The events offer people of all ages, experiences and backgrounds the chance to speak their truth to power before a global audience.
In October Truth to Power Café opens its No Borders World Tour 2020/21 with live and streamed events in three countries, offering people of all ages, experiences and backgrounds the chance to speak their truth to power before a global audience. This internationally acclaimed performance event and digital platform is inspired by the political and philosophical beliefs of Harold Pinter and his Hackney Gang.
"It is theatre at its simplest and most direct, using the shared space as a forum in which people can speak out... this is a chance to have your say. Take it." Lyn Gardner, Guardian
Jeremy Goldstein's Truth to Power Café is a theatrical reflection on loss, hope and resistance, told through memoir, image, poetry, music, and live testimony from participants with stories to tell in response to the question: WHO HAS POWER OVER YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY TO THEM? Is it to your parents, a sibling, politician, lover, landlord, neighbour, religious leader, boss, banker, or simply your best friend? It's time to tell them the truth, before it's too late. Since its premiere in 2018, over 300 participants of all ages, beliefs and backgrounds have taken part in this internationally acclaimed performance event and digital platform.
Truth to Power Café is a long-term project inspired by the political and philosophical beliefs of Nobel Prize Winning Playwright Harold Pinter and his Hackney Gang. For sixty years The Hackney Gang maintained their belief in speaking truth to power and remained firmly on the side of the occupied and the disempowered and their allies. It is these people who are invited to appear in the show. The Gang included Jeremy Goldstein's later father Mick, and Henry Woolf, who at 91 is the sole surviving member of the Gang.
As a theatre maker Jeremy Goldstein is the founder and director of London Artists Projects and an HIV+ activist with ACT UP London. As artist, producer, and activist he has championed underrepresented voices and new forms of artistic and political expression for over three decades. He says: "Truth to Power Café is conceived as a love letter to the memory of my father Mick Goldstein and his friends of sixty years Henry Woolf and Harold Pinter. It's a call to self-expression, and an opportunity to name what might be unconscious or tough to acknowledge, whilst challenging ideas of who can take to the stage and have a voice in the process".
No Borders World Tour opens with the North American premiere streaming from Montgomery College Cultural Arts Centre. On the eve of the US elections, the event unites Truth to Power Café with Venezuelan/US multidisciplinary artist Migguel Anggelo's visionary new stage work English with an Accent, now in development, and up to 10 community participants speaking truth to power from within a dozen miles to the White House. This one-of-a-kind streaming event is a unique transatlantic meditation on time, place and community and takes place on what would have been Harold Pinter's 90th birthday.
One week later, Truth to Power Café will form part of Power Play 2020: Invisible Lines Singapore and stream the live show from London's Conway Hall with 10 UK participants. The Conway Hall event marks the start of a two-year residency for Truth to Power Café at Conway Hall. Dr. Jim Walsh, CEO of Conway Hall says: "Conway Hall is the oldest freethought organisation in the word. We nurture community locally, nationally and internationally and our work spans politics, art, music, science, ethics, philosophy, and literature. The Hackney Gang hung out there in the 1950's and Harold Pinter himself spoke from the stage on numerous occasions. We are proud to be the London home of Truth to Power Cafe."
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