Meet TACT Member Reva Brown

By Nora Chester

TACT could not have survived, let alone thrived, for over two decades if not for the enthusiasm and dedication of our loyal members. We cannot begin to express how much your support means to us. And we want to know more about you, about how you found us, what TACT means to you, and what keeps you coming back year after year! So here begins a new feature of our Newsletters where we hope to bring all our TACT family closer together. And it is all about you, our subscribing members.

In the small northern Indiana town of Mishawaka, there were not a lot of opportunities to see live performances, but nonetheless, through high school dramatics and a memorable teacher, Reva Brown was able to nurture her love for the theatre. Christmas vacations were often spent in New York City, where she and her older brother attended Broadway shows every night – and went twice on matinee days!

Those were heady times and after her college years, one of the main reasons Reva moved to New York was the opportunity to see great theatre. And boy, did she! Over the years she saw some of the legendary performers of the stage: the Lunts, Katherine Cornell, Helen Hayes, Judith Anderson, and she remembers a young Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Not just Broadway, but theatre of all kinds drew her attention. She attended performances at The Julliard School where she was impressed with a young actor named Greg MacFadden. His bio mentioned that he had become a member of a company called TACT which performed near her home on the Upper West Side, and she decided to see what it was all about. She inquired about a subscription for the next season and became an immediate fan and supporter of our company. From those days at the New York Historical Society, then our years at Florence Gould Hall, and now here at the TACT studio and Theatre Row, she has continued to bring her friends to see our work, to joyously participate in our audience talk-backs, and she is a staple in the front row at our Salon series. With Broadway ticket prices through the stratosphere, TACT’s low ticket prices and high artistic values keep her coming back year after year.

Some seasons she sees a whole roster of plays she’s never even heard of, and then there are times TACT has revisited a favorite piece she hasn’t seen in years, and she thoroughly appreciates both experiences. Although she praises all of TACT’S productions, she was deeply impressed by a Salon performance of Rattigan’s Man and Boy and although not generally a Neil Simon fan, she had high praise for our recent Off-Broadway run of Lost in Yonkers. Thank you, Reva.