Wednesday’s Watch Party of Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 American biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Al Pacino, John Cazale, featuring Chris Sarandon. It chronicles the events following a bank robbery by John Wojtowicz and was inspired by a 1972 Life magazine article “The Boys in the Bank” by P. F. Kluge. The film sticks fairly close to the true narrative. Two guys held up a small bank and through a series of comic and tragic misfires this leads to a 14 hour standoff with the police. The hook of the story for many was that Wojtowicz was robbing the bank in the hopes of getting the funds for his partner Elizabeth Eden’s gender-affirming surgery. To this day Al Pacino character, Sonny Wortzik, and his partner remain two of the highest profile LGBTQ characters in film history.
But what about Eden?

40 years later, Dance, Theatre, and Media company the feath3r theory began a search for the true motivations and outcome behind the bank robbery in a production they are calling WEDNESDAY. Their theatre veritè live documentary dismantles the film in an attempt to re-center the story on the company’s Artistic Director, Raja Feather Kelly’s relationship to Liz Eden, for whom the character Leon in the film is loosely based. Their production chronicles the complexity of story-telling, representation, community, and ultimately the search for self. Do we make the culture we consume, or are we consumed by the culture that creates us?

In March 2020, the feath3r theory and the development of their production WEDNESDAY came to a halt, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. But their queries have not stopped. Who gets to tell whose story and what story is it that we’re telling?

On the 45th Anniversary of Dog Day Afternoon, Kelly hosts a watch party of the film, but not before reminding (or revealing to) audiences that the film is based on a true story, a real life, and a real person. The watch party will include an interview with actor Chris Sarandon, who played the role of Leon based on Eden in Dog Day Afternoon. Kelly hopes to conduct more interviews with prominent figures in the LGBTQ+ community addressing representation, story-telling, community, the the search for self in popular culture and their production of WEDNESDAY.

RSVP BEFORE SATURDAY AT 3PM TO ATTEND!

If you have any questions or need further clarification on accessing the watch party, check out the trouble shooting guide here, or email us at help@newyorklivearts.org both leading up to and during the event.