By Mabel Pais

LEADING THROUGH CRISES: GOV. MURPHY ON NJ, THE PANDEMIC, & THE WAY FORWARD

Halfway through his first term as New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy was confronted by a crisis of extraordinary magnitude: A worldwide pandemic, which immediately impacted NJ, followed by an unprecedented financial downturn.

Murphy fought these dual emergencies with every tool at his disposal — daily briefings, limits on indoor gatherings, a celebrity-studded COVID relief fundraiser, even “Don’t Be A Knucklehead” signs on major highways to remind Garden Staters to embrace social distancing. Thanks to his leadership, New Jersey successfully “flattened the curve” of coronavirus infections — but the state still faces the pandemic’s second wave, lingering economic hardship, and delays before a vaccine is available.

Join the next NJPAC Business Partners “Roundtable @ Home” at 9AM on Friday, December 11, for an enlightening 30-minute conversation with Governor Murphy at the to find out what the Governor learned from the singular challenges of 2020, and his plans for the year ahead. Follow the registration link below; details for logging onto this Zoom meeting will be emailed to you.

njpac.org/support/bprt-registration-form/

For more information on the event, contact businesspartners@njpac.org

John Schreiber Pays Tribute to NJPAC’s Eunice Peterson

“Eunice insisted that every artist — from Aretha Franklin to a local student who’d never been on stage before — got the same high-level care.” Allison Wyss, NJPAC’s Senior Artist Assistant, (worked with Eunice for over 20 years)

In an open letter to NJPAC wellwishers, John Screiber, President & CEO of the Arts Center, pays tribute to recently deceased Staff member, Eunice Peterson. He considers NJPAC’s team members as NJPAC’s “owners” – because they see NJPAC as “their” place. They’re deeply invested in ensuring that it thrives. Schreiber considers the Arts Center (NJPAC) to be blessed in having a team of fierce advocates (“owners”) working to advance its mission. He believes that of all these “owners” of NJPAC, Eunice Peterson, who passed away recently, was “one of the proudest and one of the most effective.” From the Arts Center’s opening in 1997 through the Spring of 2019, Eunice was the Senior Artist Assistant. An artist assistant is the person who greets performers when they arrive at NJPAC’s stage door, brings them to their dressing rooms, and sees to their every need while they’re there. A good artist assistant will know how to give performers just what they require — silence or conversation, a cup of tea or a warm towel — so that when they appear on stage, they feel nurtured and valued.

“They feel, in short, like they’re at home. And no one did that the way Eunice did.

She just had the gift of hospitality. When performers came to NJPAC and spent time with Eunice, it was like they were hanging out in their momma’s kitchen, that’s how at ease they felt,” Eyesha Marable, Director of Community Engagement, tells John Schreiber. Before she came to the Arts Center, Eunice’s first career was as an in-demand backup vocalist who toured and recorded with Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston, Darlene Love, Dionne Warwick and many others from the 1960s through her arrival at NJPAC.

“I have this beautiful memory of hanging out with Dionne Warwick, Johnny Mathis, Lee and Eunice in the production office of NJPAC, and all of them just talking about the good old days,” says Chris Moses, NJPAC’s Senior Director of Production. Eunice and Chris Moses’s predecessor, Larry Goldman, created the artist assistant program at NJPAC before the opening night, basing their approach on that of Carnegie Hall.

“Eunice insisted that every artist — from Aretha Franklin to a local student who’d never been on stage before — got the same high-level care.”

“Because she remembered what it was like to be a performer. She would tell stories of all the times she was on the road, how hard it was, the things she encountered: No proper dressing rooms, no access to food, even the unacceptable names she was called as an African-American artist touring in the 1960s and 1970s. She vowed nothing like that would happen to any artist at NJPAC.”

Eunice’s performing days didn’t end when she came to NJPAC. In 1998, a year after the Arts Center opened, Larry decided to establish a community choir and encouraged staff members to audition. Eunice was a charter member of what became the ‘Jubilation Choir’. She sang soprano with the choir until she fell ill.

“She’d traveled the world with a lot of these artists, she knew them personally. We ended up on a lot of projects, like Dionne Warwick’s latest, really because of Eunice running her mouth about the choir. She’d say to them: ‘Oh, y’all sound good, but you need to hear my choir’ and give them a bunch of CDs,” Rev. Stefanie Minatee (Rev. Stef), Artistic Director of the Jubilation Choir, says.

“Genuine,” “sincere” and “loving” are the words almost everyone at NJPAC has reached for to describe Eunice as her passing was mourned.

That sincerity, that love, made the Center’s backstage a uniquely warm and welcoming space, and a particularly appealing one to artists. Great artists know when you’re for real and when you’re just going through the motions. Eunice never went through the motions.

“Although we miss Eunice’s hugs and her caring, her outfits and her remarkable voice, she’ll never really be gone. When you go backstage at NJPAC, you’ll feel her spirit. You may not know her the way we were privileged to, but her vibe — her great, comforting, warm, loving vibe — is embedded in our walls. This was her place; it always will be,” Rev. Stefanie Minatee.

(Mabel Pais writes on Health & Wellness, The Arts and Entertainment, Social Issues, and Spirituality)