On Stage at Kingsborough off ers
audiences a virtual season
BY JESSICA PARKS
On Stage at Kingsborough
is going virtual for its 2020
fall season — presenting nine
different online programs focused
on giving audiences a
different experience than what
is traditionally “on stage.”
“I really wanted to offer a
different perspective on live
performance,” said Anna
Becker, the theater’s executive
director, “rather than try
to do some kind of facsimile.”
The theater program inside
Kingsborough Community
College brings world-class performances
to the Manhattan
Beach campus — and Becker
wanted this season to be no
different despite the ongoing
coronavirus pandemic.
“We really took a long time
over the summer to think
through how we were going
to respond to this,” Becker
said. “I really wanted to think
through what we were doing,
COURIER L 32 IFE, OCT. 23-29, 2020
why we are doing it and
that we aren’t just reacting to
something.”
She wanted to offer viewers
more than archival footage
of past performances, and
instead make the most of the
current situation — eventually
landing upon recorded performances
which offer views and
insights not available when
watching from the audience.
The idea blossomed from a
conversation Becker had with
a Spanish producer, who offered
On Stage the opportunity
to fi lm an at-the-time upcoming
Flamenco performance set
at an outdoor Roman amphitheater
in southern Spain.
“It inspired everything
else,” Becker said. “We can
fi lm it the way we want, we can
stage the fi lming where we can
get up close and personal.”
Becker was thrilled with
the end result — a taped performance
offering different
focuses and vantage points
— and set out to commission
more footage produced in a
similar style to fi ll out the company’s
fall season.
In another one of this season’s
spectacles, Becker and
her team were able to pull together
“an amazing list of
Broadway stars” for a performance
exclusive to Kingsborough.
Shows will be accompanied
by “virtual lobbies” on Zoom,
where viewers can discuss the
show, which Becker said is a
beloved aspect of live shows
she presumes many are longing
for during quarantine.
“In real life, we would
gather in the lobby at intermission
and after the show and
people would talk about what
they thought and what they
saw and what they’re looking
forward to seeing,” Becker
said. “It’s a way to gather because
I am sure as much as
people miss the performances,
they must miss gathering.”
The virtual season includes
nine performances, running
through Dec. 20 on their website.
Viewers can pay what
they can for tickets with a suggested
donation for each show.
“We’re really proud to be
continuing our commitment
to presenting world class performers
from around the globe
as well,” Becker said. “That
commitment is still here.”
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
It’s by the people, for the
people!
Brooklyn Public Library
released a crowdsourced proposal
for a new amendment to
the Constitution, which aims
to make the country more
democratic.
The borough’s book lender
partnered with the American
Civil Liberties Union to hold
dozens of town hall sessions in
the last seven months — most
of them virtually due to the
coronavirus pandemic — to
craft the fi rst addition to the
founding document in almost
three decades, according to
the project organizer.
“The fact that hundreds of
people came and many kept
coming back to town hall meetings
to think about our lives
and democracy — this fact itself
is so moving,” said Jakab
Laszlo Orsos, the library’s vice
president of arts and culture.
Bookworms on Oct. 17
unveiled the proposed 28th
Amendment, which calls for
the abolition of the Electoral
College and instead allowing
presidents to be elected by popular
vote, reallocating senate
seats to refl ect population like
the House of Representatives,
and delcaring Election Day a
holiday.
The purely symbolic addendum
to the 233-year-old text
would also grant the same electoral
rights that states have to
US territories and the District
of Columbia, and guarantee
that the right to vote shall not
be restricted for any citizen of
voting age.
“It’s a major change in our
electoral system, meaning our
democracy,” Orsos said. “It’s
really furthering the notion of
democracy, it came from hundreds
of people from Brooklyn
and beyond.”
The document — which Orsos
and his team dubbed the
“Brooklyn Amendment” —
further states that Congress
shall enact laws to secure all
rights under the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights,
including a right to education,
housing, healthcare food security,
and a clean and healthy
environment, which would
“restore dignity” to Americans,
according to Orsos.
Library leaders dropped
the manifesto less than three
weeks before the upcoming
presidential election on Nov.
3 and four years after Republican
nominee Donald Trump
won with the Electoral College,
despite his Democratic
opponent Hillary Clinton gaining
almost three million more
ballots in the popular vote.
The Constitutional suggestions
come from 32 public input
session the library hosted
which four experts — dubbed
“Framers” — distilled into a
legal document.
The panel included constitutional
law scholar and president
of the ACLU, Susan Herman;
Kimberly Peeler-Allen, a
co-founder of Higher Heights,
a group dedicated to expanding
Black women’s elected representation
and voting; Anand
Giridharadas, an author and
former New York Times columnist;
and environmental
journalist Nathaniel Rich.
The library’s brainstorming
sessions — which kicked
off in-person at branches in
early March before pivoting
to Zoom due to the viral outbreak
— touched on a laundry
list of other topical issues,
such as providing universal
healthcare amid the COVID-19
outbreak and rebuilding a reformed
and more accountable
criminal justice system following
the high-profi le police killings
of George Floyd and Breonna
Taylor.
A closer look
Brooklyn Library’s crowdsourced ’28th
Amendment’ calls for more democracy
BROOKLYN
The lawful good
RED HOT: A fl amenco performance from southern Spain is one of On Stage at Kingsborough’s virtual offerings.
Photo courtesy of On Stage at Kingsborough
A participant at a March 5 town hall event. Photo by Gregg Richards