NEW YORK—The Hospital Audiences Inc. (HAI) project story begins when the young aspiring Michael Jon Spencer had just graduated from college, and started his studies at Harvard Law School. But three months later, the Los Angeles native realized he had made the wrong decision and instead moved to New York in hope of studying music.
After two years of study at Mannes College The New School For Music, Spencer was ready to give his graduation piano recital. The school sends their students to practice, while providing entertainment to mentally ill patients, at the Manhattan State Hospital. When hospital staff saw that he was especially good at hosting these musical events for the patients, they suggested that he perform a concert series. “Once I started doing these concerts, I found them so meaningful,” Spencer said.
Then one day, while at a music fair with a very small audience, he realized he could fill up the seats with patients in need of a breath of fresh air.
After all, in the 1960s, many mentally ill patients were kept inside institutions for decades without ever stepping outside of hospital confines.
When he saw that a free concert was going to be held at Carnegie Hall, he seized the opportunity to bring four busloads of patients to attend. When the program finished, one patient, who was always stoic and unresponsive during Spencer’s piano recitals, smiled at him upon leaving the theater. “When I saw this man smile, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to create an organization to get people out of those places and into concerts.”
Spencer went about finding a way to achieve his goal, and learned that foundations would be willing to fund projects like his. Thus, he sent letters to each of the 3,000 foundations he found in a library listing, hoping to find a benefactor willing to help his cause.
Two of them replied to his letter, including the Maya Corporation, a foundation created by philanthropist Alice Tully, so named to keep her donations anonymous. In 1969, Spencer opened an office and officially founded his organization. Since then, many foundations, as well as city, state, and federal governments have provided funds to support Spencer’s Hospital Audiences, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing those less fortunate with access to cultural events.
HAI has been able to bring patients from various nursing homes and hospitals in the state to Broadway shows, concerts (including one in the former Fillmore East rock palace in the East Village), museums, and numerous other outings, such as apple picking, and a viewing of the light show on Fifth Avenue during the holiday season.
HAI is especially busy in the summertime, bringing patients to numerous outdoor events around the city. Patients who are confined to their beds are placed on specially-designed stretchers and transported to the events by HAI’s own omnibuses, which were designed to accommodate the disabled.
For those who are unable to get out, HAI brings the performances to them. Professional artists are hired to perform for these patients. On any given day, there are four to six performances taking place.
Art Workshops
HAI also provides art workshops on Saturdays for the mentally ill. Patients work with professional artists to develop the skills to communicate through art. Some of the pieces are on display at Outsider Art exhibits.
But HAI does not forget to serve the young as well. Their youth development programs help young adults develop “the ability to empower themselves,” Spencer said, through art projects and organized college tours. Role-play techniques are used to teach young adults AIDS prevention.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, HAI worked with Princeton University in a recovery program to “get students from the schools that were heavily impacted [by the 9/11 attacks] to go to cultural events and lift their spirits, breathe some life into the students.” Princeton students traveled to the schools to give discussions on the shows they were watching. Schools in Staten Island and Queens neighborhoods also participated in HAI’s program, as many families there had lost loved ones who were first responders during the attacks.
In the 1970s, HAI also helped schools with drug-prevention programs to show students that there were other ways to spend their extra time. HAI brought them to cultural events “to show them there’s other ways to get high other than drugs,” Spencer said.
Three years ago, HAI also started a “Weekend For Heroes” program, where brain trauma and amputee patients from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., are invited to spend a weekend in the city for “rest and relaxation.” The patients are disabled from serving in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and Spencer thought the program would be a good way to thank them for their service. All the activities and meals are sponsored by and organized by HAI.
Currently, Spencer is back to piano playing, while planning for a new program to help wounded Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers and their families upon their return home to the city. “When soldiers come back to the greater New York area, permanently disabled, they must need some type of support psychologically to reconnect with the family, the community, or their jobs … and arts can be a great supporter of the psyche of people who are being challenged.”
