Mira Sorvino & Jeffrey Wright Open Harold Clurman Festival

Kicking off the Harold Clurman Festival of the Arts, the Stella Adler Studio hosts Art and Social Activism Spotlight on Africa, a panel discussion with Melissa Fitzgerald (actress, The West Wing, activist, Voices of Uganda), John Prendergast (author, Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, chair of ENOUGH Project), Mira Sorvino (pictured, Academy award-winning actress, Mighty Aphrodite, ambassador Amnesty International), Winter Miller (playwright, In Darfur) and Jeffrey Wright (actor, W., Angels in America, spokesperson for All for Africa), on Friday, October 17 at 7pm at Cooper Union's Great Hall, 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY. The Harold Clurman Festival of the Arts runs through October 27. Proceeds from the festival benefit the Stella Adler Outreach Division, which provides free theater education to New York City public school students. (The Stella Adler Studio of Acting is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.)

The program will begin with readings of two monologues based on experiences in displaced persons camps in Africa, performed by Ruby Dee and Adenike Thomas. Following the monologues, Jimmie Briggs (author, Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War, goodwill ambassador for the United Nations) will lead a discussion about the atrocities happening in Africa today. The discussion will ask what the relationship between the artist and social activism is and what the obligation of artists to respond to the world around them is.

William Ayers, Jimmie Briggs, Ruby Dee, Alvin Epstein, Melissa Fitzgerald, Maxine Greene, Margie Gillis, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill T. Jones, Herbert Kohl, Francis Lucerna, Leonard Lopate, Winter Miller, Tom Oppenheim, Rosie Perez, John Prendergast, Phylicia Rashad and Anna Deavere Smith are among the many artists that will be participating in the Harold Clurman Festival of the Arts.

The Harold Clurman Festival of the Arts, ten days of discussions and performing arts will take place on Friday, October 17 through Monday, October 27, 2008 at The Stella Adler Studio, 31 West 27th Street, New York, NY and Cooper Union's Great Hall, 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY. Proceeds from the festival benefit the Stella Adler Outreach Division, which provides free theater education to New York City public school students. (The Stella Adler Studio of Acting is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.)

The complete schedule is as follows:

 
Friday, October 17

7:00 pm A symposium discussion: Art and Social Activism: Spotlight on Africa, with Ruby Dee, Adenike Thomas, Melissa Fitzgerald, Winter Miller, John Prendergast, moderated by Jimmie Briggs, at Cooper Union's Great Hall ($25 single tickets available)

 
Saturday, October 18

12:00 pm Voices Workshop: The Stella Adler Outreach Division and Voices of Uganda

3:00 pm I.D. Elegy created by Steve Cook

6:00 pm A new movement theater work choreographed by Margie Gillis

7:00 pm Movement: A Universal Language, a discussion with Margie Gillis, Bill T. Jones, Beth Konopka and Irene Dowd, moderated by Deborah Jowitt ($25 single tickets available)

 
Sunday, October 19

12:00 pm Voices Workshop (see details above)

4:00 pm Wherever Green is Worn: Ecology and Antiwar, readings and discussion with Majora Carter, Amiri Baraka, Forrest Gander, James Sherry, Marcella Durand, and Jonathan Skinner 6:00 pm WinterSource created by Steve Cook

 
Monday, October 20

7:00 pm WinterSource created by Steve Cook

 
Tuesday, October 21

6:00 pm A reading of All that Fall by Samuel Beckett with Alvin Epstein, Elizabeth Parrish, Michael Howard and others

8:00 pm WinterSource created by Steve Cook

 
Wednesday, October 22

5:00 pm What Shall I Give My Children? by Don K. Williams directed by Tom Oppenheim

8:00 pm All that Fall by Samuel Beckett (see details above)

 
Thursday, October 23

5:00 pm What Shall I Give My Children? by Don K. Williams directed by Tom Oppenheim

7:00 pm A poetry reading with Eva Salzman and Elizabeth Macklin

8:00 pm A reading of All that Fall by Samuel Beckett (see details above)

11:00 pm Hedwig and the Angry Inch** a concert performance by Jason S. Little with Mark Fiffer, Kate Pazakis, Mary Ann McSweeney, Greg Utzig and Ray Marchica, at the Zipper Theater
** Event is not included in the price of a Festival pass; $20 suggested donation supports the Stella Adler Outreach Division

 
Friday, October 24

7:00 pm What Shall I Give My Children? by Don K. Williams directed by Tom Oppenheim

 
Saturday, October 25

The David Oppenheim Music Center presents Music: An Instrument of Peace

2:00 pm Ned Otter and Friends, jazz

2:00 pm What Shall I Give My Children? by Don K. Williams directed by Tom Oppenheim

4:00 pm Sonya Lee, classical pianist

6:00 pm Noah Getz, saxophonist

8:00 pm David Amram, multi-instrumentalist

 
Sunday, October 26

2:00 pm What Shall I Give My Children? by Don K. Williams directed by Tom Oppenheim

4:00 pm A symposium discussion: Educational Justice with Herbert Kohl, Maxine Greene, Francis Lucerna and William Ayers, moderated by Leonard Lopate ($25 single tickets available)

Monday, October 27

7:00 pm A symposium discussion: Art and Educational Justice, with Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie Perez, Phylicia Rashad, Anna Deavere Smith, moderated by Leonard Lopate, at Cooper Union's Great Hall ($25 single tickets available)

Photo credit: Sara DeBoer/Retna Ltd.

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