Our group of learning disabled adults has been in existence since 1985 performing plays throughout the East End of Long Island. In 1987 we were invited by then Governor and Mrs. Mario Cuomo to perform Mikado in Mime at the Governor’s Mansion in Albany as part of the Very Special Arts Program. We receive grants from Suffolk County Decentralization through The Huntington Arts Council to supplement local funding. Individual donations added to the funds received from The Towns make up our operating budget.

     
     o Our Mission Statement is: “To enhance the lives of learning disabled adults and through the theater arts make their world grow larger. To create in each player a strong self-image with pride in himself or herself and to develop skills and talents which have heretofore not been tapped. To cooperate and coordinate with other organizations, agencies and associations which share our purposes.”
     
     o To foster our mission we have a company of twenty players and a part time staff of four including an Artistic Director, Production Coordinator, Production Designer and Production Stage Manager. We produce one play a year and incorporate local artists in varying modalities. This year’s production is You Are A Petunia In My Garden, written by the Players themselves about their lives, hopes and dreams. Last year’s production was Scams of Scapin in the style of Comedia de l’Arte and featured a mime from the Marcel Marceau School and a chamber quartet. We traveled to Rockland County to perform Scams for Camp Venture. In 2002 we produced an ancient Irish folk tale, The Legend of Deirdre with a group of Irish Dancers, an Irish vocalist and musicians. It is our goal to use local artists in our productions. In 2002 we also produced a live broadcast on LTV and WVVH reaching an audience of over 600,000. In 1999 we produced Cyrano de Berjerac with narration. Don Lenzer, noted cinematographer captured over seventy hours of videotape for a full-length documentary, which is being edited for national release. We have an active Board of Directors that meets once a month and our group of players rehearses every Saturday at a senior citizen’s center in Bridgehampton, New York. Our history is rich in content and I would appreciate the opportunity to share it with you in the form of playbills, brochures, reviews and other printed materials.
     
     o It is our goal to reach out to other groups throughout the United States and Europe. In this we have made contact with companies in Ireland, Italy, England, Canada and here at home in Pennsylvania through the World Wide Web. We would like to travel and perform for and with other groups and bring more visibility to this invisible segment of our society through increased funding for special projects.

The East End Special Players, Inc., is a 501 (c) (3) Corporation sponsored in part by the Towns of Southampton and East Hampton and private donations. Our group of learning disabled adults has been in existence for 20 years performing plays throughout the East End of Long Island.