Document 6451565

Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Jon Dimond
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(212) 695-7400
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
IMPACT FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES
NEW YORK PREMIERE ENGAGEMENT OF
“S P E A K T R U T H T O P O W E R”
OCTOBER 15 – DECEMBER 18, 2006
A NEW PLAY BY ARIEL DORFMAN
BASED ON THE BOOK BY KERRY KENNEDY
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY EDDIE ADAMS
DIRECTED BY TERRY KINNEY
New York, NY – Culture Project (Allan Buchman, Artistic Director) is proud to
announce that the theatrical adaptation of Speak Truth To Power will play Culture
Project’s mainstage theatre space (45 Bleecker Street) Sundays at 7:00 p.m. and Mondays
at 8:00 p.m. beginning Sunday, October 15 through Monday, December 18, 2006.
Adapted from Kerry Kennedy’s book by noted playwright Ariel Dorfman (Death and
the Maiden) and directed by Terry Kinney (HBO’s OZ), Speak Truth To Power is an
unforgettable affirmation of the human spirit that chronicles the struggles of 51 activists,
including the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Helen Prejean, and many
other lesser known people who have been championing human rights the world over.
Speak Truth To Power is the global human rights initiative founded by Kerry
Kennedy and Nan Richardson, which brings people face-to-face with courageous
human rights heroes. This multifaceted project presents inspiring stories of 51 women
and men from over 40 countries who have stood up to oppression at great personal risk in
the non-violent pursuit of human rights including demilitarization, children of war,
environmental activism, and religious self-determination. For more information, please
visit www.SpeakTruthToPower.org.
Culture Project is also pleased to announce that a core cast of theater veterans including
Carolyn Baeumler, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Megan Byrne, Stephen Kunken,
Aasif Mandvi, Lois Markle, Ellen McLaughlin, Charles Parnell, Keith
Randolph Smith, and Danton Stone will be supplemented by a rotating cast of
celebrities, which will be announced shortly.
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Speak Truth to Power will be launched in a star-studded benefit performance Friday,
October 6 at Chelsea Piers featuring Lorraine Bracco, Giancarlo Esposito, Charles
Grodin, Matthew Modine, Robin Wright Penn, Gloria Reuben, Martin Sheen,
Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, and Sigourney Weaver. In addition, Ethel
Kennedy will present the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Ripple Of Hope Award to
President William Jefferson Clinton for his commitment to a more just and peaceful
world.
The play by award-winning playwright Ariel Dorfman premiered in 2000 at the
Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C. and has toured to over 20 cities
in the United States as well as throughout Greece, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Sydney,
Helsinki, Rome, Geneva, Seoul, Florence, and Mantua. Plans for the future include
performances in Nashville, Paris, Beirut, and Qatar in addition to the New York City run.
Tickets are priced at $20.00 and $40.00 and are available through Ticketmaster by calling
212-307-4100, by visiting www.ticketmaster.com, or in person at the Culture Project box
office (45 Bleecker Street at Lafayette).
Speak Truth to Power is a centerpiece event of the Impact Festival, the New York Citywide arts festival focusing on human rights, social justice, and political action. IMPACT
runs from September 12 – October 22, 2006. The 42-day festival, with more than 80
events (theater, film, dance, music, visual art, debate, etc.), takes place at Culture
Project (45 Bleecker Street) and at venues throughout New York City – from the New
York Public Library to The Knitting Factory, and from El Museo Del Barrio to Town Hall.
Tickets are currently on sale for all events. For further information on all IMPACT events,
call (212) 253-7017 or visit www.impactfestival.org.
BIOS
ARIEL DORFMAN, a Chilean-American writer of Argentine origin, holds the Walter
Hines Page Chair at Duke University. His books, written both in Spanish and English,
have been translated into more than 40 languages and his plays staged in over 100
countries. He has received numerous international awards, including the Laurence Olivier
Award (for Death and the Maiden, which was made into a feature film by Roman
Polanski). Among his novels are Widows, Konfidenz, The Nanny and the Iceberg, and
Blake's Therapy. His latest works are Desert Memories (Lowell Thomas Award for best
travel book) and the plays Purgatorio, The Other Side, and Picasso’s Closet. He has also
recently published a novel, Burning City, with his son Joaquín and a collection of
journalism, essays, and poetry in Other Septembers, Many Americas. His short story
“Gringos” received the O. Henry award as one of the best stories published in 2005. He
contributes regularly to major newspapers in the United States and worldwide. He has
been active in the defense of human rights for many years.
KERRY KENNEDY started working in the field of human rights in 1981 when she
investigated abuses committed by U.S. immigration officials against refugees from El
Salvador. Since then, her life has been devoted to the fight for equal justice, to the
promotion and protection of basic rights, and to the preservation of the rule of law. She is
the author of Speak Truth To Power, a book of profiles of fifty human rights defenders
around the world. She has led forty human rights delegations to twenty-seven countries.
At a time of diminished idealism and growing cynicism about public service, her life and
lectures are testaments to the commitment to the basic values of human rights. Kennedy
is on the Board of Directors of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, a non-profit organization
that addresses the problems of social justice. She established the RFK Center for Human
Rights to ensure the protection of rights codified under the U.N. Declaration of Human
Rights. The Center provides an ongoing base of support to leading human rights
defenders around the world. The Center uncovers and publicizes abuses such as torture,
disappearances, repression of free speech, and child labor; urges Congress and the U.S.
administration to highlight human rights in foreign policy; supplies activists with the
resources they need to advance their work; and creates other programs to advance respect
for human rights. Kennedy has led delegations to, and negotiated with, government
officials from all over the world and has worked on diverse human rights issues such as
child labor, disappearances, indigenous land rights, judicial independence, freedom of
expression, ethnic violence, impunity, the environment, and women's rights. Kennedy has
appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN, among others, and her commentaries and articles
have been widely published. Kerry Kennedy is a graduate of Brown University and Boston
College Law School.
TERRY KINNEY co-founded Steppenwolf Theatre with Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry in
1976. Since then, he has directed several plays for Steppenwolf, including The WellAppointed Room, The Violet Hour, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Clockwork Orange,
...And a Nightingale Sang, Of Mice and Men, My Thing of Love, and Streamers. In New
York he directed After Ashley, Beautiful Child, and Eyes for Consuela. Most recently he
directed the short film Kubuku Rides (This Is It) for Steppenwolf Films. He has also acted
in several plays including Balm in Gilead, Orphans, Another Time, Steppenwolf’s
Broadway production of Buried Child, and The Grapes of Wrath, for which he received a
Tony nomination. Kinney has also appeared in several films, including The Game of Their
Lives, Save the Last Dance, Sleepers, Fly Away Home, No Mercy, Last of the Mohicans,
The Firm, and Devil in a Blue Dress. On television, Mr. Kinney played in “The Laramie
Project,” “CSI: New York,” “Oz,” and “Wallace,” the TNT movie.
NAN RICHARDSON is an editor and writer with international museums and publishers
for two decades, she is the author or co-author of many books, including Pandemic:
Facing AIDS, Conversaciones, Subterranea, Havana: the Revolutionary Moment,
Malcolm X Speaks Out, Mothers & Daughters, Gorilla, Swimmers, Towards a Bigger
Picture, Animal Planet (CD-rom), Wild Love, Wild Babies, Drag Diaries, Fishy, Furry,
Feathery, Scaly Facts, The White T, Lillian Bassman. She has curated over 30 museum
and gallery shows and founded Umbrage Editions, specializing in award-winning visual
books and as part of its cultural social/political mission, creates, produces, and manages
12 exhibitions, 3 websites, a list of almost 60 books, and with Kerry Kennedy, the Speak
Truth play (with over 1000 performances amateur and professional in 9 countries and
seven languages to date), and the Speak Truth human rights NGO (which has produced a
PBS documentary, and 5 shorts on Court TV). Recent Umbrage titles include Divided
Portraits, Still Life, Carny, Dressed to Kill, Tribal Alphabet, Born into Brothels, Journal,
Histories are Mirrors, Pandemic: Facing AIDS (a book, 3 exhibitions, music CD, and 1.2
million edition educational curriculae), Shekina, 2468, The Last Paradise, From the Pain
Come the Dream, In a Most Beautiful Life, Fuji, Havana: The Revolutionary Moment,
Children of Ceausescu, Eclipse, RFK Funeral Train, Anthony Fry, Blood and Honey,
Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Too Much Time: Women in Prison, American Hollow, Poetics of
Place, and The Tibetans. Richardson has written for The Los Angeles Times Magazine,
The Boston Review of Books, Stern, Granta, The Massachusetts Review, Interview, Art
News, Artforum, Art & Auction, Art in America, Journal of Art, Mother Jones, and taught
widely on photography and bookmaking. She lives in New York with husband Andrew
Karsch, daughter Isabel, and son James.
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