Voices from the NAG: Brian Sostek

From now until the Beaux Arts Ball [December 19: buy your tickets now!], we’re featuring the ten portraits created by photographer Craig Perman for the Voices from the Northfield Arts Guild project. Each of the subjects was photographed in a setting appropriate to their artistic discipline and asked to answer the question: “How has the Northfield Arts Guild enriched your artistic life?”

Featured artist Brian Sostek will be teaching a special dance lesson on Dec. 12 to help you get ready for the Ball

“Somewhere in the basement of the NAG theater, there once hung—and possibly still does—a photo that bears testament to the power of this community arts organization to bring people together for the sake of creating something together. The people, in this case, were my sister Hilary and me, who under normal circumstances wouldn’t usually elect to spend the bulk of our free waking hours in close proximity. This wasn’t a normal circumstance. We had both been cast in The Sound of Music by our father Ed, the director, and our mother Toni, the choreographer. We were kind of like the Four Cohans, but only for one show and with slightly more drama.

“It was in that, and all subsequent productions in which I was involved at the Guild that I started to learn a philosophy, albeit unbeknownst to me at the time, that I have come to appreciate and apply more and more in my professional artistic career. It is one that promotes cooperation over competition in the interest of creating a good product. It is one that capitalizes on the strengths of a group of people and figures out creative ways around the weaknesses. It is one that demonstrates that a small group of dedicated people can indeed change the world. Or at least put on a hell of a show.

“Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I was or am blissfully unaware of the tensions that arise among a bunch of artists, each of whom has their own opinion about how best to spend the limited time before opening night. But I have come to look at each production I get to do as a chance for a new, little community to put our collective skills together and come up with something uniquely possible, and sometimes, when we’re lucky, uniquely wonderful. Even if I do have to occasionally suppress my own idea about what’s best, and kiss my little sister on the cheek in public.”
- Brian Sostek

{Voices from the Northfield Arts Guild}