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Arthur Mark: From Professor to Actor to Urban Transformation Activist
The idea for the Symposium came to Arthur Mark, who lives in Narragansett, RI, as he read an article in the January 2004 edition of the RSA Journal on the Liverpool "Renaissance." The piece caught his attention because the city of Providence was also announcing its rennaissance. In fact, Providence has been named as one of the 10 best cities for living in America. Excited by the concept of comparing and contrasting the experiences of the two reborn cities, Mark began to work on a proposal for the Syposium which he presented to the RSA-US in March. Rennaissance Man Mark is himself no stranger to rennaissance and this may be the project he was born for. At the age of 59, he had already made a radical lifestyle and career decision by deciding to become a full time actor, a childhood dream he had set aside years before. In pursuing this all consuming passion, he unearthed a deep truth about himself that his colleagues, friends and even his family could not have guessed: he was far from done. To all eyes -- his own included -- he had every reason to be content. He was a successful educator, capping his long career with a professorship at the University of Pennsylvania at East Stroudsburg. In addition to teaching, he had helped raise two daughters, and was deeply involved with Business and Industry for Arts in Education (BIFAE), a nonprofit organization he founded to develop corporate sponsorship for arts programs in schools. His arts advocacy and on-going involvement with the Royal Society kept him on the go, meeting and speaking extensively. He also found time to advise student teachers. As he describes it, "All the brass rings were won." Yet, despite the comfortable pension, the title of professor emeritus and other academic honors, something was missing. A desire unfulfilled. As he saw it later, keeping busy with BIFAE after he retired from academia was another distraction from who he is and what he wanted for his life. Heartstorming It took Arthur many months of "heart-storming" -- infinitely more difficult than brain-storming, he says -- to arrive at the truth. Then, summoning up every ounce of courage he could muster, he took the plunge into the competitive, challenging New York acting scene. To build acting credits, he followed the well-worn path of scores of star-struck twenty-somethings: commercials, soap opera walk-ons, long hours on the set, long hours on the phone, auditions, more auditions, readings, rehearsals, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway. By age 70, Arthur Mark had theater, film and television credits under his belt, and felt himself just hitting his stride as an actor. He felt "connected to the world as never before." Now, five years later, he has an even bigger game: to contribute to civic life in his adopted state and create a model for urban revitalization and development of the future. Through his efforts, an impressive list of bi-national sponsors and participants have been assembled, and the event promises to be a milestone in the calendar of the city in 2005 and, not incidentally, carry out the RSA mandate: "to embolden enterprise, enlarge science, refine arts, improve our manufactures and extend our commerce". This year, Providence, next year, Liverpool? More information: www.charityadvantage.com/RSA_US/SymposiumEventSchedule.asp
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Educator turned
successful film, stage and television actor, Arthur Mark Ph.D., launched
himself into his personal Act III as Chair of the Rhode Island Symposium, a three-day
event held in June 2005, at the Rhode Island School of Design in
Providence, RI. The event -- Transforming Urban Communities: Lessons from
Providence, RI, and Liverpool, England -- is a program of the Royal Society, a nonprofit
organization founded in Britain in 1754 of which Mark is a Fellow and ardent supporter.
Open to the public, the event will explore in speeches, panels and roundtables, why
some urban communities -- in this case, Providence and sister city, Liverpool, which were
declining in the 1970s -- are able to make a dramatic turnaround and become models
of economic and social vitality a couple of decades later.