Podcasts about skirball center

Co-Founder and Board Member, Drs. Kevin and Heather Shannon share the inspiring story of Camp del Corazon — a transformative summer camp for children with heart disease. Hear how one patient's journey ignited a movement to create a safe, empowering space where kids can embrace their scars, form lifelong friendships, and experience the joy of camp without limits. From the challenges of the first year to the life-changing moments that keep them going, the Shannons share how Camp del Corazon has touched countless lives and redefined what it means to live fully with a medical condition. The Shannon's will be honored at The 22nd Camp del Corazon Gala del Sol on April 5th, 2025 at the Skirball Center. Get your tickets or participate in the online auction here. #galadelsol #campdelcorazon #heartcamp #camplove  PH Kiddos 7-17: Applications for Camp are open! Apply here. (Be sure to note Lucas Van Wormer in the application!) Learn more about pulmonary hypertension trials at www.phaware.global/clinicaltrials. Follow us on social @phaware Engage for a cure: www.phaware.global/donate #phaware Share your story: info@phaware.com

Maurice Sendak, author of “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Alligators All Around,” is the focus of the Skirball Center’s new exhibit, which includes original art and first editions of his books.  The Supreme Court ruled that former President Trump has immunity for some of his official acts. How will this affect his federal trial regarding the January 6 insurrection?  The Supreme Court recently ruled that cities have the right to break up encampments of unhoused people under anti-camping ordinances. What does the Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling mean for LA? Press Play rebroadcasts our ur last in-person interview at the beginning of the COVID pandemic — it was with musician/humorist Kinky Friedman. He died last week at age 79.

A GRAMMY Winning, NYC based singer-songwriter Joanie Leeds is a National touring artist, early childhood educator and activist. For her original children's music, she has won a GRAMMY for Best Children's Album for her album, All the Ladies- a gender equality album for families, 1st place in the USA Songwriting Competition, International Songwriting Competition Winner, Independent Music Awards, Gold Parents' Choice Awards, NAPPA Gold Awards, Family Choice Awards and is a John Lennon Songwriting Award Finalist. Joanie has performed her dynamic and engaging folk-rock creations tailored for family audiences for 15 years at venues such as Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Clearwater Festival, The Kennedy Center, Skirball Center, Lincoln Center, Wolftrap Filene Stage, and Levitt Pavilion. Her music has been featured in The New York Times, People Magazine, Parents Magazine, Huffington Post, Billboard, NPR and The Washington Post. Joanie's 11th album, FREADOM, is a collection of songs inspired by banned children's picture books. 

Rabbi Michael Beyo and Dr. Adrian McIntyre talk with Rabbi Ysoscher Katz about leaving Orthodox communities and navigating the contemporary world.Rabbi Ysoscher Katz is the Chair of the Talmud department at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and the past Senior Rabbi of the Prospect Heights Shul. He studied at the Satmar, Brisk, and Beit Yosef Navaradok yeshivot. Receiving his smicha shortly after high school, R. Katz has taught Talmud and halakhah at a wide array of institutions. For nine years, he delivered a daily daf yomi shiur- twice a day in Borough Park- attended by many. During the past years, he has taught weekly Jewish thought and Talmud classes for professionals on the Upper East Side and Park Slope, and at the Skirball Center for adult education. A graduate of HaSha'ar's educators program, he also worked as the Judaic studies coordinator for the innovative Luria school, and taught at Ma'ayanot, SAR, and Ramaz High Schools. In addition, he has directed the Lindenbaum Center for Modern Orthodox Halakhah, composed responsa on vital contemporary halakhic issues, and writes extensively on matters pertaining to Jewish society for publications including the Forward, Jerusalem Post, Makor Rishon, and the Times of Israel. He lectures widely, most recently in Jerusalem, Melbourne, Zurich, and LA, and has been a visiting scholar at Jofa, Eshel, Pearlstone and Limmud.Conversation with the Rabbi is a project of the East Valley Jewish Community Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, neighborhood organization that has served individuals and families inclusive of all races, religions, and cultures since 1972. Visit us online at https://www.evjcc.org The Conversation with the Rabbi podcast is supported by a grant from Arizona Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act.The show is recorded and produced in the studio of PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more at https://phx.fm

Saul Robbins is interested in the ways people interact within their surroundings and the psychological dynamics of intimacy. His photographs are motivated by observations of human behaviour and personal experience, especially those related to loss, unity, failure, and the latent potential residing in traditional photographic materials and personal history. Robbins is best known for “Initial Intake”, which examines the empty chairs of Manhattan-based psychotherapy professionals from their clients' perspective; “How Can I Help? – An Artful Dialogue”, a pop-up office into which he invites strangers to speak with him about anything they wish for free and in complete confidence. Robbins is also the father of a young boy and since 2012 has created several series of abstract “photographic drawings” and sculptures made from physically altered chromogenic paper and chemistry in response to his desire and struggles to start a family, including: “Where's My Happy Ending?;” “Chemical Peels;” “Fertile Gestures;” and a new series of traditional photographs. Exhibitions include The Bolinas Museum, Blue Sky Gallery, Busters, Deutsche Haus at NYU, chashama (Windows Installation), Griffin Museum, Humble Arts, ICP, KOLGA TBILISI PHOTO, Lilac Arts, MASQUELIBROS Artist Book Fair, Lilac Arts, Massachusetts General Hospital, MICA, Museum of Fine Arts – Houston, New Orleans Photo Alliance, Ost Gallery, Moscow, Pelican Bomb, Portland Art Museum, The Educational Alliance, Philoctetes Center, Skirball Center, Mark Woolley Gallery, White Gallery (PSU), and others. His photographs have been published in Aufbau, Berlin Tagesspiegel, CPW Quarterly, D - La Repubblica, Dummy, More, The New York Times, Real Simple, TAM, and Wired, among others. Grants and awards include The Covenant Foundation Ignition Grant, Sony World Photography Awards (Finalist), U.S. Embassy, Tblisi, GE, AJPA Rockower, Gunk Foundation, and New York Foundation for the Arts. Curatorial projects include Intervening Histories, OFF_Festival, Bratislava (2015), Projecting Freedom: Cinematic Interpretations of the Haggadah (2010), Regarding Intimacy (2007), and No Live Girls, Peep Show 28 (2002). Robbins was awarded a NICA Stipendium from Berlin's Hoch Schule der Kunste in 1998, and received his MFA from Hunter College (CUNY) in 1999, where he studied with Roy DeCarava, Mark Feldstein, Juan Sanchez, and Thomas Weaver. He teaches photography in New York City and has been leading Master Workshops internationally, helping photographers and artists to incorporate communication and professional development strategies into their creative practice. Interview with Saul Robbins recorded by Michael Dooney on 14. May 2021 between Berlin and New York via Squadcast. Portrait photo by Matthew J. Bernuca   NOTES Full episode transcript (online soon) Saul Robbins Official: https://www.saulrobbins.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Saul.Robbins/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saulrobbins/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saulrobbins/

Tune in every Friday for more WOW Report. 10) Hot Doc: Explant on Paramount Plus @00:58 9) Dune Redux @07:06 8) Star Trek: Exploring New World's at LA's Skirball Center @10:37 7) Ben Blames Jen (Garner) @17:40 6) Caitlyn Jenner Denied Entry at Polo Lounge @22:33 5) A Musical Moment with Michelle Visage: West Side Story @26:02 4) Ken and Barbie Killers: The Lost Murder Tapes @31:59 3) Coming Out Colton: Do We Care? @37:04 2) Rest in Perfection: Anne Rice @43:28 1) The Year of Michelle Visage @48:14

THIS VOYAGE, the Treksperts hit the road for an exclusive Q&A with Trek enthusiast SCOTT "MOVIE" MANTZ at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles as MARK A. ALTMAN (showrunner, Pandora; writer/producer The Librarians, Castle, Agent X) & DAREN DOCHTERMAN (visual effects supervisor, Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition) lend their insights into the making of the classic Star Trek episodes "Arena" and "Balance of Terror" and continue the conversation on the podcast with more engaging discussion about two of Trek's greatest episodes. And if you haven't been to the Skirball Center's "Exploring Star Trek" exhibit yet, what's stopping you? The exhibit continues through February. For more information, visit Skirball.org. New episodes of INGLORIOUS TREKSPERTS available every Friday. And don't miss our in-depth curated episode audio commentaries on TREKSPERTS BRIEFING ROOM every Saturday wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn all that is learnable about Star Trek in Mark A. Altman & Edward Gross' THE FIFTY-YEAR MISSION, available in hardcover, paperback, digital and audio from St. Maritn's Press. And if you're a James Bond fan, don't miss NOBODY DOES IT BETTER, in hardcover, paperback, digital and audio from Forge Books. And don't miss SECRETS OF THE FORCE, the definitive unauthorized, uncensored oral history of STAR WARS, now available in hardcover, digital and audio!! Follow Inglorious Treksperts and Treksperts Briefing Room at @inglorioustrek on Twitter, Facebook and at @inglorioustreksperts on Instagram. THIS FALL'S ELECTRIC SURGE PODCAST LINE-UP available wherever you listen to podcasts and streaming on the free Electric Now app! Monday: Best Movies Never Made Thursday: The 4:30 Movie (Season Five Coming In 2022) NEW DAY! Wednesday: The Rebel & The Rogue Friday: Inglorious Treksperts With Mark A. Altman & Daren Dochterman Saturday Mornings: Cartoon Barroom w/ Ashley & Steve Saturday Night: Treksperts Briefing Room Leverage: Redemption AfterShow (streaming exclusively on video on Electric Now) #StarTrek #TOS #TAS #TNG #DS9 #VOY #ENT #DISCO #PICARD #LLAP #comics #IDW #Marvel #DC #GoldKey #Discovery #DeepSpaceNine #STTMP #StarWars #CaptainPike #StrangeNewWorlds #55YearTour #casting #ST55 #StarTrek55 #TheCage #StrangeNewWorlds #SNW #Voyager #Janeway #Skirball During the pandemic, we are still recording remotely and not in the studio. As a result, the quality of the audio may not be up to our usual high standards. We trust you will nursemaid us through these difficulties. Please stay healthy and safe... and keep on Trekkin' - ingloriously, of course!

Kim's  career has taken her from Broadway to the West End to the international concert stage, resulting in a most unusual career path unmatched by any other singer. She continues to specialize in musical theatre, bringing the classic American songbook to leading music venues across the world, both in symphony settings and recital.  She has sung at La Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, the Accademia Nazionale Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Théâtre du Châtelet and the Opéra Comique in Paris, Concertgebauw in Amsterdam, Carnegie (Weill) Recital Hall in New York, the Musikverein, Konzerthaus and Volksoper in Vienna, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, the Snape Maltings Concert Hall in Aldeburgh, and the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, not to mention multiple appearances in London at the Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican, the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Rooms, Cadogan Hall, and the Linbury Studios at the Royal Opera House, and elsewhere, from Reykjavik, Helsinki, Leipzig and Kaiserslautern, to Athens, Essen, Gothenburg and Bremen, to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Malta, Montpellier, and Moscow, giving her a unique platform among interpreters of the musical theatre repertoire.She has had the pleasure of singing with many of the world's greatest symphony orchestras, ranging from the Berlin Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, with whom she has recorded Leonard Bernstein's Wonderful Town in a version that then was repeated as a BBC Proms concert, and as the New Year's Eve Gala in Berlin, to the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia and London Sinfonietta, the Liverpool Philharmonic, the Northern Sinfonia, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Orchestre de Picardie, the Orchestra della Toscana, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Toronto and Winnipeg Symphonies, and many, many more. Kim has formed several lasting musical partnerships over the years, leading to both concert and recording opportunities. Conductor/music historian John McGlinn brought her to EMI Classics, which led to several recordings and a personal recording contract, as well as many symphony concerts across America and Europe. With conductor John Wilson, she has explored the world of film music across the UK in concert, including the very popular MGM and Rodgers and Hammerstein Proms concerts, and several solo evenings. Her ongoing recital partnership with conductor/pianist Wayne Marshall has taken the pair to many of the great concert venues in Europe, both as recitalists and in full symphony settings.  Other conductors she has appeared with include Kristjan Jarvi, , Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Yutaka Sado, Keith Lockhart, Ulf Schirmer, John Axelrod, Kevin Farrell, Carl Davis and Richard Hickox, to name a few.Critically acclaimed for playing “Annie Oakley” in Annie Get Your Gun at London's Prince of Wales Theatre, for which she earned a Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical, and for her role as “The Old Lady” in Robert Carsen's productions of Candide at La Scala and the Théâtre du Châtelet, she has also won a Helen Hayes Award for her work in Side by Side by Sondheim. She also starred as “Sally Adams” in Call Me Madam at the Goodspeed Opera House, singing the role of “The Old Lady” in Candide at Chicago's Ravinia Festival, and co-starring with Joseph Fiennes and Charles Edwards in Happy Days in the Art World at NYU's Skirball Center in New York.Kim's Broadway credits include starring as “Lucy”, opposite Sting, in the 3 Penny Opera directed by John Dexter, and appearing in the original Broadway cast of 1982 Best Musical Tony winner Nine, first as Francesca, then taking over the leading role of Claudia. Other Broadway original cast credits include The First, Baby and Star

Episode Summary Kim Criswell, Broadway and West End star tells us about some of her early auditions to get her equity card, as well as what it was like auditioning for Andrew Lloyd Webber to land the role of Grizabella in Cats. My "Thank You 5” segment is about how memorizing a deck of cards can help you in your acting career. In “Professor’s Corner” this week, three-time Olivier Award winner and Tony-nominated choreographer for Mary Poppins, Stephen Mear, gives his advice not only for auditions but for the rehearsal process as well.   Intro to this Episode In this episode of “In The Holding Room” we are thrilled to be joined by the amazing Kim Criswell.  Kim’s Broadway credits include starring as Lucy, opposite Sting, in The Threepenny Opera directed by John Dexter, and appearing in the original Broadway cast of the 1982 Best Musical Tony winner Nine, first as Francesca, then taking over the leading role of Claudia. Other Broadway original cast credits include The First, Baby and Stardust. On the West Coast, she was the original Grizabella in Cats, singing “Memory” at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles, and also appeared as Lalume in Kismet for Opera Pacific.  She starred in the original West End productions of Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens and The Slow Drag, as well as  the revival of Dames At Sea, and as the Mother Abbess in the acclaimed production of The Sound of Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Critically acclaimed for playing Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun at London’s Prince of Wales Theatre, for which she earned an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical, and for her role as The Old Lady in Robert Carsen’s productions of Candide at La Scala and the Théâtre du Châtelet, she has also won a Helen Hayes Award for her work in Side by Side by Sondheim. She was most recently seen in the US starring as Sally Adams in Call Me Madam at the Goodspeed Opera House, singing the role of The Old Lady in Candide at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, and co-starring with Joseph Fiennes and Charles Edwards in Happy Days in the Art World at NYU’s Skirball Center in New York. Recently, she played the Italian opera singer Mrs. Castellari in the feature film Hysteria (2013) opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and Jonathan Pryce. In “Thank you 5” this week, I talk about a silly game you can play to improve your ability as a performer. This one game will sharpen your mind and help you with imagination, association, and memorization. 
Stephen Mear C.B.E. is joining us in “Professor’s Corner” this week to offer his advice not only on auditioning, but for the rehearsals process as well.  Honorary Doctor of Arts and three-time Olivier Award Winner, Tony Nominated Stephen Mear has been described by the Daily Telegraph as “The old-style master of the modern chorus line.” Stephen’s prolific career has taken him in all directions from musical theater on Broadway and the West End to opera at the ENO, Paris and the Met in New York. His varied and sought-after talent extends to well know TV programs as well, such as So You think You Can Dance, and The Tracy Ullman Show. Resources: For all your audition needs including sheet music, tracks, monologues, advice and so much more visit: https://performerstuff.com/ Engage with the show: Facebook: Facebook/IntheHoldingRoom Instagram: In_the_holding_room Website: https://intheholdingroom.com/ Kim Criswell: kimcriswell.net Stephen Mear: https://www.stephenmear.com/

Episode Summary Kim Criswell, Broadway and West End star tells us about some of her early auditions to get her equity card, as well as what it was like auditioning for Andrew Lloyd Webber to land the role of Grizabella in Cats. My "Thank You 5” segment is about how memorizing a deck of cards can help you in your acting career. In “Professor’s Corner” this week, three-time Olivier Award winner and Tony nominated choreographer for Mary Poppins, Stephen Mear, gives his advice not only for auditions but for the rehearsal process as well.   Intro to this Episode In this episode of “In The Holding Room” we are thrilled to be joined by the amazing Kim Criswell.  Kim’s Broadway credits include starring as Lucy, opposite Sting, in The Threepenny Opera directed by John Dexter, and appearing in the original Broadway cast of the 1982 Best Musical Tony winner Nine, first as Francesca, then taking over the leading role of Claudia. Other Broadway original cast credits include The First, Baby and Stardust. On the West Coast, she was the original Grizabella in Cats, singing “Memory” at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles, and also appeared as Lalume in Kismet for Opera Pacific.  She starred in the original West End productions of Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens and The Slow Drag, as well as  the revival of Dames At Sea, and as the Mother Abbess in the acclaimed production of The Sound of Music at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Critically acclaimed for playing Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun at London’s Prince of Wales Theatre, for which she earned an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical, and for her role as The Old Lady in Robert Carsen’s productions of Candide at La Scala and the Théâtre du Châtelet, she has also won a Helen Hayes Award for her work in Side by Side by Sondheim. She was most recently seen in the US starring as Sally Adams in Call Me Madam at the Goodspeed Opera House, singing the role of The Old Lady in Candide at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, and co-starring with Joseph Fiennes and Charles Edwards in Happy Days in the Art World at NYU’s Skirball Center in New York. Recently, she played the Italian opera singer Mrs. Castellari in the feature film Hysteria (2013) opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and Jonathan Pryce. In “Thank you 5” this week, I talk about a silly game you can play to improve your ability as a performer. This one game will sharpen your mind and help you with imagination, association, and memorization. 
Stephen Mear C.B.E. is joining us in “Professor’s Corner” this week to offer his advice not only on auditioning, but for the rehearsals process as well.  Honorary Doctor of Arts and three-time Olivier Award Winner, Tony Nominated Stephen Mear has been described by the Daily Telegraph as “The old-style master of the modern chorus line.” Stephen’s prolific career has taken him in all directions from musical theater on Broadway and the West End to opera at the ENO, Paris and the Met in New York. His varied and sought-after talent extends to well know TV programs as well, such as So You think You Can Dance, and The Tracy Ullman Show.   Resources: For all your audition needs including sheet music, tracks, monologues, advice and so much more visit: https://performerstuff.com/ Engage with the show: Facebook: Facebook/IntheHoldingRoom Instagram: In_the_holding_room Website: https://intheholdingroom.com/ Kim Criswell: kimcriswell.net Stephen Mear: https://www.stephenmear.com/

This week's session was truly remarkable. We had the honor of hosting the Salk Institute Harnessing Plants Initiative team comprised of some of the brightest minds working to mitigate climate change with perhaps the most genius idea since Jonas Salk's polio vaccine: harnessing the natural power of plants to rebalance our carbon cycle.  The Harnessing Plants Initiative team includes:Wolfgang Busch, Ph.D.: Professor, Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, Hess Chair in Plant Science and Harnessing Plants Initiative Co-DirectorJoanne Chory, Ph.D.: Processor and Director, Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology and Harnessing Plants Initiative Co-Director​​Dave Lawrence, Ph.D.: Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Harnessing Plants Initiative, Chairman of Lawrence Energy Group LLC and Trustee on the Army War College Foundation Board following an extensive career of almost 30 years with ShellJoe Noel, Ph.D.: Professor and Director, Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics, Arthur and Julie Woodrow ChairTony Stiegler, Senior Director, Policy & Regulatory Affairs for the Harnessing Plants Initiative, former Partner at Colley Law Firm with an accomplished career dating to 1986 representing emerging technology companies, Fortune 500 companies and individualsThe HPI team took us through a presentation that can be found linked here. If you are as interested as we are and want to stay updated with their work, you may sign up for updates here. We can't thank the HPI team enough for their time and expertise! Our expert TPH crew provided today's opening act: Mike Bradley gave a market update on the one-year anniversary for negative prices for NYM WTI crude oil, Matt Portillo discussed recent Canadian legislation proposing a tax credit system for CCS development as well as a bill in the US to enhance the 45Q tax credit, and Craig Webster joined to cover Equinor and Shell's recent energy transition plans. ​​​​​​We also had some really exciting news in Houston today - Bobby Tudor joined to discuss Exxon Mobil's proposal to build the largest CCUS project in the world in Houston's very own ship channel, an effort supported by the Greater Houston Partnership to position Houston as a leader in the energy transition. Finally, Colin Fenton shared a few slides on crude oil and CO2 emissions to prepare us for the discussion.   We hope you find this session as inspiring and thought-provoking as we do. Imagine the possibilities if human ingenuity helped Nature be just two percent more efficient!  Thanks again to the HPI team and thanks to you all!​​​​------------------------------------------------------------------------------Copyright 2021, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. The information contained in this update is based on sources considered to be reliable but is not r

Joseph Noel is a professor and director of Salk’s Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics. He studies the structure and chemistry of compounds produced by plants. On this episode of Where Cures Begin, Noel talks about his love of nature; coming from a family of coal miners; and whether elephant poop is good for tomatoes.

If you read the title of this post then you're probably thinking, wait, Heather has an empire? I might be exaggerating a bit. But this podcast did help me build a business, expand my network, and discover a new career path. This is my 200th episode of Motherhood in Hollywood and I'm celebrating! And of course my guest is Chris Brooker. We're taking a brief look back at the incredible guests who took the time to share their story with me on my little show and what has changed in my life in the almost five years since MIH launched. My first Motherhood in Hollywood in July 2015 I have to say a huge thank you to my first few guests, Jen Hasty and Amy Crofoot. These two mamas were my only mom friends at the time and graciously agreed to come to my house and let me pick their brains about being a mom in Hollywood. When I started MIH there were no parenting-centric entertainment podcast. There was a lot of comedy podcasts, entertainment podcasts, and parenting podcast but none that combined what it means to be a working parent in showbiz. Cut to five years later and every A, B, C and D level celeb has their own podcast on parenting. Clearly I started a trend! And clearly I have stayed humble. I had no idea what doors this podcast would open for me and truly, I don't take a second of it for granted. Before starting this show I never knew what a mommy blogger was. I never knew there was a world of "events" that people went to and got free product in exchange for posting about it on social media or talking about it on their podcast. I was so immersed in the actor hustle that this side of life was completely foreign to me. Heather and Chan on the redCARpet at the Skirball Cultural Center in 2015. The first event was I invited to was the Red Carpet Safety event. My friend Jill Simonian, aka The Fab Mom, asked her friend Saraah Samandi if I could tag along with my two year old. It was a blistering hot day in early September and a ton of moms and celebrities were packed into the Skirball Center looking at the latest baby products. And when I left, they handed me a huge bag of baby swag. For what? Just for going to a party and mingling with celebs? I was sold! I started researching blogging, designed my own website, focused on growing my social media and set out to see if I could get more free stuff! Soon I started making connections at the events I went to and met other moms with similar interest. We shared ideas about how to grow, and reach our goals. I quickly realized that my goals started to change. I didn't want just a bag of swag, I wanted to make money and start a business. I researched podcast ads, sponsored Instagram posts, media kits and marketing tools. I hired a publicist to help me get my name out to various online publications and to be a guest other podcasts. I spent more money than I made. But in the end, it paid off. I started getting celebrity guests, and influencers for my podcast. Top producers and writers wanted to be on my show! Call me The Jeffersons cause I was movin' on up! Then I started being referred to as an "influencer." This is not a title I've ever been comfortable with because it implies I somehow have influence over people. I'm just a wacky actor. Who would listen to me? But that's the term the industry still uses to this day when I work with brands or host events or speak on panels. So I just accept that's what I'm called and don't let it go to my head. I know it's a ridiculous term and there are ridiculous influencers in the space, but that term doesn't define who I am. Recently I had some people in my life try to tear me down and belittle my business and career because they don't fully understand or support what I do. Or maybe, they just let their own insecurities get the best of them. The broke my heart in the cruelest way and tried to make me feel bad for what I've accomplished. Don't ever let anyone steal your joy! If anyone wants to buy me a drink sometime I'll gladly te...

VOTE HERE: reallyfamouspodcast.com Henry Winkler joined me for a special VIDEO episode of Really Famous. (Catch it at YouTube.com/ReallyFamous.) I realize you may not be into that, so today I'm running it as a podcast episode. It's shorter than usual, and doesn't meander the way I like my podcast conversations to, so I paired it with my Marion Ross conversation from earlier this year, for a more satisfying experience! Here you go. Who's Henry Winkler, you wonder? Ha, as if you don't know Henry Winkler! The Fonz Arthur Fonzarelli Fonzie An iconic actor, nailing it in projects like: Barry Arrested Development Parks & Recreation Night Shift The Lords of Flatbush Adam Sandler movies A successful children's book author, with books like: Alien Superstar The Hank Zipzer series Here's Hank Hollywood's "nicest guy" A dad and a grandpa A fan of current TV shows, actors and singers A thoughtful, introspective man Fun to hug (you'll know what I mean if you stay tuned til the end) Who's Marion Ross, you ask? Ha! Mrs. Cunningham Mrs. C Marion Cunningham A major role model (I was SO inspired by her. You'll see why when you listen.)   I talk about Digital Hollywood in my intro. Here's what's up: I was nominated for an award. VOTE HERE. I'm doing a live stage mini version of Really Famous on Thursday, Nov. 14, at the Skirball Center in LA. My guest will be Patrick Fabian from Better Call Saul. I'm sitting on a panel on Nov. 14 too. I'll be joined by Kim Coles (Living Single), Lilian Garcia (pro wrestling announcer) and Ceslie Armstrong (moderator). I'm in Los Angeles this week. Follow along! I'm posting photos, videos and news on: Instagram: @reallyfamouspodcast Facebook: @karamayerrobinson Twitter: @kara1to1 Insider news - ReallyFamousPodcast.com/contact Twitter - @kara1to1 Instagram - @reallyfamouspodcast Facebook - @karamayerrobinson Henry Winkler's video Q&A - https://youtu.be/oh6A0cbksB4 Behind-the-scenes photos - ReallyFamousPodcast.com # Donate $1 or $3 or $10 to Really Famous and get a shout-out from me on the show: Patreon.com/reallyfamous or ReallyFamousPodcast.com/donate # Celebrity interview by Kara Mayer Robinson. Music - Take a Chance by Kevin MacLeod - incompetech - Creative Commons

Bird watching probably conjures images of an old, retired guy sporting binoculars behind his country home. But Jason Ward is rapidly dispelling that stereotype. He's been an avid birder since his childhood growing up in The Bronx, NY, and has brought his passion to social media. His #TrickyBirdID Twitter threads challenge people to snap photos of unknown neighborhood birds so the global community of birders can identify them. His enthusiasm led him to make the popular webseries Birds of North America with Topic, where viewers can follow Ward on his adventures in urban birding. The beautiful and informative show proves that cities are in fact a great place for bird watchers, and that the hobby is an accessible way for everyone to reconnect with nature, regardless of class, color, or location. Alli and Jen talk to Ward about his love of birds, his journey from enthusiast to science communicator, his trepidation about making a show, and the modern tech that makes bird watching in 2019 so much fun. Birds of North America has returned for a second season (June 9), and Ward will also be speaking and sharing bird songs at Topic Talks at the Skirball Center in New York City on June 22. Support 2G1P on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/2G1P Join us on Discord: discord.gg/2g1p Email us: 2G1Podcast@gmail.com Talk to Alli and Jen: https://twitter.com/alligold https://twitter.com/joonbugger Call the show and leave a message! (347) 871-6548 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York will become the first American city to instate congestion pricing — Quinnipiac poll shows little support for congestion pricing 39 years ago on April 1, 1980 — 33,000 transit workers go on strike, bringing subways and buses to a standstill for 12 days 34 years ago on March 31, 1985 — The First WrestleMania is held at Madison Square Garden — WrestleMania 2019 — Sunday, April 7th at MetLife Stadium 160 years ago on April 4, 1859 — The Civil War anthem 'Dixie' debuts in New York as part of a blackface minstrel show Deterioration of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial in Riverside Park 86 years ago on April 4, 1933 — The USS Akron, one of history's largest airships, crashes into the ocean off the coast of New Jersey 52 years ago on April 4, 1967 — Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights — Hear the full audio of the speech. 46 years ago on April 4, 1973 — The twin towers of the World Trade Center officially open ☮️ 101 years ago on April 5, 1918 — Glass and pieces of wire are found in various foods in Brooklyn 98 years ago on April 1, 1921 — Greenwich Village Chase after Bleecker Street Armed Robbery A Great Big City has been running a 24-hour newsfeed since 2011, but the AGBC News podcast is just getting started, and we need your support. A Great Big City is built on a dedication to explaining what is happening and how it fits into the larger history of New York, which means thoroughly researching every topic and avoiding clickbait headlines to provide a straightforward, honest, and factual explanation of the news. Individuals can make a monthly or one-time contribution at agreatbigcity.com/support and local businesses can have a lasting impact by supporting local news while promoting products or services directly to interested customers listening to this podcast. Visit agreatbigcity.com/advertising to learn more. Park of the day Bridge Park (Brooklyn) Coney Island Volunteer Beach Grass Planting — April 6, 2019 — 9:30am — RSVP by emailing BKspecialevents@parks.nyc.gov or (718) 965-8976 Concert Calendar Towers are playing Rockwood Music Hall on Friday, April 5th. Whitey Morgan and the 78's is playing Gramercy Theatre on Friday, April 5th. Teen Body, Sean Nicholas Savage, and Romantic Thriller are playing Sunnyvale on Friday, April 5th. Arthur and Ghost Orchard are playing Baby's All Right on Friday, April 5th. Broncho is playing Elsewhere on Saturday, April 6th. Patty Griffin and Bayard Rustin are playing The Town Hall on Saturday, April 6th. The Royal They, Lumps, Stuyedeyed, and The Next Great American Novelist are playing Our Wicked Lady on Saturday, April 6th. The Rott N Roll Tour: Zomboy, Badklaat, Habstrakt, and Space Laces are playing Avant Gardner on Saturday, April 6th. Real Clothes, Plastic Waves, Stefa, and Von Sell are playing Bowery Electric on Sunday, April 7th. Japanese Breakfast and Long Beard are playing White Eagle Hall on Sunday, April 7th. Ulthar is playing Saint Vitus Bar on Monday, April 8th. Muse and Walk the Moon are playing Madison Square Garden on Monday, April 8th. Andrew Bird is playing National Sawdust on Monday, April 8th. Aldous Harding is playing Rough Trade NYC on Monday, April 8th. Steve Wilson & Wilsonian's Grain is playing Village Vanguard on Tuesday, April 9th. Colleen Green and Degreaser are playing Mercury Lounge on Wednesday, April 10th. Jozef van Wissem is playing Skirball Center for the Performing Arts on Thursday, April 11th. Arturo Sandoval is playing Blue Note on Thursday, April 11th. SWMRS, Beach Goons, and The Regrettes are playing Brooklyn Steel on Thursday, April 11th. Aphex Twin is playing Avant Gardner on Thursday, April 11th. Find more fun things to do at agreatbigcity.com/events. New York Fact 1.8 million New Yorkers benefit from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, that helps families and individuals supplement the cost of their diet with nutritious foods Weather The extreme highs and lows for this week in weather history: Record High: 92°F on April 7, 2010 Record Low: 20°F on April 4, 1874 Weather for the week ahead: Light rain tomorrow through Monday, with high temperatures rising to 70°F on Tuesday. Now that Spring has arrived, so have weather warnings: Now is the time to start protecting your skin and eyes from ultraviolet radiation, which will be higher during the Summer months. Look for a skin protectant that is labeled as "broad spectrum" and at least SPF 50 and wear sunglasses if you'll be venturing outside the shadowy caverns of high-rise buildings in Midtown. Thanks for listening to A Great Big City. Follow along 24 hours a day on social media @agreatbigcity or email contact@agreatbigcity.com with any news, feedback, or topic suggestions. Subscribe to AGBC News wherever you listen to podcasts: iTunes, Google Play, or RadioPublic, Spotify, and Castbox or listen to each episode on the podcast pages. If you enjoy the show, subscribe and leave a review wherever you're listening and visit agreatbigcity.com/podcast to see show notes and extra links for each episode. Intro and outro music: 'Start the Day' by Lee Rosevere — Concert Calendar music from Jukedeck.com

Preet Bharara was interviewed about his new book “Doing Justice” by CBS This Morning’s Bianna Golodryga at a live taping of Stay Tuned at NYU’s Skirball Center. Taped on 3/19/19 REFERENCES & SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS The Q&A An article from the NYT, “Will We Ever See Mueller’s Report on Trump? Maybe,” plus an article from NBC News reporting on Trump’s comments that the report should be made public. An article from the NYT about the college admissions scheme The documents related to Michael Cohen’s search warrant, including analysis from the NYT on the released materials An article from the Washington Post about imposing term limits on Supreme Court Justices A report from the Washington Post on Roger Stone’s upcoming trial in DC, set for November 2019 Rick Gates’ status report, submitted by Mueller’s team on 3/15/19 A report from NBC News that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will delay his departure from the Department of Justice The Interview “Doing Justice” Reviews & Features: Washington Independent Review of Books, 03/18/19: “Preet Bharara writes that you will not find God or grace in legal concepts or in formal notions of criminal justice. But be assured that you’ll find God and grace in this fascinating book.” The Guardian, 03/15/19:”At its most powerful, Doing Justice works as a metaphorical survival guide for the Trump era. As with everything Bharara does, he writes in a tone that is calm and considered, a warm bath after the outrage of Trump’s daily tweets.” Lawfare Blog, 03/12/19: (From Stay Tuned guest Chuck Rosenberg) “Doing Justice” is a consistently compelling and important tale, well written and well worth reading. New York Times, 02/28/19: (12 New Books to Watch for in March): “The former chief prosecutor of the Southern District of New York, Bharara was fired by President Trump in 2017. In this book, he outlines how the justice system works, and makes a case for why those bedrock principles are critical to society.” Publisher’s Weekly, 02/12/19: (Starred Review) “With its approachable human moments, tragic and triumphant cases, heroic investigators, and depictions of hardworking everyday people, this book is a rare thing: a page-turning work of practical moral philosophy.” Kirkus Review, 01/06/19: (Starred Review) “The former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York skillfully explains how he approached his job, offering a mixture of guiding principles and compelling anecdotes” Media Appearances PBS Newshour, 3/20/19: Watch Preet's interview with Judy Woodruff on PBS Newshour. Live with Katy Tur, 03/20/19: Watch Preet’s interview on Live with Katy Tur. Morning Joe, 03/19/19: Watch Preet’s interview on Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough, Jonathan Lemire, Susan Del Percio, and Willie Geist. The View, 03/19/19: Watch Preet’s interview on The View with co-hosts Joy Behar, Meghan McCain, Sunny Hostin, and Abby Huntsman. Ari Melber, 03/19/19: Watch Preet’s interview on The Beat with Ari Melber. CBS This Morning, 03/18/19: Watch Preet’s interview on CBS This Morning with co-hosts Gayle King, Norah O’Donnell and Bianna Golodryga. Face the Nation, 03/17/19: Watch Preet’s interview with Margaret Brennan on the latest news and his book, Doing Justice. Read the transcript here. Do you have a question for Preet? Tweet it to @PreetBharara with the hashtag #askpreet, email staytuned@cafe.com, or call 669-247-7338 and leave a voicemail.

Shmuel Rosner and Rabbi Mishael Zion discuss his latest book, "The Book of Esther - A New Israeli Commentary." Rabbi Mishael Zion, an educator and community entrepreneur, is the director of the Mandel Program for Leadership in Jewish Culture. He is the author of Esther: A New Israeli Commentary and, together with his father, Noam Zion, the author of Halaila Hazeh: An Israeli Haggadah and A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices. He has served as a faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning in New York, and has been a visiting scholar at the New York University School of Law. He is one of the founders of the Klausner Minyan, a partnership minyan in Jerusalem.   Follow Shmuel Rosner on Twitter.  

The NYU Department of German and Deutsches Haus at NYU present “The Fate of the Commons: A Trotskyite View” with Slavoj Žižek as part of NYU Skirball’s “On Your Marx” festival in celebration of Karl Marx’s 200th birthday. Skirball Center … Continue reading →

Jim Henson Exhibit at the Skirball Center - https://www.skirball.org/exhibitions/jim-henson-exhibition-imagination-unlimited Here You Leave Today Radio - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cloud-city-cast (Formerly Cloud City Cast)

If there’s one thing Gonads taught us, it’s just how complicated human reproduction is. All the things we thought we knew about biology and sex determination are up for debate in a way that feels both daunting and full of potential. At the same time, we're at a moment where we’re wrestling with how to approach conversations around sex, consent, and boundaries, at a time that may be more divisive than ever. So host Molly Webster thought: what if we took on sex ed, and tried to tackle questions from listeners, youth, reddit (oh boy), and staff. But instead of approaching these questions the way your high school health teacher might’ve (or government teacher, who knows), Molly invited a cast of storytellers, educators, artists, and comedians to grapple with sex ed in unexpected and thoughtful ways. To help us think about how we can change the conversation. In this episode, an edited down version of a Gonads Live show, Molly's team takes a crack at responding to the intimate questions you asked when you were younger but probably never got a straight answer to. Featuring: How Do You Talk About Condoms Without Condom Demonstrations? Sanford Johnson. Wanna see how to put on a sock? What Are Periods? Sindha Agha and Gul Agha. Check out Sindha's photography here. Is Anything Off-Limits? Ericka Hart, Dalia Mahgoub, and Jonathan Zimmerman  Why Do We Do This Anyway? And Other Queries from Fifth Graders Jo Firestone "Sex Ed" is an edited* recording of a live event hosted by Radiolab at the Skirball Center in New York City on May 16, 2018. Radiolab Team Gonads is Molly Webster, Pat Walters, and Rachael Cusick, with Jad Abumrad. Live music, including the sex ed questions, and the Gonads theme song, were written, performed, and produced by Majel Connery and Alex Overington.  One more thing!  Over the past few months, Radiolab has been collecting sex ed book suggestions from listeners and staff, about the books that helped them understand the birds and the bees. Check out the full Gonads Presents: Sex Ed Bookshelf here! For now, a few of our favorites: Share book reviews and ratings with Radiolab, and even join a book club on Goodreads.   *Our live show featured the following additional questions and answerers: How do you talk to your partner in bed without sound like an asshold or a slut? Upright Citizens Brigade, featuring Lou Gonzales, Molly Thomas, and Alexandra Dickson What Happens to All the Condom Bananas? Rachael Cusick With live event production help from Melissa LaCasse and Alicia Allen; engineering by Ed Haber and George Wellington; and balloons by Candy Brigham from Candy Twisted Balloons Special. Special thanks to Larry Siegel, Upright Citizens Brigade, and Emily Rothman and the Start Strong Initiative at the Boston Public Health Commission.  Radiolab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. And the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.   

Todd Glass on the right side. We play a track from Tabari McCoy’s new comedy album Remarkable. The Song of the Week is from Fizzy Blood. DATES: Todd Glass is at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts - New York, NY June 25-30. Tabari McCoy is hosting Bang, Pow, Comics at Up, Up, and Away in Cincinnati, June 28. P.F. is doing Last Call Feud at the Casual Pint in Loveland, OH June 26 at 7:30. LINKS: Skin & Earth comic book series by friend of the show LIGHTS. The Big Pretty Podcast PF, Fangirl, and Lizzie on the Travel Channel. Follow Liz Draws Ink on Instagram @nearlyliza Buy a T-shirt from Cincy Shirts OR Old School Shirts, it helps the show! Be sure to click over to Fangirl’s NEW blog, CheckCheckHey! and her photo blog. Follow P.F. on Twitter @PF66 and like this podcast on Facebook. PF’s Tape Recorder logo designed by Dan Koabel. The PF’s Tape Recorder Episode Guide is up. Email our show here.

On this week's episode, Josh and Lyndsay discuss the recent Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain and their favorite act (spoiler, its Barcode!), new #MeToo allegations surrounding Sleep No More, and they announce the release date for Hideaway Circus's upcoming 360 virtual reality circus and dance experience. Also on today's episode, Josh and Lyndsay interview Peter Harding, Suzanne Cleary, and Jonny Reed who make up the hand-tapping and Irish step dancing viral sensation, Up and Over It. They talk about their time on Broadway with Riverdance, creating a viral video that launched a variety career, and about devising new and unusual types of performance. You can catch them live this week at NYU's Skirball Center performing with the show RIOT. If you enjoy today's episode, please like and rate the podcast on Apple Podcasts and share it with a friend. Have a great week! [16:06] Peter and Suzanne's start in Irish step dancing [24:50] Joining the cast of Riverdance at age 17 [33:30] Life after Broadway, new tours and going back to school [39:58] The beginning of hand-tapping and a show at the Edinburgh Fringe [48:20] Making a viral video sensation to the song We Speak No Americano [51:37] First time working in the variety scene at The Box (and later La Soirree and Spiegelworld) [1:08:41] Working the German Palazzo variety circuit [1:12:14] What makes for a successful performing partnership?

This week Josh interviews Josh Neuman. He is the writer and director of Johnny Physical Lives, an award-winning documentary that memorializes his punk rock brother. We talk about the film, the Friar's Club, and Neuman's time as the editor of Heeb Magazine. Johnny Physical Lives screens this Sunday 1/21/18 at 2pm at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles. It will be followed by a conversation about creativity and human connection during crisis with NYT's Suleika Jaouad, and Carla Fernandez of The Dinner Party: Life After Loss.For more info about the film visit: www.johnnyphysicallives.com

“Culture is the only human practice that can actually dig into the root of a trauma and try to undo it in the first place. And this is why people are so afraid of culture, and in particular theatre. ‘Cause when there’s a human being in front of you having an experience, it’s very difficult to ignore them. It’s hard to ignore a play.” — Dan Fishback Dan Fishback and Motaz Malhees both made waves in the New York theater scene this fall with plays about Palestine. Motaz performed with the Freedom Theatre of Jenin in "The Siege," at the NYU Skirball Center. Meanwhile, Dan's play "Rubble Rubble" was abruptly and controversially cancelled by the American Jewish Historical Society. In this joint interview, Dan and Motaz talk about their work, and explain why culture is their weapon of choice against the injustices of the occupation. This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded at The 'cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York on November 6, 2017. Edited for length and clarity by Ilana Levinson.  Photo credit: Sammy Tunis Dan Fishback is a playwright, performer, musician, and director of the Helix Queer Performance Network. His musical “The Material World” was called one of the Top Ten Plays of 2012 by Time Out New York. His play “You Will Experience Silence” was called “sassier and more fun than 'Angels in America'” by the Village Voice. Also a performing songwriter, Fishback has released several albums and toured Europe and North America, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread. Other theater works include “Waiting for Barbara” (New Museum, 2013), “thirtynothing” (Dixon Place, 2011) and “No Direction Homo” (P.S. 122, 2006). As director of the Helix Queer Performance Network, Fishback curates and organizes a range of festivals, workshops and public events, including the annual series, “La MaMa’s Squirts.” Fishback has received grants for his theater work from the Franklin Furnace Fund (2010) and the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists (2007-2009). He has been a resident artist at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, the Hemispheric Institute at NYU, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where he has developed all of his theater work since 2010. Fishback is a proud member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Artist Council. He is currently developing two new musicals, “Rubble Rubble” and “Water Signs,” and will release a new album by Cheese On Bread in 2018. Motaz Malhees is a Palestinian actor born in 1992. He received his professional training in Stanislavsky, Brecht and Shakespeare at The Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp (Palestine), and in Commedia dell’Arte at Theatre Hotel Courage in Amsterdam (Holland). Motaz has trained with internationally acclaimed directors such as Juliano Mer-Khamis and Nabil Al-Raee (The Freedom Theatre), Di Trevis (Royal Shakespeare Company), Thomas Ostermeier (Schaubühne Theatre), and Katrien van Beurden (Theatre Hotel Courage). His stage credits with The Freedom Theatre include: “Alice in Wonderland” (2011), “What Else – Sho Kman?” (2011), Pinter’s “The Caretaker” (2012), “Freaky Boy” (2012), “Courage, Ouda, Courage” (2013), “Suicide Note from Palestine” (2014), “Power/Poison” (2014), and most recently “The Siege” at the NYU Skirball Center. Motaz has also acted in films, including: “Think Out of the Box” (2014, dir. Mohammad Dasoqe), which screened in Palestine, Germany and Mexico; and “Past Tense Continuous” (2014, dir. Dima Hourani). As a versatile actor, Motaz has performed in multilingual plays as well as in scripted, devised, physical, epic and fantasy theatre. Motaz also produces and performs in short films about social issues in Palestine, which have received a wide following on social media platforms. Having grown up in Palestine, and experienced the economic and political hardships of life under occupation, Motaz has been actively interested in acting since he was nine years old. He lives through theatre, and believes in the potential of art to transform people’s ideas and lives. REFERENCES "Arna's Children" (dir. Juliano Mer-Khamis, 2004) "The Life and Death of Juliano Mer-Khamis" (Adam Shatz, London Review of Books, November 2013) "Center for Jewish History Chief Comes Under Fierce Attack By Right-Wingers" (Josh Nathan-Kazis, Forward, September 6, 2017) "Jewish Center Faces Backlash After Canceling Play Criticized as Anti-Israel" (Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times_, _October 11, 2017) Program note by Oskar Eustis for "The Siege" at NYU Skirball Center (October 2017) Indiegogo campaign for Dan Fishback's "Rubble Rubble" "Return to Palestine"(The Freedom Theatre, 2016) in Arabic without subtitles Theatre of the Oppressed NYC Housing Works  "All Your Sisters" (Cheese On Bread, 2017) danfishback.com @motazmalhees thefreedomtheatre.org TRANSCRIPT DAN: So many people warned me against making work like this. And yeah, I got canceled, but in the process, I have tremendously powerful friends now that I didn't make before. MOTAZ: Doesn't it make you stronger after they cancel it? DAN: Yeah, of course. Yeah. MOTAZ: Didn't it make you more like want to do it? DAN: Oh, yeah. MOTAZ: That's a good thing, then.   [MUSIC: Unsettled theme by Nat Rosenzweig]   MAX: Welcome to Unsettled. My name is Max Freedman, I’m one of the producers of Unsettled and your host for today’s episode. Now when I’m not working on this podcast, I’m a theater artist, and I know how hard it can be to make a life in the theater and get your work out there. However hard you think it is, imagine you’re trying to tell stories about the occupied West Bank. Enter Dan Fishback and Motaz Malhees. Dan and Motaz both made waves in the New York theater scene this fall with plays about Palestine. Motaz was in New York performing with the Freedom Theatre of Jenin in “The Siege,” a play about the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, during the Second Intifada. Dan, on the other hand, made waves because of a play that didn’t happen, rather than one that did. His play, “Rubble Rubble,” was supposed to go up at the American Jewish Historical Society, but they cancelled it. I’ll let him tell you why -- and what happened next. Dan and Motaz didn’t know each other before, but I had the privilege to get them in the same room to talk about their work and as you’ll hear, they had a lot in common. In preparation for this interview, I dug through years of old journals and found my entry from the day I first met Motaz, when I was in Jenin, three summers ago. Really big and underlined a few times, I had written two words: CULTURAL RESISTANCE. So that’s our theme for today. Quick note: besides the three of us, at one point you’ll hear the voice of my co-producer Ilana Levinson. I think that’s all you need to know, so, let’s get started!   MAX: Welcome to Unsettled. Uh, why don't you start by introducing yourselves? MOTAZ: Eh, first of all I am so happy to be here with you guys that's before I introduce myself. I am Motaz Malhees, so I am an actor from Palestine, I used to work with the Freedom Theatre since 2010. I do a lot of politics theatre but also the same time I do also for community, I do like for kids show. But I feel like, whatever needs, I give, like...it’s not important the type of theatre I do. But nowadays I'm freelance, and I work like with all theatres in Palestine, my country, because I don't want to be just involved with one place -- even that's I always say that the Freedom Theatre, that's my place and my home. DAN: I’m Dan Fishback, I’m a...I make performance and music and theatre in New York, I’ve been here since 2003 -- I don't know, what do you want to know? MAX: Where’d you grow up? DAN: Oh my gosh! I grew up in a pretty normal American Reform Jewish family, outside Washington, DC in Maryland. In a family that...was essentially a liberal Zionist family, although I don't think they would have necessary articulated themselves like that, they just imagine themselves being normal. And I heard growing up, “If only the Palestinians were nonviolent, then they would get what they want. Because they're asking for something reasonable, but it's because they're violent that things are problem....that that's the reason why there's a problem.” And like, the older people around me as I was growing up were always saying, “If only there was a Palestinian Gandhi” -- that was like the refrain, over and over again. And now I find myself 36 years old, going back to my communities and being like, “There’s this huge non-violent Palestinian movement! And it’s international and we can be part of it, it’s boycott, and blah blah blah.” And everyone’s like, “Oh no, no no, this makes us uncomfortable too.” I'm like, “This is what you were begging for my whole childhood! And now it’s here! Why aren’t you excited? Why aren't you as excited as I am?” That’s where I’m from. MOTAZ: That’s cool. DAN: And it’s an honor to be here with Motaz, whose performance in “The Siege” was absolutely amazing. MOTAZ: We not sure, but there is like people who really want to bring it back to the U.S. again, because it was a really successful show like for the Skirball Theatre, even like they almost sold out. MAX: Let me back you up a second, because, I want you to imagine that I have never heard of “The Siege,” have never heard of the Freedom Theatre. Can you tell me -- tell me what it was, tell me what it is. MOTAZ: “The Siege” it's a story about the invasion happened in 2002 in Palestine. There was like eh...invasion for the whole West Bank: in Jenin, in Nablus, all the cities. Like, one of them was Bethlehem, and in Bethlehem there was like a group of fighters, freedom fighters, who fight and defend back from their homeland. They have like many guns defending themselves, and they have in the other side -- the Israeli side -- there is tanks, Apache, Jeeps, all kind of guns you can imagine your life, heavy guns. And they were like around 45 fighters, 250, 245 civilian -- priests, nuns, children, women, and men, from both different religions -- who’s like stuck inside the Nativity Church for 39 days. With the like first five days they have food, after that they have no food. And they surrounded with around 60,000 soldiers from the Israeli army. They want, like, to finish it. So they, they have pressure, they don't wanna -- even the fighters, says khalas, it’s enough. Their people are suffering, their families are suffering outside because of that. So, they sent them like a paper, they have to write their names, the number of their IDs they have, and their signature. So, the fighters sign on it, and they know that's thirteen going to Europe and twenty-five are going to Gaza. They don't know even where they going. So, they sent them to exile the same day. DAN: When my friends and I were leaving the theatre, all we were talking about is, we were so curious about what their lives would be like after fifteen years of exile and we couldn’t wrap our minds around it. MOTAZ: I know one of them is personally, and he told me a lot about it. And it’s really important to bring this piece because of one reason: they didn't choose. Even they signed the paper that say they have to go to exile, but like they was under pressure, and they thought it's temporary and that they would return. And eh, I know how much they are really broken from inside. They never show this to people.But from inside, if you know them personally, they are really broken, and they just...all they want, just to see like at least their families. Some of them, they can’t. Their family, like they can't get the visa to go to visit them -- like, for example, the two guys, Rami Kamel, and Jihadi Jaara who living in Dublin, they haven't seen their families at all. One of them, like Jihadi he have a son that's his wife give birth like after one week he was sent to exile. He didn't even touch his son, he's fifteen years old, like...at least, like, okay, you don't want to send him back to Palestine. Let his family visit him! Like, this is the minimum of humanity. And eh...a really important point we have like always to say: those people was in their homeland, they was in their own city, and they fight back. They didn't went to...yeah, to Tel Aviv to fight, or to somewhere inside Israel, to fight the people over there. They was fighting the…defending themselves from the Israeli army. MAX: How did you get started with the Freedom Theatre? MOTAZ: Woo hoo! Since I was like, eh…fourteen I heard about it, or thirteen -- and I was dreaming about to be in there cause I’m, since like eight, nine, I start doing acting. It's like something I really love from inside, like I really really want to be an actor. Not because like I wanted a name. Because I can hold the stories, I can share stories for all over the world, I enjoy it, it's something beautiful and strong in the same time. So when I was sixteen, I heard about the hip-hop workshop, dance hip-hop workshop in the Freedom Theatre. So I went there and I apply for it, and I get involved with the workshop, and the last few days Juliano just came and he said, “We open a new class for theatre.”   MAX: Juliano, who Motaz just mentioned, is Juliano Mer Khamis, who started what is today, the Freedom Theatre. Real quick, I want to tell you the remarkable story of the Freedom Theatre of Jenin. During the First Intifada, Juliano’s mother, a Jewish Israeli Communist named Arna Mer, came to Jenin, where she helped to establish housing and educational programs for children in the refugee camp there -- and eventually a children’s theatre called The Stone. Arna died of cancer in 1995, and during the Second Intifada, the Stone Theatre was destroyed. Arna’s son Juliano returned to Jenin for the first time since his mother’s death in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Jenin, and made an incredible film called "Arna’s Children" -- Motaz will tell you more about this in a bit, but it’s on YouTube and I highly recommend it. It was after finishing this film that Juliano returned again to Jenin to found the Freedom Theatre. In 2011, Juliano was assassinated, but the Freedom Theatre has persisted. Alright -- back to Motaz.   MOTAZ: So I get involved and I put myself in that place since 2010. And it’s been like around...now, now you could say like eight years almost. It is...hard and eh, good in the same time. It is, ‘cause you face emotion, a lot of different emotion. But I love it. It's like, it’s become my home now. I’m always there. Even if I have nothing, I go pass by drinking coffee there like, chill, see what's going on, if they need help or something, because I'm part of the family. MAX: Well we met because I went to visit the Freedom Theatre. And you were just hanging around and we sat there and talked for an hour. MOTAZ: Yeah yeah. MAX: Alright, so, Dan. DAN: Yeah. MAX: Tell me about your work and particularly tell me about “Rubble Rubble” and the genesis of that project. MOTAZ: I wanna hear about it. DAN: Well I've been working for the past decade on a trilogy of plays that sort of explore the inner life of the Jewish left in the United States over the past century. And this last play, “Rubble Rubble,” which I've been developing for the past few years, starts in the West Bank in an Israeli settlement. And you find this family that I've been writing plays about -- which is a very far leftist socialist radical family -- you see that that family has split off, and there's like a right-wing side of the family that has become settlers. And the left-wing anti-Zionist member of their family travels to visit them, after they haven’t spoken in twenty years. MOTAZ: Whoa. DAN: And the family confronts each other over his huge chasm, where one person is like a Palestinian solidarity BDS supporter and the rest of the family are like... MOTAZ: Pro-Israel. DAN: They're like settlers! Like living on stolen land, even though, but they’re middle aged American Jews who in the sixties were like radical New Left, you know, people. I’m fascinated by how many American-Israeli Jews were like super far on the left in the United States and then became these horrible oppressors in Israel. It blows my mind that it's possible to make that transition within the course of one life. And so, and that's where the play starts, and um…and I've been developing it for a few years, I went to Israel-Palestine to research for the play, I spent two weeks with interfaith peace builders traveling all through the West Bank and meeting with different non violent Palestinian and Israeli activists. I spent a week interviewing settlers, which was extremely disturbing. Um, and then I’ve been developing this play, and it was gonna have its first public reading at the American Jewish Historical Society in Manhattan and, um, a couple weeks ago -- I guess now around a month ago -- we went to their offices for a meeting and everything was very positive, they were very excited to have us, the staff was very supportive of the work. And we heard that there was a right-wing smear campaign against the organization's new CEO. And we were told, “This is all happening but don't let it bother you. We might have to cancel that other thing, but we're not going to cancel your play, because we, we're really excited about it.” And literally the conversation we had was about raising the budget for our play. Eight hours later, I got an email saying that the play had been canceled. MOTAZ: What? Was there any explanation about it? DAN: Well, I knew that it was... The institution itself never sent me like a formal letter or anything, but I knew that it was because of this right-wing Zionist pressure campaign that they were being pressured to fire their new CEO, and in order to try to get rid of that critique, they were just going to get rid of us. And the staff of the American Jewish Historical Society was very supportive of me, and I don't see them as my enemies at all. It was the board of directors, or at least a small group from the board, met in the middle of the night and made this decision. And this is what happens all the time in Jewish organizations: the people actually doing work are willing to make brave choices, and the people who are funding that work are not willing to let anyone make those choices. MOTAZ: Yeah yeah yeah, this happened with the same thing almost with us. DAN: Yeah, at the Public, right? MOTAZ: Yeah yeah yeah, it's almost the same, I like, I don't know who’s stand with us or who is against us, but we had this question for Oskar, which is the Artistic Director of the Public Theater, and his answer was really diplomatic answer and I respect -- no Oskar, he’s really great guy and he was one of the supporters to bring this play over here, and the most important thing, he says, that's to bring “The Siege” for the New Yorker people and we did it. It’s not about the place. DAN: Well, that was interesting about Oskar Eustis and “The Siege,” is that it was supposed to be at the Public Theater, the board canceled that choice. But Oskar, who is the Artistic Director of the Public Theater, he had notes in the program for “The Siege” production at the Skirball Center. And I was like, this is so unusual that you open the program and you see notes from the director of the theatre that canceled the play! MOTAZ: Yeah yeah. But, I want to hear more about Dan play, man. DAN: Sure, yeah. MOTAZ: I would like to know what is the story? DAN: Well, I can tell you about the story of what happens in the play, but what I also want to say is that, after we were canceled, the New York theatre world became incredibly supportive of us. And people really came out of nowhere to offer support and offer help. We raised our budget that had been canceled from American Jewish Historical Society within three days. MOTAZ: Whoa. DAN: Yeah. And we were offered resources that we couldn't have ever imagined. And to me, that was a huge sign that the people who are trying to censor dissident voices around Israel-Palestine are going to fail in humiliation. Because our work is stronger than ever after having been canceled, because people are so angry about it. People who are, who don't really know very much about it, are angry about it. And there are left-wing Zionists in my life who don't agree with me, but who are so angry that the play was canceled -- and it’s put them in a situation where they are more open to my ideas, and more open to considering the ideas of the play. So, I mean -- and we’re going to do the reading of the play, it's going happen next year, the details aren't confirmed, but it's going to be bigger and more interesting and more spectacular than it would have been if it hadn’t been canceled in the first place. Which is interesting. The play itself -- it’s funny because the people who canceled it never read it. And it's weird, like if they read it I think they'd be like, “Oh, this is weird.” It's a weird play. The first act is like a very traditional living room drama in a family. So, there's the aunt and uncle, who are middle-aged formerly left-wing radical American Jews who live in a settlement. There's their radical nephew, who shares my politics but is not a sympathetic person. He’s kind of...nasty and annoying and neurotic. And he’s there with his partner who’s Colombian and has no context for any of this. So I really wanted there to be a character who doesn't really have any stake in the game, doesn't have any history with Israel-Palestine, just comes from another part of the world entirely, but who has...a personal history of violence. Because he grew up in a part of Colombia that experienced a lot of violence. Whereas, I think a lot of white American Jews, violence, revolution, all these ideas are abstract concepts, and we don't experience them in our real lives. So he's coming at -- that character, who in a way is the central character of the play -- is coming at things from a totally different context. And I don't want to give anything away, but by the end of the first act, things go horribly wrong, and the first act ends with an enormous disaster. And the second act begins, and it's a musical, and it takes place in Moscow in 1905. And it's the same family, but a century before, and the matriarch of the family is building bombs for the socialist revolution of 1905. MOTAZ: So it’s almost flashback? DAN: It’s like a flash -- it's like an ancestral flashback. MOTAZ: That’s interesting. DAN: So you see the ancestor of the same family, and she's like a socialist revolutionary. She's building a bomb, she wants to like blow up the Tsar. And...and the ideas of the first act are sort of filtered through the music of the second act, where you see her with her socialist comrades. And what I want to ask is: How did this family go from here to there? How did it get from one place to the other? And, and the other question that I'm really interested in asking is like: Once you learn that there's an enormous injustice around you, how far are you willing to go to stop it from happening? How much violence are you willing to accept in order to stop something? Which is a huge question, I think, for anti-Zionist Jews when it comes to Palestine, like how...what are we supposed to do, knowing this horrible thing is going on? It's a huge question within Palestinian society, obviously, like what are you willing to do to stop this from happening? And it’s been a huge question throughout Jewish political history, which is full of violent resistance to injustice, and we act like were so horrified by violence, but Jewish history is full of it. So, those are the questions that I'm dealing with, and I don't think that the play offers any straightforward answers. And that's the interesting thing about the play being canceled or censored, is that the play itself is about what happens when two sides of a Jewish family can't communicate, and shun each other. And that’s what’s happened with the play, that we were being shunned just like family members are being shunned. And when I was in Israel, researching the play, and I would tell people what the play was about -- you know, it's about a Jewish family that's separated over Israel, and the Israeli side doesn't talk to the American side -- and every single person I talked to was like, “Oh, that's just like my family. That's my family, that happened to us.” And I was like, oh, right. This is bad for everybody. This destroys families, this injustice is destroying everybody involved in it. MOTAZ: Yeah, I mean like, even if it’s happened, like something like, my grandparents, whatever it takes place, I will not do the same thing in a different place. DAN: Right? This is the big Jewish catastrophe of the twentieth century, that you take one of two decisions, right? You either, you take all the trauma and you say, “This will never happen to us again, and we will do anything to protect us.” Or you say, “This will never happen to anyone again.” MOTAZ: What, like, Jewish used to live in Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, many Arab countries, there was normal to see like this Muslim, Christian and a Jewish neighbor and eh, like an atheist beside him, and all of them are living in the Arab world like normally, like -- let's be honest, even though the Arab history is not clear, like there is many bad things from the Arab history also like... But eh, we used to live like together, so the thing is not religion. I don’t believe it’s religion, it’s mentality. It’s... DAN: I was talking, I was having an argument in a restaurant a couple years ago with a Zionist Jew, and we were fighting really passionately. And someone, a stranger came up to our table and said, “Guys, stop fighting about this. It's an ancient struggle that's been going on thousands of years.” And we both looked at him, both of us agreed, we were like, “No, it isn't! This is new, this is in the past like less than 200 years that this has happened, come on.” We were like, “Go sit down. Finish your lunch, hon. Get out of our faces.” There's so many lies about it. But this is...I feel like this is the work, this is the cultural work of American Jewishness right now. We've been brought up with such a distorted understanding of the world. And it's gonna take so much cultural work to undo it all. MOTAZ: Yeah, and it's gonna make a lot of enemies at the same time. DAN: Oh yeah. But I think my situation proves that it's also gonna get…it's not gonna be completely a disaster. You know, everyone -- so many people warned me against making work like this. And yeah, I got canceled, but in the process, I have tremendously powerful friends now that I didn't make before. MOTAZ: Doesn't it make you stronger after they cancel it? DAN: Yeah, of course. Yeah. MOTAZ: Didn't it make you more like want to do it? DAN: Oh, yeah. MOTAZ: That's a good thing, then. Okay, what’s the next question? MAX: So, for both of you, why is culture your weapon of choice? MOTAZ: Woo hoo! Because eh… Dan, you go ahead. DAN: ‘Cause its more powerful! Like…violence only ever creates more violence. I think this, like, even when it's necessary, it ends up being true. Culture is the only human practice that can actually dig into the root of a trauma and try to undo it in the first place. Um, and this is why people are so afraid of culture, and in particular theatre. ‘Cause when there's a human being in front of you having an experience, it’s very difficult to ignore them. It's hard to ignore a play. And, and so many…especially, so many American Zionist Jews are under -- on an emotional level, understand that their perspective is impossible. ‘Cause if you ask most American Jews, “Do you believe that it is right for a country to privilege one ethno-religious group over others?” Most of them will say, “No, that’s wrong. That is a wrong thing.” And then you say, “Well, what about Israel?” and they'll go, “Uhhhhhh…” But the fundamental truth, the deeper truth is that none of us actually support this. It's, the the support for Israel is the more superficial belief. The deeper belief is that this is wrong. Good plays, good art, good visual art, good music, good anything about this will help strip away the sort of superficial attachment to the, to the story of Israel, and help people get to the deeper belief that supremacy is wrong. No matter who is supreme in any given situation, it will always be wrong. ILANA: Sorry, I just wanna um, in the conversation about Zionism, I’m wondering... DAN: Do you want me to define that? ILANA: Yeah, I’m wondering specifically if you think any form of Zionism involves supremacy and that kind of thing. DAN: You know, I identify as an anti-Zionist Jew, and a lot of people, a lot of people will say, “Oh, don't say that, because it’s icky, it makes us uncomfortable to say you're anti-Zionist. Because, 'cause what does that really mean.” And for me, if it was the early 1900s, maybe I would have identified as like a Cultural Zionist. But to me, the way the word Zionism functions in the world, it’s support for a Jewish state of Israel. And to me, that means that Zionism inherently requires one to believe that Jews should reign supreme in this land, and I think that that's an untenable option. MAX: I…I sort of wanna respond. DAN: You wanna get into it, Max? MAX: No, I don't -- no, I don’t wanna argue with you…that's not… I will confess that I am skeptical of people who call themselves anti-Zionists who are not Jewish and not Palestinian. I... DAN:  Yeah yeah yeah, me too. I think that part of the, part of what it means to liberate Jews in the world, is to liberate us from our trauma, and to liberate us from that pain that…that distracts us from the reality of the world. And that requires our friends to help us get through that trauma, and to help us liberate ourselves from that trauma, and that requires non-Jewish people who oppose Zionism to make sure that we are emotionally capable of, um, of joining with them and being in community with them. And to me that's always like a challenge to my non-Jewish friends and comrades to be like, if we’re gonna do this together you need to understand that we’re…we just barely made it alive into this century, and a lot of us have like legitimate fears for our lives. I mean, we’re living in the United States where there's like a Nazi problem, right? Like our fear of violence is real and legitimate and um, when people say there's like no anti-semitism on the left in the United States, to me that's like so foolish. Like obviously, there's some anti-semitism in any part of the world, in any community. MOTAZ: Of course, of course…that's true. DAN: And when we pretend it doesn't exist, then we’re...I think we make so many other Jews feel unsafe joining us in this movement, because we're saying something that's obviously untrue and they don't trust us ‘cause it sounds like we’re lying to them. From my perspective, we need to say it: yeah, there's totally some anti-semitism on the left. And we need to deal with it, and our non-Jewish comrades need to deal with it, so that we can see that this is a safe place for us to be. MOTAZ: Nobody called you before, like you are anti-semitic after all the things you did? DAN: Oh yeah. MOTAZ: And you are Jewish. DAN: Oh yeah. Motaz, I need to tell you, I've gotten a lot of hate mail in my life and it's never as aggressive as other Jews. They’re the ones that tell me I should die. What they always say is, “You should go to Palestine, where they’d kill you.” They say this all the time, and I’m like, “I’ve been to Palestine, dude!” MOTAZ: So if some of the guys gonna hear this interview, Dan, you more than welcome in my house in Jenin. Nobody gonna kill you, you gonna love it. So come back to the first question? MAX: Yes, yes, finally... MOTAZ: Why cultural... Because I'm fed up. I have seen like many people got killed in this entire world since I was born. And see blood everywhere, why it’s need to be violent? Why that question? Why don't we turn the opposite question: why we have to be violent? Because it's like, we fed up, we are like, we are human. There is many people that think, like, “Oh, they was born like this.” No, they was not born like this. There is something happen to them. Like, if you watch there is a really important and good movie, it’s called “Arna’s Children,” Little kids, he talking about this story a lot, little kids. And they was dreaming about to be a Romeo of Palestine, them want to be Juliet, one of them he want to be Al Pacino. They wanna be actors. Suddenly, in a moment in 2002, you see those people got killed. And they became a freedom fighter before. Why? One of them his mother got killed by a sniper. One of them, after they bomb a school, he went to the school and he grabbed the body of a girl and she was almost alive, while he was running through the hospital, she died. So, his...of course he was gonna have a flip in his mind, and he gonna hold the gun and fight. So those people, they didn't like came from nothing. There is a reason always to do this. Even like I'm not into like guns or things, that's why I choose also art because I believe art is more stronger than a gun. And I don’t want to see any person on earth suffer. Like death is coming anyway, like you gonna die, but why we have to kill each other? Destroying, destroying. Like, I can make art which is strong, I can bring the messages, not just from my place, from all over the world and develop it to the stage. And eh… I think it's, let's make it, let's be cultural more. Let's let the art talk. And eh, we not gonna fake history, we not gonna fake stories, we gonna bring the story as it is. DAN: And this is why they’re so afraid of theatre. MOTAZ: Yeah! DAN: Because theatre shows the reasons why a person does something, and they don't wanna look at the reasons. MOTAZ: Man, I start to believe in this thing in 2012. I was going to the theatre in a taxi and there was checkpoint, and they stop me. ‘Cause I have no ID. I told him, like “I’m late for my theatre.” And he said, “Oh, you’re going to the Freedom Theatre.” He said like, “Come on man, they killed Juliano, they could kill you too.” And I said like “Why?” He said like, “Art will not change anything man. Why you need it?” And I said, “It's fine, for you it's nothing, but for me...” And he told me, “If you don't have your ID next time, you go to prison. And I promise you.” So since that time I just realize how much art is strong, and how much they afraid from art.   MAX: Here’s Motaz in a scene from “Return to Palestine,” devised by graduates of the Freedom Theatre acting school. [Excerpt from "Return to Palestine," in Arabic]   MAX: So, the work I do here in New York City is mostly with an organization called Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. MOTAZ: Yeah, I know. MAX: Where I work with a lot of different groups of people. Right now I’m working at Housing Works, which is an organization that um…I think this is the blurb from their website, “works to end the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and homelessness.” MOTAZ: Whoa. DAN: Easy. MAX: Yeah, right? I’m working with a group of folks from Housing Works on a play that they created about their experiences trying to keep and get affordable housing, with housing vouchers that they have because of their status. And… that’s just one example, I’ve worked on a lot of plays, and the way that sometimes I think about what those plays are meant to do, is is kind of in two areas: there’s the sort of, I mean, the way that I talk about it with my family, which is very much in the kind of like raising awareness camp, in the sense that people come to see these plays, they don’t know anything about tenant harassment in New York City and they learn about it. And then, really what it was designed to do by the folks who came up with this stuff in Brazil in the seventies, which is to build capacity in that community. Um, these theater tools are tools for people to work together to make change. I’m wondering if that resonates with you at all, and sort of -- what do you see your work in theater doing? DAN: Obviously I like plays that do all of these things at the same time. MOTAZ: Yeah. DAN: But, as a playwright, if you go into a project with too much of a vision of like what kind of responses you want from your audience -- an audience knows when you’re trying to manipulate them, and at the end of the day, an audience knows when something is authentic. So, being a playwright is about balancing your vision for what you want to happen in the room, and your relationship to your own imagination and your own impulses. MOTAZ: And the thing is like, if you don’t believe it, the actors will never believe it, then the audience will never believe it. DAN: Yeah, totally, and a lot of political theatre gets a bad rap, because I think a lot of political theatre is only thinking about, how can we make an impact with this audience? And it feels false. MOTAZ: I’m interested to know about, Dan, like -- normally, when you write, you give solution for the people? Or you give them a question to find the solution? DAN: I don’t give solutions, no. MOTAZ: You give a question. DAN: I give the questions. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. MOTAZ: Good, yeah. DAN: If I feel like I know concretely an answer to something, then I don’t need to write the play. I will just write an essay.   [MUSIC: Cheese on Bread, “All Your Sisters”]   MAX: Motaz had to leave, and I got to talk to Dan for a little while longer about the difference between boycott and censorship, and why he wants to start identifying as a “liberationist Jew.” If you’re not already subscribed, SUBSCRIBE to Unsettled on your podcatcher of choice -- because, in a couple weeks, you’ll get a bonus episode with the rest of our conversation. In the meantime, you can find Dan’s work at his website, danfishback.com, and follow Motaz on Instagram @motazmalhees, that’s M-O-T-A-Z-M-A-L-H-E-E-S. The song you’ve been hearing is "All Your Sisters" by Dan Fishback’s band, Cheese On Bread, from their forthcoming album "The One Who Wanted More,” coming out next year. You can find the song, a full transcript of the episode and other resources at our website, unsettledpod.com. Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Yoshi Fields, Ilana Levinson, and me. This episode was edited by Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. We recorded this episode in a studio for the first time -- shout out to Cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York. Go to our website, unsettledpod.com, for more show information. We want to bring you more content in more different forms, and to make that happen, we need your support! So you can become a monthly sustainer at Patreon.com/unsettled. You can like Unsettled on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, to make sure you never miss an episode of Unsettled.

“Culture is the only human practice that can actually dig into the root of a trauma and try to undo it in the first place. And this is why people are so afraid of culture, and in particular theatre. ‘Cause when there’s a human being in front of you having an experience, it’s very difficult to ignore them. It’s hard to ignore a play.” — Dan Fishback Dan Fishback and Motaz Malhees both made waves in the New York theater scene this fall with plays about Palestine. Motaz performed with the Freedom Theatre of Jenin in "The Siege," at the NYU Skirball Center. Meanwhile, Dan's play "Rubble Rubble" was abruptly and controversially cancelled by the American Jewish Historical Society. In this joint interview, Dan and Motaz talk about their work, and explain why culture is their weapon of choice against the injustices of the occupation. This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded at The 'cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York on November 6, 2017. Edited for length and clarity by Ilana Levinson.  Photo credit: Sammy Tunis Dan Fishback is a playwright, performer, musician, and director of the Helix Queer Performance Network. His musical “The Material World” was called one of the Top Ten Plays of 2012 by Time Out New York. His play “You Will Experience Silence” was called “sassier and more fun than 'Angels in America'” by the Village Voice. Also a performing songwriter, Fishback has released several albums and toured Europe and North America, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread. Other theater works include “Waiting for Barbara” (New Museum, 2013), “thirtynothing” (Dixon Place, 2011) and “No Direction Homo” (P.S. 122, 2006). As director of the Helix Queer Performance Network, Fishback curates and organizes a range of festivals, workshops and public events, including the annual series, “La MaMa’s Squirts.” Fishback has received grants for his theater work from the Franklin Furnace Fund (2010) and the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists (2007-2009). He has been a resident artist at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, the Hemispheric Institute at NYU, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where he has developed all of his theater work since 2010. Fishback is a proud member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Artist Council. He is currently developing two new musicals, “Rubble Rubble” and “Water Signs,” and will release a new album by Cheese On Bread in 2018. Motaz Malhees is a Palestinian actor born in 1992. He received his professional training in Stanislavsky, Brecht and Shakespeare at The Freedom Theatre in Jenin Refugee Camp (Palestine), and in Commedia dell’Arte at Theatre Hotel Courage in Amsterdam (Holland). Motaz has trained with internationally acclaimed directors such as Juliano Mer-Khamis and Nabil Al-Raee (The Freedom Theatre), Di Trevis (Royal Shakespeare Company), Thomas Ostermeier (Schaubühne Theatre), and Katrien van Beurden (Theatre Hotel Courage). His stage credits with The Freedom Theatre include: “Alice in Wonderland” (2011), “What Else – Sho Kman?” (2011), Pinter’s “The Caretaker” (2012), “Freaky Boy” (2012), “Courage, Ouda, Courage” (2013), “Suicide Note from Palestine” (2014), “Power/Poison” (2014), and most recently “The Siege” at the NYU Skirball Center. Motaz has also acted in films, including: “Think Out of the Box” (2014, dir. Mohammad Dasoqe), which screened in Palestine, Germany and Mexico; and “Past Tense Continuous” (2014, dir. Dima Hourani). As a versatile actor, Motaz has performed in multilingual plays as well as in scripted, devised, physical, epic and fantasy theatre. Motaz also produces and performs in short films about social issues in Palestine, which have received a wide following on social media platforms. Having grown up in Palestine, and experienced the economic and political hardships of life under occupation, Motaz has been actively interested in acting since he was nine years old. He lives through theatre, and believes in the potential of art to transform people’s ideas and lives. REFERENCES "Arna's Children" (dir. Juliano Mer-Khamis, 2004) "The Life and Death of Juliano Mer-Khamis" (Adam Shatz, London Review of Books, November 2013) "Center for Jewish History Chief Comes Under Fierce Attack By Right-Wingers" (Josh Nathan-Kazis, Forward, September 6, 2017) "Jewish Center Faces Backlash After Canceling Play Criticized as Anti-Israel" (Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times_, _October 11, 2017) Program note by Oskar Eustis for "The Siege" at NYU Skirball Center (October 2017) Indiegogo campaign for Dan Fishback's "Rubble Rubble" "Return to Palestine"(The Freedom Theatre, 2016) in Arabic without subtitles Theatre of the Oppressed NYC Housing Works  "All Your Sisters" (Cheese On Bread, 2017) danfishback.com @motazmalhees thefreedomtheatre.org TRANSCRIPT DAN: So many people warned me against making work like this. And yeah, I got canceled, but in the process, I have tremendously powerful friends now that I didn't make before. MOTAZ: Doesn't it make you stronger after they cancel it? DAN: Yeah, of course. Yeah. MOTAZ: Didn't it make you more like want to do it? DAN: Oh, yeah. MOTAZ: That's a good thing, then.   [MUSIC: Unsettled theme by Nat Rosenzweig]   MAX: Welcome to Unsettled. My name is Max Freedman, I’m one of the producers of Unsettled and your host for today’s episode. Now when I’m not working on this podcast, I’m a theater artist, and I know how hard it can be to make a life in the theater and get your work out there. However hard you think it is, imagine you’re trying to tell stories about the occupied West Bank. Enter Dan Fishback and Motaz Malhees. Dan and Motaz both made waves in the New York theater scene this fall with plays about Palestine. Motaz was in New York performing with the Freedom Theatre of Jenin in “The Siege,” a play about the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, during the Second Intifada. Dan, on the other hand, made waves because of a play that didn’t happen, rather than one that did. His play, “Rubble Rubble,” was supposed to go up at the American Jewish Historical Society, but they cancelled it. I’ll let him tell you why -- and what happened next. Dan and Motaz didn’t know each other before, but I had the privilege to get them in the same room to talk about their work and as you’ll hear, they had a lot in common. In preparation for this interview, I dug through years of old journals and found my entry from the day I first met Motaz, when I was in Jenin, three summers ago. Really big and underlined a few times, I had written two words: CULTURAL RESISTANCE. So that’s our theme for today. Quick note: besides the three of us, at one point you’ll hear the voice of my co-producer Ilana Levinson. I think that’s all you need to know, so, let’s get started!   MAX: Welcome to Unsettled. Uh, why don't you start by introducing yourselves? MOTAZ: Eh, first of all I am so happy to be here with you guys that's before I introduce myself. I am Motaz Malhees, so I am an actor from Palestine, I used to work with the Freedom Theatre since 2010. I do a lot of politics theatre but also the same time I do also for community, I do like for kids show. But I feel like, whatever needs, I give, like...it’s not important the type of theatre I do. But nowadays I'm freelance, and I work like with all theatres in Palestine, my country, because I don't want to be just involved with one place -- even that's I always say that the Freedom Theatre, that's my place and my home. DAN: I’m Dan Fishback, I’m a...I make performance and music and theatre in New York, I’ve been here since 2003 -- I don't know, what do you want to know? MAX: Where’d you grow up? DAN: Oh my gosh! I grew up in a pretty normal American Reform Jewish family, outside Washington, DC in Maryland. In a family that...was essentially a liberal Zionist family, although I don't think they would have necessary articulated themselves like that, they just imagine themselves being normal. And I heard growing up, “If only the Palestinians were nonviolent, then they would get what they want. Because they're asking for something reasonable, but it's because they're violent that things are problem....that that's the reason why there's a problem.” And like, the older people around me as I was growing up were always saying, “If only there was a Palestinian Gandhi” -- that was like the refrain, over and over again. And now I find myself 36 years old, going back to my communities and being like, “There’s this huge non-violent Palestinian movement! And it’s international and we can be part of it, it’s boycott, and blah blah blah.” And everyone’s like, “Oh no, no no, this makes us uncomfortable too.” I'm like, “This is what you were begging for my whole childhood! And now it’s here! Why aren’t you excited? Why aren't you as excited as I am?” That’s where I’m from. MOTAZ: That’s cool. DAN: And it’s an honor to be here with Motaz, whose performance in “The Siege” was absolutely amazing. MOTAZ: We not sure, but there is like people who really want to bring it back to the U.S. again, because it was a really successful show like for the Skirball Theatre, even like they almost sold out. MAX: Let me back you up a second, because, I want you to imagine that I have never heard of “The Siege,” have never heard of the Freedom Theatre. Can you tell me -- tell me what it was, tell me what it is. MOTAZ: “The Siege” it's a story about the invasion happened in 2002 in Palestine. There was like eh...invasion for the whole West Bank: in Jenin, in Nablus, all the cities. Like, one of them was Bethlehem, and in Bethlehem there was like a group of fighters, freedom fighters, who fight and defend back from their homeland. They have like many guns defending themselves, and they have in the other side -- the Israeli side -- there is tanks, Apache, Jeeps, all kind of guns you can imagine your life, heavy guns. And they were like around 45 fighters, 250, 245 civilian -- priests, nuns, children, women, and men, from both different religions -- who’s like stuck inside the Nativity Church for 39 days. With the like first five days they have food, after that they have no food. And they surrounded with around 60,000 soldiers from the Israeli army. They want, like, to finish it. So they, they have pressure, they don't wanna -- even the fighters, says khalas, it’s enough. Their people are suffering, their families are suffering outside because of that. So, they sent them like a paper, they have to write their names, the number of their IDs they have, and their signature. So, the fighters sign on it, and they know that's thirteen going to Europe and twenty-five are going to Gaza. They don't know even where they going. So, they sent them to exile the same day. DAN: When my friends and I were leaving the theatre, all we were talking about is, we were so curious about what their lives would be like after fifteen years of exile and we couldn’t wrap our minds around it. MOTAZ: I know one of them is personally, and he told me a lot about it. And it’s really important to bring this piece because of one reason: they didn't choose. Even they signed the paper that say they have to go to exile, but like they was under pressure, and they thought it's temporary and that they would return. And eh, I know how much they are really broken from inside. They never show this to people.But from inside, if you know them personally, they are really broken, and they just...all they want, just to see like at least their families. Some of them, they can’t. Their family, like they can't get the visa to go to visit them -- like, for example, the two guys, Rami Kamel, and Jihadi Jaara who living in Dublin, they haven't seen their families at all. One of them, like Jihadi he have a son that's his wife give birth like after one week he was sent to exile. He didn't even touch his son, he's fifteen years old, like...at least, like, okay, you don't want to send him back to Palestine. Let his family visit him! Like, this is the minimum of humanity. And eh...a really important point we have like always to say: those people was in their homeland, they was in their own city, and they fight back. They didn't went to...yeah, to Tel Aviv to fight, or to somewhere inside Israel, to fight the people over there. They was fighting the…defending themselves from the Israeli army. MAX: How did you get started with the Freedom Theatre? MOTAZ: Woo hoo! Since I was like, eh…fourteen I heard about it, or thirteen -- and I was dreaming about to be in there cause I’m, since like eight, nine, I start doing acting. It's like something I really love from inside, like I really really want to be an actor. Not because like I wanted a name. Because I can hold the stories, I can share stories for all over the world, I enjoy it, it's something beautiful and strong in the same time. So when I was sixteen, I heard about the hip-hop workshop, dance hip-hop workshop in the Freedom Theatre. So I went there and I apply for it, and I get involved with the workshop, and the last few days Juliano just came and he said, “We open a new class for theatre.”   MAX: Juliano, who Motaz just mentioned, is Juliano Mer Khamis, who started what is today, the Freedom Theatre. Real quick, I want to tell you the remarkable story of the Freedom Theatre of Jenin. During the First Intifada, Juliano’s mother, a Jewish Israeli Communist named Arna Mer, came to Jenin, where she helped to establish housing and educational programs for children in the refugee camp there -- and eventually a children’s theatre called The Stone. Arna died of cancer in 1995, and during the Second Intifada, the Stone Theatre was destroyed. Arna’s son Juliano returned to Jenin for the first time since his mother’s death in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Jenin, and made an incredible film called "Arna’s Children" -- Motaz will tell you more about this in a bit, but it’s on YouTube and I highly recommend it. It was after finishing this film that Juliano returned again to Jenin to found the Freedom Theatre. In 2011, Juliano was assassinated, but the Freedom Theatre has persisted. Alright -- back to Motaz.   MOTAZ: So I get involved and I put myself in that place since 2010. And it’s been like around...now, now you could say like eight years almost. It is...hard and eh, good in the same time. It is, ‘cause you face emotion, a lot of different emotion. But I love it. It's like, it’s become my home now. I’m always there. Even if I have nothing, I go pass by drinking coffee there like, chill, see what's going on, if they need help or something, because I'm part of the family. MAX: Well we met because I went to visit the Freedom Theatre. And you were just hanging around and we sat there and talked for an hour. MOTAZ: Yeah yeah. MAX: Alright, so, Dan. DAN: Yeah. MAX: Tell me about your work and particularly tell me about “Rubble Rubble” and the genesis of that project. MOTAZ: I wanna hear about it. DAN: Well I've been working for the past decade on a trilogy of plays that sort of explore the inner life of the Jewish left in the United States over the past century. And this last play, “Rubble Rubble,” which I've been developing for the past few years, starts in the West Bank in an Israeli settlement. And you find this family that I've been writing plays about -- which is a very far leftist socialist radical family -- you see that that family has split off, and there's like a right-wing side of the family that has become settlers. And the left-wing anti-Zionist member of their family travels to visit them, after they haven’t spoken in twenty years. MOTAZ: Whoa. DAN: And the family confronts each other over his huge chasm, where one person is like a Palestinian solidarity BDS supporter and the rest of the family are like... MOTAZ: Pro-Israel. DAN: They're like settlers! Like living on stolen land, even though, but they’re middle aged American Jews who in the sixties were like radical New Left, you know, people. I’m fascinated by how many American-Israeli Jews were like super far on the left in the United States and then became these horrible oppressors in Israel. It blows my mind that it's possible to make that transition within the course of one life. And so, and that's where the play starts, and um…and I've been developing it for a few years, I went to Israel-Palestine to research for the play, I spent two weeks with interfaith peace builders traveling all through the West Bank and meeting with different non violent Palestinian and Israeli activists. I spent a week interviewing settlers, which was extremely disturbing. Um, and then I’ve been developing this play, and it was gonna have its first public reading at the American Jewish Historical Society in Manhattan and, um, a couple weeks ago -- I guess now around a month ago -- we went to their offices for a meeting and everything was very positive, they were very excited to have us, the staff was very supportive of the work. And we heard that there was a right-wing smear campaign against the organization's new CEO. And we were told, “This is all happening but don't let it bother you. We might have to cancel that other thing, but we're not going to cancel your play, because we, we're really excited about it.” And literally the conversation we had was about raising the budget for our play. Eight hours later, I got an email saying that the play had been canceled. MOTAZ: What? Was there any explanation about it? DAN: Well, I knew that it was... The institution itself never sent me like a formal letter or anything, but I knew that it was because of this right-wing Zionist pressure campaign that they were being pressured to fire their new CEO, and in order to try to get rid of that critique, they were just going to get rid of us. And the staff of the American Jewish Historical Society was very supportive of me, and I don't see them as my enemies at all. It was the board of directors, or at least a small group from the board, met in the middle of the night and made this decision. And this is what happens all the time in Jewish organizations: the people actually doing work are willing to make brave choices, and the people who are funding that work are not willing to let anyone make those choices. MOTAZ: Yeah yeah yeah, this happened with the same thing almost with us. DAN: Yeah, at the Public, right? MOTAZ: Yeah yeah yeah, it's almost the same, I like, I don't know who’s stand with us or who is against us, but we had this question for Oskar, which is the Artistic Director of the Public Theater, and his answer was really diplomatic answer and I respect -- no Oskar, he’s really great guy and he was one of the supporters to bring this play over here, and the most important thing, he says, that's to bring “The Siege” for the New Yorker people and we did it. It’s not about the place. DAN: Well, that was interesting about Oskar Eustis and “The Siege,” is that it was supposed to be at the Public Theater, the board canceled that choice. But Oskar, who is the Artistic Director of the Public Theater, he had notes in the program for “The Siege” production at the Skirball Center. And I was like, this is so unusual that you open the program and you see notes from the director of the theatre that canceled the play! MOTAZ: Yeah yeah. But, I want to hear more about Dan play, man. DAN: Sure, yeah. MOTAZ: I would like to know what is the story? DAN: Well, I can tell you about the story of what happens in the play, but what I also want to say is that, after we were canceled, the New York theatre world became incredibly supportive of us. And people really came out of nowhere to offer support and offer help. We raised our budget that had been canceled from American Jewish Historical Society within three days. MOTAZ: Whoa. DAN: Yeah. And we were offered resources that we couldn't have ever imagined. And to me, that was a huge sign that the people who are trying to censor dissident voices around Israel-Palestine are going to fail in humiliation. Because our work is stronger than ever after having been canceled, because people are so angry about it. People who are, who don't really know very much about it, are angry about it. And there are left-wing Zionists in my life who don't agree with me, but who are so angry that the play was canceled -- and it’s put them in a situation where they are more open to my ideas, and more open to considering the ideas of the play. So, I mean -- and we’re going to do the reading of the play, it's going happen next year, the details aren't confirmed, but it's going to be bigger and more interesting and more spectacular than it would have been if it hadn’t been canceled in the first place. Which is interesting. The play itself -- it’s funny because the people who canceled it never read it. And it's weird, like if they read it I think they'd be like, “Oh, this is weird.” It's a weird play. The first act is like a very traditional living room drama in a family. So, there's the aunt and uncle, who are middle-aged formerly left-wing radical American Jews who live in a settlement. There's their radical nephew, who shares my politics but is not a sympathetic person. He’s kind of...nasty and annoying and neurotic. And he’s there with his partner who’s Colombian and has no context for any of this. So I really wanted there to be a character who doesn't really have any stake in the game, doesn't have any history with Israel-Palestine, just comes from another part of the world entirely, but who has...a personal history of violence. Because he grew up in a part of Colombia that experienced a lot of violence. Whereas, I think a lot of white American Jews, violence, revolution, all these ideas are abstract concepts, and we don't experience them in our real lives. So he's coming at -- that character, who in a way is the central character of the play -- is coming at things from a totally different context. And I don't want to give anything away, but by the end of the first act, things go horribly wrong, and the first act ends with an enormous disaster. And the second act begins, and it's a musical, and it takes place in Moscow in 1905. And it's the same family, but a century before, and the matriarch of the family is building bombs for the socialist revolution of 1905. MOTAZ: So it’s almost flashback? DAN: It’s like a flash -- it's like an ancestral flashback. MOTAZ: That’s interesting. DAN: So you see the ancestor of the same family, and she's like a socialist revolutionary. She's building a bomb, she wants to like blow up the Tsar. And...and the ideas of the first act are sort of filtered through the music of the second act, where you see her with her socialist comrades. And what I want to ask is: How did this family go from here to there? How did it get from one place to the other? And, and the other question that I'm really interested in asking is like: Once you learn that there's an enormous injustice around you, how far are you willing to go to stop it from happening? How much violence are you willing to accept in order to stop something? Which is a huge question, I think, for anti-Zionist Jews when it comes to Palestine, like how...what are we supposed to do, knowing this horrible thing is going on? It's a huge question within Palestinian society, obviously, like what are you willing to do to stop this from happening? And it’s been a huge question throughout Jewish political history, which is full of violent resistance to injustice, and we act like were so horrified by violence, but Jewish history is full of it. So, those are the questions that I'm dealing with, and I don't think that the play offers any straightforward answers. And that's the interesting thing about the play being canceled or censored, is that the play itself is about what happens when two sides of a Jewish family can't communicate, and shun each other. And that’s what’s happened with the play, that we were being shunned just like family members are being shunned. And when I was in Israel, researching the play, and I would tell people what the play was about -- you know, it's about a Jewish family that's separated over Israel, and the Israeli side doesn't talk to the American side -- and every single person I talked to was like, “Oh, that's just like my family. That's my family, that happened to us.” And I was like, oh, right. This is bad for everybody. This destroys families, this injustice is destroying everybody involved in it. MOTAZ: Yeah, I mean like, even if it’s happened, like something like, my grandparents, whatever it takes place, I will not do the same thing in a different place. DAN: Right? This is the big Jewish catastrophe of the twentieth century, that you take one of two decisions, right? You either, you take all the trauma and you say, “This will never happen to us again, and we will do anything to protect us.” Or you say, “This will never happen to anyone again.” MOTAZ: What, like, Jewish used to live in Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, many Arab countries, there was normal to see like this Muslim, Christian and a Jewish neighbor and eh, like an atheist beside him, and all of them are living in the Arab world like normally, like -- let's be honest, even though the Arab history is not clear, like there is many bad things from the Arab history also like... But eh, we used to live like together, so the thing is not religion. I don’t believe it’s religion, it’s mentality. It’s... DAN: I was talking, I was having an argument in a restaurant a couple years ago with a Zionist Jew, and we were fighting really passionately. And someone, a stranger came up to our table and said, “Guys, stop fighting about this. It's an ancient struggle that's been going on thousands of years.” And we both looked at him, both of us agreed, we were like, “No, it isn't! This is new, this is in the past like less than 200 years that this has happened, come on.” We were like, “Go sit down. Finish your lunch, hon. Get out of our faces.” There's so many lies about it. But this is...I feel like this is the work, this is the cultural work of American Jewishness right now. We've been brought up with such a distorted understanding of the world. And it's gonna take so much cultural work to undo it all. MOTAZ: Yeah, and it's gonna make a lot of enemies at the same time. DAN: Oh yeah. But I think my situation proves that it's also gonna get…it's not gonna be completely a disaster. You know, everyone -- so many people warned me against making work like this. And yeah, I got canceled, but in the process, I have tremendously powerful friends now that I didn't make before. MOTAZ: Doesn't it make you stronger after they cancel it? DAN: Yeah, of course. Yeah. MOTAZ: Didn't it make you more like want to do it? DAN: Oh, yeah. MOTAZ: That's a good thing, then. Okay, what’s the next question? MAX: So, for both of you, why is culture your weapon of choice? MOTAZ: Woo hoo! Because eh… Dan, you go ahead. DAN: ‘Cause its more powerful! Like…violence only ever creates more violence. I think this, like, even when it's necessary, it ends up being true. Culture is the only human practice that can actually dig into the root of a trauma and try to undo it in the first place. Um, and this is why people are so afraid of culture, and in particular theatre. ‘Cause when there's a human being in front of you having an experience, it’s very difficult to ignore them. It's hard to ignore a play. And, and so many…especially, so many American Zionist Jews are under -- on an emotional level, understand that their perspective is impossible. ‘Cause if you ask most American Jews, “Do you believe that it is right for a country to privilege one ethno-religious group over others?” Most of them will say, “No, that’s wrong. That is a wrong thing.” And then you say, “Well, what about Israel?” and they'll go, “Uhhhhhh…” But the fundamental truth, the deeper truth is that none of us actually support this. It's, the the support for Israel is the more superficial belief. The deeper belief is that this is wrong. Good plays, good art, good visual art, good music, good anything about this will help strip away the sort of superficial attachment to the, to the story of Israel, and help people get to the deeper belief that supremacy is wrong. No matter who is supreme in any given situation, it will always be wrong. ILANA: Sorry, I just wanna um, in the conversation about Zionism, I’m wondering... DAN: Do you want me to define that? ILANA: Yeah, I’m wondering specifically if you think any form of Zionism involves supremacy and that kind of thing. DAN: You know, I identify as an anti-Zionist Jew, and a lot of people, a lot of people will say, “Oh, don't say that, because it’s icky, it makes us uncomfortable to say you're anti-Zionist. Because, 'cause what does that really mean.” And for me, if it was the early 1900s, maybe I would have identified as like a Cultural Zionist. But to me, the way the word Zionism functions in the world, it’s support for a Jewish state of Israel. And to me, that means that Zionism inherently requires one to believe that Jews should reign supreme in this land, and I think that that's an untenable option. MAX: I…I sort of wanna respond. DAN: You wanna get into it, Max? MAX: No, I don't -- no, I don’t wanna argue with you…that's not… I will confess that I am skeptical of people who call themselves anti-Zionists who are not Jewish and not Palestinian. I... DAN:  Yeah yeah yeah, me too. I think that part of the, part of what it means to liberate Jews in the world, is to liberate us from our trauma, and to liberate us from that pain that…that distracts us from the reality of the world. And that requires our friends to help us get through that trauma, and to help us liberate ourselves from that trauma, and that requires non-Jewish people who oppose Zionism to make sure that we are emotionally capable of, um, of joining with them and being in community with them. And to me that's always like a challenge to my non-Jewish friends and comrades to be like, if we’re gonna do this together you need to understand that we’re…we just barely made it alive into this century, and a lot of us have like legitimate fears for our lives. I mean, we’re living in the United States where there's like a Nazi problem, right? Like our fear of violence is real and legitimate and um, when people say there's like no anti-semitism on the left in the United States, to me that's like so foolish. Like obviously, there's some anti-semitism in any part of the world, in any community. MOTAZ: Of course, of course…that's true. DAN: And when we pretend it doesn't exist, then we’re...I think we make so many other Jews feel unsafe joining us in this movement, because we're saying something that's obviously untrue and they don't trust us ‘cause it sounds like we’re lying to them. From my perspective, we need to say it: yeah, there's totally some anti-semitism on the left. And we need to deal with it, and our non-Jewish comrades need to deal with it, so that we can see that this is a safe place for us to be. MOTAZ: Nobody called you before, like you are anti-semitic after all the things you did? DAN: Oh yeah. MOTAZ: And you are Jewish. DAN: Oh yeah. Motaz, I need to tell you, I've gotten a lot of hate mail in my life and it's never as aggressive as other Jews. They’re the ones that tell me I should die. What they always say is, “You should go to Palestine, where they’d kill you.” They say this all the time, and I’m like, “I’ve been to Palestine, dude!” MOTAZ: So if some of the guys gonna hear this interview, Dan, you more than welcome in my house in Jenin. Nobody gonna kill you, you gonna love it. So come back to the first question? MAX: Yes, yes, finally... MOTAZ: Why cultural... Because I'm fed up. I have seen like many people got killed in this entire world since I was born. And see blood everywhere, why it’s need to be violent? Why that question? Why don't we turn the opposite question: why we have to be violent? Because it's like, we fed up, we are like, we are human. There is many people that think, like, “Oh, they was born like this.” No, they was not born like this. There is something happen to them. Like, if you watch there is a really important and good movie, it’s called “Arna’s Children,” Little kids, he talking about this story a lot, little kids. And they was dreaming about to be a Romeo of Palestine, them want to be Juliet, one of them he want to be Al Pacino. They wanna be actors. Suddenly, in a moment in 2002, you see those people got killed. And they became a freedom fighter before. Why? One of them his mother got killed by a sniper. One of them, after they bomb a school, he went to the school and he grabbed the body of a girl and she was almost alive, while he was running through the hospital, she died. So, his...of course he was gonna have a flip in his mind, and he gonna hold the gun and fight. So those people, they didn't like came from nothing. There is a reason always to do this. Even like I'm not into like guns or things, that's why I choose also art because I believe art is more stronger than a gun. And I don’t want to see any person on earth suffer. Like death is coming anyway, like you gonna die, but why we have to kill each other? Destroying, destroying. Like, I can make art which is strong, I can bring the messages, not just from my place, from all over the world and develop it to the stage. And eh… I think it's, let's make it, let's be cultural more. Let's let the art talk. And eh, we not gonna fake history, we not gonna fake stories, we gonna bring the story as it is. DAN: And this is why they’re so afraid of theatre. MOTAZ: Yeah! DAN: Because theatre shows the reasons why a person does something, and they don't wanna look at the reasons. MOTAZ: Man, I start to believe in this thing in 2012. I was going to the theatre in a taxi and there was checkpoint, and they stop me. ‘Cause I have no ID. I told him, like “I’m late for my theatre.” And he said, “Oh, you’re going to the Freedom Theatre.” He said like, “Come on man, they killed Juliano, they could kill you too.” And I said like “Why?” He said like, “Art will not change anything man. Why you need it?” And I said, “It's fine, for you it's nothing, but for me...” And he told me, “If you don't have your ID next time, you go to prison. And I promise you.” So since that time I just realize how much art is strong, and how much they afraid from art.   MAX: Here’s Motaz in a scene from “Return to Palestine,” devised by graduates of the Freedom Theatre acting school. [Excerpt from "Return to Palestine," in Arabic]   MAX: So, the work I do here in New York City is mostly with an organization called Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. MOTAZ: Yeah, I know. MAX: Where I work with a lot of different groups of people. Right now I’m working at Housing Works, which is an organization that um…I think this is the blurb from their website, “works to end the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and homelessness.” MOTAZ: Whoa. DAN: Easy. MAX: Yeah, right? I’m working with a group of folks from Housing Works on a play that they created about their experiences trying to keep and get affordable housing, with housing vouchers that they have because of their status. And… that’s just one example, I’ve worked on a lot of plays, and the way that sometimes I think about what those plays are meant to do, is is kind of in two areas: there’s the sort of, I mean, the way that I talk about it with my family, which is very much in the kind of like raising awareness camp, in the sense that people come to see these plays, they don’t know anything about tenant harassment in New York City and they learn about it. And then, really what it was designed to do by the folks who came up with this stuff in Brazil in the seventies, which is to build capacity in that community. Um, these theater tools are tools for people to work together to make change. I’m wondering if that resonates with you at all, and sort of -- what do you see your work in theater doing? DAN: Obviously I like plays that do all of these things at the same time. MOTAZ: Yeah. DAN: But, as a playwright, if you go into a project with too much of a vision of like what kind of responses you want from your audience -- an audience knows when you’re trying to manipulate them, and at the end of the day, an audience knows when something is authentic. So, being a playwright is about balancing your vision for what you want to happen in the room, and your relationship to your own imagination and your own impulses. MOTAZ: And the thing is like, if you don’t believe it, the actors will never believe it, then the audience will never believe it. DAN: Yeah, totally, and a lot of political theatre gets a bad rap, because I think a lot of political theatre is only thinking about, how can we make an impact with this audience? And it feels false. MOTAZ: I’m interested to know about, Dan, like -- normally, when you write, you give solution for the people? Or you give them a question to find the solution? DAN: I don’t give solutions, no. MOTAZ: You give a question. DAN: I give the questions. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. MOTAZ: Good, yeah. DAN: If I feel like I know concretely an answer to something, then I don’t need to write the play. I will just write an essay.   [MUSIC: Cheese on Bread, “All Your Sisters”]   MAX: Motaz had to leave, and I got to talk to Dan for a little while longer about the difference between boycott and censorship, and why he wants to start identifying as a “liberationist Jew.” If you’re not already subscribed, SUBSCRIBE to Unsettled on your podcatcher of choice -- because, in a couple weeks, you’ll get a bonus episode with the rest of our conversation. In the meantime, you can find Dan’s work at his website, danfishback.com, and follow Motaz on Instagram @motazmalhees, that’s M-O-T-A-Z-M-A-L-H-E-E-S. The song you’ve been hearing is "All Your Sisters" by Dan Fishback’s band, Cheese On Bread, from their forthcoming album "The One Who Wanted More,” coming out next year. You can find the song, a full transcript of the episode and other resources at our website, unsettledpod.com. Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Yoshi Fields, Ilana Levinson, and me. This episode was edited by Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. We recorded this episode in a studio for the first time -- shout out to Cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York. Go to our website, unsettledpod.com, for more show information. We want to bring you more content in more different forms, and to make that happen, we need your support! So you can become a monthly sustainer at Patreon.com/unsettled. You can like Unsettled on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, to make sure you never miss an episode of Unsettled.

This week on "Everything is Connected," author Abigail Pogrebin joins Jonathan for a lively conversation about her deep dive into the heart of Judaism. We discuss what she's learned about marking time through the observance of an ancient, traditional sequence of festivals and fast-days... some of which she'd never heard of before undertaking a project that left even some of her closest family and friends scratching their heads. As she went about her immersive research, she interviewed enough rabbis to become a self-proclaimed "rabbi groupie," which is when we knew we had to have her on the show.Abigail Pogrebin is the author of My Jewish Year: 18 Holidays; One Wondering Jew – a much-expanded chronicle of her popular column for the Forward, for which she spent 12 months researching and observing every holiday in the Jewish calendar.Pogrebin is also the author of Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk about Being Jewish, which went into eight hardcover printings and was later adapted for the Off-Broadway stage. Pogrebin’s second book, One and the Same, delved into every aspect of growing up as a twin, (she’s an identical), and her bestselling Amazon Kindle Single, Showstopper, recounts her teenage adventure in the original Broadway cast of Stephen Sondheim’s flop, “Merrily We Roll Along.”Abigail was formerly a broadcast producer for Fred Friendly, Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers at PBS, then for Ed Bradley and Mike Wallace at 60 Minutes. She has been published in many magazines and newspapers including Newsweek, New York Magazine, The Forward, Tablet, and The Daily Beast. She has moderated conversations at The JCC in Manhattan, 92Y, The Skirball Center, and Shalom Hartman Institute. Pogrebin lives in Manhattan and is currently the President of Central Synagogue.Learn more about Abigail at her website by clicking here.

Is God Is, Brief Chronicle (Books 6-8) (3 Hole Press) 3 Hole Press is a small press bringing new audiences to new plays in printed formats. To celebrate the publications of its two newest books, 3 Hole Press presents short readings from each play, followed by a conversation with the authors. Winner of the 2016 Relentless Award from the American Playwriting Foundation, Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is is a classic revenge tale about two sisters that blends tragedy, typography, the Spaghetti Western, hip-hop and Afropunk. In this necessary new work, emotions are laid bare through gaps in language and characters are a window into the canon as well as our own broken times.  In Brief Chronicle (Books 6–8), Alexander Borinsky delivers a quietly heartbreaking new play that grounds epic themes—unabated longing, violence and imperialism, and the bond between mother and son—in the small ways we hurt and love one another and decide where to go on vacation. Praise for IS GOD IS A rigorous new work that unearths our deepest fears about humanity and who we think we are in relation to ourselves and the divine.—Dawn Lundy Martin Family, as the old tragedians knew, is our first country. Therefore, it’s the earth from which we forge our first weapons, the fields of our first wars, the very turf over which we fight. With Is God Is, Aleshea Harris audaciously scours tragedy down with the rough edge of a rock. To read this merciless play is to get blood in your eye — and in Harris’ sure grip, you’ll recall that blood washes and stains, can run hot or cold, means both violence and family. —Douglas Kearney Praise for BRIEF CHRONICLE, BOOKS 6-8 Brief Chronicle, Books 6-8 is a remarkable creature of our shattered and shuttered time. Borinsky’s theater examines everything that it encounters—including the various artifices of theater itself, i.e. character, costumes, boxes, supposed emotions (real or imagined), action as it would have its way, place/s, and all the supposed ends and means of the theater making apparatus—with a scrupulous but loving attentiveness. There is no one quite like him writing and making theater today.—Mac Wellman In this big, small play, people learn who they are as they say things, punctuation makes gaps where lonely spirits and dances live, and stuff gets sticky between tender, selfish hearts. This is a battle cry for doing the daily work of becoming better in America.—Jennie Liu If the world feels a little unknowable after reading this play, if you feel unknowable to yourself, how do you talk about that, how do you narrate what it was like? Still, I will tell you what I thought about when I finished Alexander Borinsky’s Brief Chronicle, Books 6-8, though it changed when I read it again, and it may be different for you too. Intimacy. The many ways (sometimes strange or uncomfortable) in which it’s possible to know another person. What it means to appear. What it means to live.—Amina Cain Alexander Borinsky is a playwright, born in Baltimore in 1986. Aleshea Harris is a playwright, poet and educator who received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Her work has been presented at the Costume Shop at American Conservatory Theater, Playfest at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, freeFall Theatre Company, VOXfest at Dartmouth, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, La Comédie de Saint-Étienne- National Drama Center in France, the Skirball Center, The Theatre @ Boston Court, REDCAT and in the 2015 anthology, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. Harris is a MacDowell Fellow and winner of the 2016 Relentless Award from the American Playwriting Foundation for Is God Is.

Live from the Skirball Center at New York University – A handful of New York's top editors talk about how journalists and the media at large can play a bigger role in making sure that fact prevails over fiction in the coming months and years under a Trump administration. This conversation was moderated by CNN's Brian Stelter. And the panel included: Jacob Weisberg, Chairman of The Slate Group and host/creator of Trumpcast, Lydia Polgreen, Huffington Post Borja Echevarría, VP and Editor in Chief, Univision Digital and David Remnick, Editor, The New Yorker Profits from this event went to benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live from the Skirball Center at New York University – A handful of New York's top editors talk about how journalists and the media at large can play a bigger role in making sure that fact prevails over fiction in the coming months and years under a Trump administration. This conversation was moderated by CNN's Brian Stelter. And the panel included: Jacob Weisberg, Chairman of The Slate Group and host/creator of Trumpcast, Lydia Polgreen, Huffington Post Borja Echevarría, VP and Editor in Chief, Univision Digital and David Remnick, Editor, The New Yorker Profits from this event went to benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we are joined by Troy Schumacher, a Corps member with New York City Ballet and Artistic Director of BalletCollective. Mr. Schumacher gives us insight into creating a company from the ground up, his vision for BalletCollective, and his performances coming up on October 27th and 28th at NYU’s Skirball Center. The post (17) Troy Schumacher of NYCB and BalletCollective appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com.

This show starts a new genre for me, promoting very talented performers, something very near and dear to my heart.  My guest today is Tzeitel Abrego, Tzeitel is a Toronto based singer, actress and songwriter, represented by Talent House Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance - Music Theatre from NYU Steinhardt, in the vocal studio of Michael Ricciardone. In 2012, she performed at the Skirball Center for Performing Arts as Marie in The Most Happy Fella. Tzeitel performed much of the music that was cut from the original Broadway show which was reinstated in this production, including Marie's solos "Eyes Like a Stranger" and "Nobody's Ever Gonna Love You". Other credits include City of Angels (Angel City Four Alto) and Fiorello! (Cutie/Striker). Regional credits include 80s Solid Gold 2 (Paula Abdul/Whitney Houston/Irene Cara/Salt-N-Pepa), The Wedding Singer, Once Upon a Mattress (Lady Larken),Godspell (Herb), Bye Bye Bytown (Rhonny), and Anne and Gilbert (Prillie/Trio). Listen in as we play one of her original songs and talk about what she's doing today. As always, thanks for listening.  

Matthew Neenan began his dance training at the Boston Ballet School. He later attended the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet in New York. From 1994-2007, Matthew danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet and 2007, Matthew was named Choreographer in Residenceat the Pennsylvania Ballet. Matthew’s choreography has been featured and performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet, BalletX, The Washington Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Ballet West, Ballet Memphis, Milwaukee Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, Ballet Met, Oklahoma City Ballet, Juilliard Dance, New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, Sacramento Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Indiana University, Opera Philadelphia, and LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts (NYC), among others. In 2005, Matthew co-founded BalletX with fellow dancer Christine Cox. BalletX had its world premiere at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival in September 2005 and is now the resident dance company at the prestigious Wilma Theatre. BalletX has toured and performed Neenan’s choreography in New York City at The Joyce Theater, The Skirball Center, Symphony Space and Central Park Summerstage, Vail International Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, The Cerritos Center, Laguna Dance Festival, Spring to Dance Festival in St.Louis, and internationally in Cali, Colombia and Seoul, Korea. In 2010, Matthew became a trustee member for DanceUSA. His ballet The Last Glass was praised in the New York Times as the “The Top 10” of 2013. Matthew Neenan's website   BalletX Website New York Times Article mentioned in introduction Balancing Pointe's website  

An excerpt from our recorded live show, "The Librarian," recorded live on January 16, 2015 at Skirball Center, New York, NY. The complete recording is available at nightvale.bandcamp.com, for whatever you think over 90 minutes of new Night Vale content is worth, and at iTunes (search: Night Vale). Music: Disparition, disparition.info Logo: Rob Wilson, robwilsonwork.com. Produced by Commonplace Books. Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. More Info: welcometonightvale.com, and follow @NightValeRadio on Twitter or Facebook.

Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA) Has their 30th Anniversary Meeting. Since 1985 the Los Angeles Venture Association has been providing forums where entrepreneurs and executives of start-up, emerging growth and late stage venture funded companies actively meet and learn from … Continue reading →

Klezmer Podcast 110- Klezmerson. On this episode my interview guests are Benjamin Shwartz and Dan Zlotnik of the band Klezmerson, from Mexico City. Klezmerson blends Latin rhythms and Klezmer to create a unique musical style all their own. We hear the track Augmented from the album 7. I caught the band at Skirball Center in … Continue reading Klezmer Podcast 110- Klezmerson →

Opening Night Benefit Featuring World Premiere of Elmgreen & Dragset's Happy Days in the Art World and Special Live Retrospective * Tuesday, November 1, 2011 Skirball Center for the Performing Arts Opening Night of the Performa Biennial is one of the most anticipated events on New York’s winter cultural calendar. Performa will celebrate the start of our fourth international biennial with the premiere performance of a new work by the artists Elmgreen & Dragset. This is the first large performance piece the internationally acclaimed artists have presented in New York City. The performance will be followed by an exceptional party featuring a retrospective of live performances by Elmgreen & Dragset.