The Triangle Factory Fire Project

When we arrived at St Marks Theatre the first person we saw was our dear friend, Richard Hillman, publicist for The Actors Company Theatre (TACT) and this benefit performance of  a fantastic piece of theatre. His work has paid off because we got the last two seats. TACT had presented a fully staged version of this piece in 2004 but because March 25th is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle fire, many members of the original cast gathered to perform a staged reading of the piece as a fundraiser for the theatre. There were some memorable performances, particularly from Nora Chester..

 and Francesca Di Mauro, pictured in the 2004 production.

Through personal eyewitness accounts and court records the astoundingly transformational actors created scores of characters to unfold the story of the lead up to the tragedy, the horrible conflagration itself and in  the second act the farcical trial which found the two owners of their tinder box  not guilty of manslaughter. 146 people, mostly women, died that Saturday. And the accounts were shocking in their clarity but often poetically beautiful, too.

This is the set photographed after the show. The main backdrop is a floor plan of the ninth floor of the building which suffered the worst of the horror.

All those people lost their lives in this

for this