Grace Church in downtown Jersey City is small and Episcopal, with no pews and a double colonnade, its arches recently brightly repainted by a parishioner. There have been arts festivals here for 11 years, and Susanna has produced three of the last seven. The fine artists whose work in a variety of media is displayed around the edges of the sanctuary were all required to submit slides, and only 47 were chosen of the 60-odd who applied. It was more difficult to find the performers who make up A Winter's Call to Spring. We advertised in the local papers, posted notices around town and sent them to our mailing list, too, because we really wanted diversity this year.
Jersey City is the second-most diverse city in the country.
Don't ask me who's first. The parochial school across the street has 27 different nationalities. We're dependent on what we find, and last year's lineup was heavily weighted towards dance and singing. Although we wanted more diversity this year, we wanted quality too, so we held auditions. We accepted a Native American shaman, who was going to open the event with a blessing of the sanctuary, but she unfortunately had a conflicting gig, so we lost her.