Programs | Live Ideas

MONDAY APRIL 16TH, 2018 IRVING PLAZA, NYC CATERING BY BITE FESTIVE ATTIRE GALA CO-CHAIRS RUTH & STEPHEN HENDEL AND SLOBODAN RANDJELOVIĆ & JON STRYKER HOST ANNA DEAVERE SMITH PRESENTING THE LIVE IDEAS HONOR TO:

OPENING KEYNOTE CONVERSATION Democracy is “the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”  – Winston Churchill. Liberal Democracy has always been tested, but today the threats seem especially serious and the stakes higher than before – particularly in...

Free public readings to honor 12 Radical Visionaries who gave up much to deepen and challenge our understanding of democracy. APR 19, 4PM Russell Frederick reading as Medgar Evers Tamar-kali reading as Ida B. Wells Aisha Tandiwe-Bell reading as Mamie Till-Mobley Queen Godis reading...

It is widely known that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The criminal justice system disproportionately affects people of color and effectively keeps the poor in poverty.  Despite differing motives and proposed solutions, conservatives and liberals have increasingly agreed on the need for...

In Spiritrials, addiction, religion and the law intersect in a court-ordered drug rehabilitation program.  A timely exploration of the American criminal justice system, this multidimensional play blurs the line between hip-hop and dramatic performance. Writer/performer Dahlak Brathwaite weaves through the autobiographical and the fictional,...

Thomas Jefferson wrote that if forced to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” A free press was so important to the Founding Fathers that they included its protection in the First Amendment, alongside...

A monologue by Mike Daisey. The End of Journalism explores how journalism in America ended, peeling back layers of “real” and “fake” news to find the darkly hilarious truth about the world we’ve made. Daisey is hailed as the pre-eminent monologist in the American theater...

Tocqueville argued in Democracy in America (1835-40) that Americans showed how democracy in the modern world might look: when they want something done, they form democratic associations to accomplish it. Just fifty or sixty years ago, one in four people held leadership positions in local politics. Today, most of us...

Are free and open elections at odds with the democratic process? In the face of gerrymandering, voter suppression, campaign finance abuse, election tampering, and a disillusioned electorate, is now the time to reinvigorate our electoral system, or get rid of it?  What are the alternatives? Join us for...

Big Tech (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple)  has a hand in everything we do: what we think, what we buy, how we vote… And as seen in the last election, the tech companies that wield such tremendous influence over our lives are themselves subject to interference and manipulation.  Meanwhile,...

An evening of cutting-edge performances hosted by Drag King Elizabeth (Macha) Marrero from the Bronx.  Featuring Portland based extended technique vocalist, composer, and performer Like a Villain (Holland Andrews), multi-octave and multi-genre singer Joseph Keckler, Choreographer/dancer Marguerite Hemmings, Drag...

Throughout human history, communal singing has served as a source of both solace and empowerment for societies in crisis. Voices raised together in song can energize and propel through uplifting expressions of solidarity and resistance. Drawing on legacies of protest songs that have fueled social justice movements of...

Co-presented with the Abingdon Theatre. This staged reading is of a new play based on the 1920 ad hoc disciplinary tribunal of five administrators at Harvard University formed to investigate charges of homosexual activity among the student population that began with the suicide of a student. The affair went unreported until...

In a remarkably short span of time, President Donald J. Trump has transformed our culture. His achievement is not measured in his ability to build a border wall, heighten mass incarceration, impose a travel ban, or launch a military strike against North Korea. It is that these ideas...

A secular liturgical performance of Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail 2018 marks the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, a Radical Visionary.  This participatory ritual/performance appropriates the structure of an Episcopal liturgy and brings to life the...

Take up space as an act of resistance and release pent up political angst on the dance floor with festival-goers and participants. High energy layered dance music by DJ JLMR and special guest performance by spitfire cabaret artist Daphne Always and The Dauphine of Bushwick. Back to the festival...