All Sessions
Performance and guided audience discussion: An Enemy of the People
Online registration is full. Additional spots will be available day-of on a first-come, first-served basis.
Presented by Theater of War Productions
Featuring performances by Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, Poor Things), Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus, Harry Potter), Brían F. O’Byrne (Conclave, Million Dollar Baby), Frankie Faison (Coming to America, The Wire), Rafika Chawishe (Dangerous Truth, Miss Violence), Marjolaine Goldsmith (Company Manager, Theater of War Productions), and Laurie Eustis (poet).
An Enemy of the People presents acclaimed actors, journalists, public health leaders, scientists, climate activists, elected officials, and local community members performing dramatic readings of scenes from Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play An Enemy of the People as a catalyst for powerful, guided audience discussions about public health, freedom of the press, and environmental justice.
The play tells the story of a doctor who discovers the water supply in his small, rural town has been poisoned by a tannery. Despite his efforts to convey the truth to the public, the doctor fails to save his community from environmental disaster and is ultimately scapegoated by politicians, corporations, community members, and the local media for his whistleblowing.
An Enemy of the People was first performed in Norway in 1882, and yet it speaks to the present moment as if it were written for our times — to the corrosive influence of power and money in politics, the erosion of trust in institutions, the challenges to public health and to the free press, and the many other polarizing forces at work in our culture today. By presenting scenes from the play in public settings, featuring a variety of stakeholders, the project aims to create the conditions for open, constructive dialogue and positive action at this critical juncture.
Greek overtitles will be shown during the reading. Live translation into Greek will be available via headset for the guided discussion portion of the event.
Theater of War Productions presents charged performances of seminal texts—led by acclaimed actors such as Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Willem Dafoe, David Strathairn, Paul Giamatti, Lois Smith, Oscar Isaac, Damian Lewis, Jason Isaacs, Bill Murray and many others—for audiences with something at stake in order to catalyze crucial dialogue about pressing issues of public health and social justice. Its projects often take place in homeless shelters and jails, military bases and hospitals, housing projects, churches, public parks, and rival gang territories, but also in cultural spaces such as BAM, Lincoln Center, DeBalie, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), and the Red Steps in Times Square. All of its events are designed to be authentic, community-driven exchanges that culminate in a powerful, guided audience discussions. For more info, please visit theaterofwar.com.
