theatre company became somewhat of a commune as well as a theatre, there would be some conflicts as to who was in charge...Allan's original idea came from an inspiration from Robert Heinlein, science fiction writer "Stranger in a Strange Land," who believed theatre could raise the planet's consciousness, also the Living Theatre, who created a communal universe through sound and movement, and The Committee, who performed funny and finely crafted improv and scripted bits. Allen had been living in Los Angeles the year before Earthlight (Treehouse II is what it was called originally) working with The Committee and Motown. He had graduated from Columbia University with a masters at Sarah Lawrence. His book "A New View, A Modern Mystical Vision" will soon be published.


JANE RICHARDSON MACK.

Jane Richardson (Mack), Allan's partner and girlfriend at the time had been an actress at the New School with Joseph Chaiken of the Open Theatre. Her artistry and spirituality had a huge impact on the style, movement and design of our eventual show. She had a profound influence on me as a woman, she could add style to making a pot of lentil for a group of 20 or putting a ribbon around a bed sheet and making it look sexy. For some reason, I remembered to this day, that her father was a sea captain. She and Allan met at the Living Theater and decided to form a Theatre. She currently is a singer and interior designer living in the Bay Area, and is also an artist working in Verree Eglomise, mirror embedded design.

ROY ARENELLA

Roy Arenella, an internationally know photographer-artist, who's taken many of the pictures that you see here on this Blog, had a brother who had roomed with Allan Mann in college.(I have not totally verified this next section but don't forget, I remembered Jane's father was a sea captain and this is the way I've always told the story so I must be right)Roy and some other Italian friends of his, one of which had been a friend of my roommates in New Haven, grew up on Long Island. Their parents had done well and adopted an appropriate middle class life style, Roy and his cronies were annoyed somewhat and they move to a few apartments in Little Italy in Mulberry Street to find a more authentic Italian lifestyle and one that would be less plastic and retain more of the old Italian culture. On the other hand, they were interested in bringing more contemporary art and even a theatre to the neighborhood.


This was the Little Italy of the late 60's.....like in the Godfather. No sweet cafes, no trendy theatre, no boutiques;just mothers yelling out the windows for their kids, an occasional St. Genaro's festival, but mostly mafia storefronts. Mafia storefronts, sometimes set up to look like legit businesses and sometimes not. It was amongst these mafia storefronts that we opened up our theatre, which would eventually be called Earthlight, originally we called it "Tree House II". And if you must tie it into Woodstock imagery, Treehouse II was our version of Jonie Mitchell's "trying to get back to the garden" only we were not going all the way back to the garden....just to the treehouse".


EARTHLIGHT ARRIVES IN BETHEL AT THE NOW INFAMOUS EL MONACO MOTEL. S. RACHEL LOVEY ON THE RIGHT SITTING NEXT TO THE POST AND THE SHIRTLESS EARTHLIGHTER!

The Magical Tie-Dyed Tour in Review

Audiences responded well all over the country to Earthlight.. First at White Lake where the Woodstock Festival took place. "Earthlight, an avant-garde theatre, was a joyfully muddy success during the Aquarian Exposition at Bethel....THE TIMES HERALD RECORD. In Phoenix "the troupe makes it their business to spread joy,light and love in exhilerating amounts..a perfect balance of theatrical tightness and free form expression", THE PHOENIX. In Los Angeles,"nothing less than pure essential theatre...incisively and with great awareness, they glorified humanity...a reminder of what modern theatre is all about." The LA TIMES. In New York "They incorporate modern legit techniques, minus the humorlessness and self importance which often afflicts similar enterprises. They enjoy themselves on stage, and their pleasure is communicated to the audience."VARIETY"


Being involved with Woodstock was a catalyst for our later success, But more importantly, we were more than a show with hired actors. We left our homes in New York, Ohio, Cleveland and lived that 60's counter-culture life. Traveled around on a hippie bus, cooked brown rice and vegetables for one another, got into a big circle and chanted "OM", we are one, and even believed it for a time. We did what all good hippies are supposed to do, party and drug test....but always kept in mind that raising our and others consciousness was a worthy pastime and in the mean time we did "hatha yoga", Grotowski and other weird theatrical movements and exercises, and fought with each other like real families do. We tried to find love that was spiritual, sexual, orgiastic and good for the environment and not believe in war, greed, or in anyone over 30. All this time we were trying to make home made bread and tie-dye smocks and translate our lives into a valid theatrical experience. Those critics listed as well as many others thought we did just that.

Mudslinging and Naked Rumors!

(Photo is of Earthlight from The Photography Exhibition at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theatre, 1970)

I am getting a hold of more and more Earthlight Theatre people. You can see from this picture that we were a loving group. There is some discussion, that I will only mention briefly at this time that Earthlighters were always taking off their clothes. We lived in an era that taking off your clothes was normal, particularly on stage i.e. "Hair", "Oh Calcutta", and alright, one night after Woodstock. Earthlight did a naked show at the "Open Theatre" in New York City, c'mon why do you think it was called the "Open" Theatre? You can see in these pictures we mostly just looked like we were naked. When you're wearing tie-dyed loincloths, it looks like your naked with big black sores all over your body. Maybe that's where the rumor started that we threw mud at each other while we were naked.

Another rumor I read about on the Internet is that we yelled at the audience. This must have been started because of one Theatre piece that we did called "Hippie/Straight"(Straight back then meant conservative). We split the stage and/or the campground space, on one side were the straight people, one person was typing away like she was in a office, another Motherly type was ironing, and then a man shaving.. On the other side were the hippies, one doing yoga, one picking flowers, and one smoking a joint. Then they go after each other with slogans. The Straight People would yell; "America love it or leave it." Hippies would yell "Make Love Not War." Straights would yell "Get a job". Hippies would shout, "Get a Life." "Get washed" "Get real: etc., As we started moving toward each other I would come running through them, a la Ethel Merman singing "Grab your coat and get your hat,leave your worries on the door step, Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street", and soon from the left to the right, hippies and straights, joined in with me, we ended up in a chorus line...kicking up our feet just like the Rockettes!