this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

THE ULTIMATE CONTENDER: MARLON BRANDO AT ONE HUNDRED

Film Forum series pays tribute to Marlon Brando centennial with such films as On the Waterfront

BRANDO 100
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
December 13-26
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in April 1924 to a traveling salesman father and theater actress mother, Marlon Brando Jr. went on to become one of the greatest actors of all time — and the most-quoted screen star in cinema history.

“The horror. The horror.” —Marlon Brando as Col. Walter Kurtz, Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

Film Forum is paying tribute to the eight-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner with “Brando at 100,” a two-week festival honoring the centennial of his birth, consisting of twenty-one of his films and one documentary.

“What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?” — Mildred (Peggy Maley) “Whaddya got.” —Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler, The Wild One (László Benedek, 1953)

The series opens December 13 with five favorites, Julius Caesar, The Men, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and The Wild One, and continues through December 26 with such other highlights as The Godfather, The Freshman, Last Tango in Paris, The Missouri Breaks, and Viva Zapata!

“Hey, Stella!” —Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)

Author and film historian Foster Hirsch (A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio, Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties) will introduce the 7:10 screening of On the Waterfront on December 13 and the 1:00 screening of Reflections in a Golden Eye on December 26.

Marlon Brando sings (!) in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1955 Guys and Dolls

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” —Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)

On December 16 at 8:00, Film Forum will pair Fred Zinnemann’s 1950 The Men with Albert and David Maysles’s half-hour 1966 documentary Meet Marlon Brando.

“You don’t understand. I coulda’ had class. I coulda’ been a contender. I could’ve been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let’s face it.” —Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)

While Brando, who died in 2004 at the age of eighty, was a controversial, iconoclastic figure for much of his career, Film Forum is focusing on his myriad successes.

“The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them.” —Marlon Brando

Boring? Not Marlon Brando. As his acting teacher and Method mentor, Stella Adler, wrote, “He has the ability to hold the reality of his character and the needs of the script simultaneously, making every performance electric.”

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HONORING MOM AND MARTHA: LLOYD KNIGHT AT GRAHAM STUDIO AND THE GUGGENHEIM

Lloyd Knight’s solo work, The Drama, will have a sneak peak December 13-14 before premiering January 13 (photo courtesy DANCECleveland)

Who: Lloyd Knight
What: The Drama
Where: Martha Graham Studio Theater, 55 Bethune St., eleventh floor; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Peter B. Lewis Theater, 1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
When: Friday, December 13, $20-$30, 7:00, and Saturday, December 14, $20-$30, 6:00; Monday, January 13, $25-$65, 7:00
Why: “Dance is humbling in the way that it always brings you down to earth with what you can do, cannot do, and have the potential to do. Nothing for me is better than knowing that I can escape into a realm and take someone watching to somewhere else,” Lloyd Knight wrote in Dance magazine in March 2017. Knight will take dance fans to another realm with his latest work, The Drama, an hourlong solo created for his twentieth anniversary with the Martha Graham Dance Company and inspired by Graham — who he never met — and his mother, focusing on his life in dance. The multimedia piece is choreographed by Knight with the phenomenal Jack Ferver and features video design by Jeremy Jacob and text by Knight, who joined Graham in 2005 and has performed major roles in such productions as Appalachian Spring, Embattled Garden, and Night Journey.

A sneak preview of The Drama, which was commissioned by Works & Process and DANCECleveland, will be presented December 13 and 14 at the Martha Graham Studio Theater as part of the company’s Studio Series; its official premiere takes place January 13 at Works & Process at the Guggenheim in conjunction with the Underground Uptown Dance Festival, teamed with BalletCollective’s The Night Falls and followed by a Rotunda Dance Party with Princess Lockerooo, the Queen of Waacking.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

SILENT MASTERPIECES WITH LIVE BENSHI AND SAMISEN AT JAPAN SOCIETY

Benshi star Ichiro Kataoka will narrate two silent masterpieces at Japan Society, with live shamisen music by Sumie Kaneko

THE BENSHI TRADITION AND THE SILVER SCREEN: A JAPANESE PUPPETRY SPIN-OFF
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Thursday, December 12, and Friday, December 13, $22-$31, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s “Ningyo! A Parade of Puppetry” began in September with Basil Twist’s mind-blowing Dogugaeshi and continued in October with National Bunraku Theater’s Date Musume Koi no Higanoko (Oshichi, the Greengrocer’s Daughter) and Sonezaki Shinju (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki) and in November with Sachiyo Takahashi/Nekaa Lab’s One Night in Winter and The Peony Lantern.

The fall series concludes with “The Benshi Tradition and the Silver Screen: A Japanese Puppetry Spin-Off,” two evenings of live music by Sumie Kaneko on the shamisen and benshi narration by contemporary “movie talker” Ichiro Kataoka, in Japanese with English subtitles, accompanying a pair of rarely screened silent masterpieces. On December 12, they will perform to Daisuke Ito’s 1927 jidaigeki A Diary of Chuji’s Travels, starring Denjirō Ōkōchi; originally a four-hour triptych, only 111 fragmented minutes now remain. That will be followed on December 13 by Shozo Makino’s 1910-17 ninety-minute work-in-progress Chushingura, an incomplete early cinematic adaptation of the story of the 47 ronin featuring Matsunosuke Onoe, who is said to have appeared in a thousand films by the time of his death in 1926 at the age of fifty, though only six survive, at least in part.

Both events will be preceded by a lecture at 6:30 by Princeton University professor Dr. Junko Yamazaki; there will be a postshow private gathering for artists and Japan Society members on December 12 and an artist Q&A on December 13. The previous productions in “Ningyo! A Parade of Puppetry,” being held in conjunction with the Japan Society exhibition “Bunraku Backstage,” sold out in advance, so act quickly if you want to catch what should be two rare, unique experiences.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

IT’S BASHERT! CELEBRATING BOOKS AT THE MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE

NEW YORK JEWISH BOOK FESTIVAL
Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Sunday, December 8, free with advance RSVP, 10:00 am – 9:00 pm
866-811-4111
mjhnyc.org

The 2024 New York Jewish Book Festival, being held December 8 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, is chock-full of exciting literary events, starting at 10:00 am and continuing through a 6:00 concert by Marcin Masecki and Ger Mandolin Orchestra. And best of all, everything is free. There will be talks, workshops, panel discussions, and book signings, covering such topics as “Deconstructing Jewish Masculinity,” “Jewish Icons,” “It’s Bashert! Jewish Love and Romance,” “Translating Yiddish Prose by Women,” and “Rebuilding Lives: Survivors After the Holocaust.” Among the books being featured are Rebecca Clarren’s The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota and an American Inheritance, F. K. Clementi’s South of My Dreams: Finding My American Home, Delia Ephron’s Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life, Reuven Fenton’s Goyhood, and Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer’s The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life. Below is the full schedule.

Writing Workshop: Tell Me Everything!, with Beth Harpaz, Events Hall, 10:15

Deconstructing Jewish Masculinity, with Ronnie Grinberg, Miriam Eve Mora, Sarah Imhoff, and Laura Shaw Frank, Classrooms A/B, 10:15

Emerging Narratives: Debut Jewish Fiction, with Danny Goodman, Sarah Seltzer, Lauren Aliza Green, Sasha Vasilyuk, and Susan Weidman Schneider, Keeping History Center, 10:15

Jewish Icons: Judy Blume, Jean Carroll, and Marty Glickman, with Jeffrey S. Gurock, Grace Kessler Overbeke, Rachelle Bergstein, and Stephanie Butnick, the Studio, 10:15

Rebecca Clarren and Sarah Podemski: The Cost of Free Land, with Rebecca Clarren, Sarah Podemski, Edmond J. Safra Hall, 11:30

Jewish Icons: Judy Blume, Jean Carroll, and Marty Glickman Book Signing, Events Hall, 11:30

It’s Bashert! Jewish Love and Romance, with Ali Rosen, Hannah Reynolds, Hannah Orenstein, and Lior Zaltzman, the Studio, 11:30

Deconstructing Jewish Masculinity Book Signing, Lobby 1, 11:30

Emerging Narratives: Debut Jewish Fiction Book Signing, Lobby 3, 11:30

Translating Yiddish Prose by Women, with Ellen Cassedy, Anita Norich, and Lisa Newman, Classrooms A/B, 11:45

Jews Writing Jews: Creating Jewish Characters, with Elyssa Friedland, Caroline Leavitt, Reuven Fenton, Julia Gergely, and Elizabeth Harris, Keeping History Center, 11:45

It’s Bashert! Jewish Love and Romance Book Signing, Events Hall, 12:45

Salinger’s Soul, with Stephen B. Shepard and Lisa Newman, the Studio, 12:45

Rebecca Clarren and Sarah Podemski: The Cost of Free Land Book Signing, Lobby 1, 12:45

Delia Ephron and Amy Schwartz: Left on Tenth, with Delia Ephron and Amy Schwartz, Edmond J. Safra Hall, 1:00

Jews Writing Jews: Creating Jewish Characters Book Signing, Lobby 3, 1:00

Translating Yiddish Prose by Women Book Signing, Lobby 1, 1:00

Rebuilding Lives: Survivors After the Holocaust, with Seth Stern, Sandra Fox, and Sarah Maslin Nir, Classrooms A/B, 1:15

On Being Jewish Now: Reflections from Authors & Advocates, with Bradley Tusk, Ali Rosen, Samantha Ettus, and Zibby Owens, Keeping History Center, 1:15

Salinger’s Soul Book Signing, Events Hall, 2:00

The Joy of Connections, with Allison Gilbert and Rachel Wright, the Studio, 2:00

Delia Ephron and Amy Schwartz: Left on Tenth Book Signing, Lobby 1, 2:15

The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around, with Noah Rinsky and Jonah Bromwich, Edmond J. Safra Hall, 2:30

Rebuilding Lives: Survivors After the Holocaust Book Signing, Lobby 1, 2:30

On Being Jewish Now: Reflections from Authors & Advocates Book Signing, Lobby 3, 2:30

Crafting Jewish Fantasy and Folklore, with A. R. Vishny, Laura R. Samotin, and Veronica Schanoes, Classrooms A/B, 2:45

The Diary of Anne Frank: Beloved and Banned, with Dr. Lauren Bairnsfather and Adam Langer, Keeping History Center, 2:45

The Joy of Connections Book Signing, Events Hall, 3:15

Jewish Poetry Workshop, with Sean Glatch, the Studio, 3:30

The Old Jewish Men’s Guide to Eating, Sleeping, and Futzing Around Book Signing, Lobby 1, 3:45

Crafting Jewish Fantasy and Folklore Book Signing, Lobby 1, 4:00

Unearthing Untold Holocaust Stories, with Chris Heath, Elizabeth White, Jack Fairweather, and Debórah Dwork, Classrooms A/B, 4:15

In Her Words: Contemporary Jewish Women’s Memoirs, with F. K. Clementi, Bonny Reichert, Sara Glass, and Evelyn Frick, Keeping History Center, 4:15

Yiddish Translation Workshop, with Anita Norich, the Studio, 4:45

Unearthing Untold Holocaust Stories Book Signing, Lobby 1, 5:30

In Her Words: Contemporary Jewish Women’s Memoirs Book Signing, Lobby 3, 5:30

Gersuite – A Concert by Marcin Masecki and Ger Mandolin Orchestra, Edmond J. Safra Hall, 6:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A DEVASTATING BLAST: ARLEKIN’S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE COMES TO CLASSIC STAGE

The cast of Arlekin’s Merchant of Venice playfully poses at press rehearsal (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

ARLEKIN IN RESIDENCE: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East Thirteenth St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday, November 22 – December 22, $59-$129
www.classicstage.org/venice
www.arlekinplayers.com

Introducing a press rehearsal of two scenes from Igor Golyak and Arlekin Players Theatre’s adaptation of The Merchant of Venice at Classic Stage, producer Sara Stackhouse said, “Igor directed a very early iteration of this — this is quite different — but it was the DNA of this version of The Merchant of Venice. It was hilarious, and devastating, in Boston. It was like a punch in the face to antisemitism, and there were a lot of folks at that time who said to us, ‘Why are you doing a play on antisemitism? Why are you doing a Jewish play?’ One of the things that I have found working with incredible artists, Igor being one of them, is the way they feel the undercurrent of what is happening in the world all the time, and often ahead of time, and begin to bring it to the surface in artistic projects. That has been true for all the project I’ve done with Igor and through Arlekin. Unfortunately, it has come further and further and further to the surface not only in the art we’re making but also in the world. So we’re now doing this version of The Merchant of Venice in the context of October 7 and what happened in Amsterdam and the election and a real rise in hatred and antisemitism in the world. That canary in the coal mine — there’s no mine now; it’s like a canary flying out around the world. But one of the ways that actual humans respond to tragedy is they don’t sit and cry; they try to laugh; they try to survive. So this play is a comedy, and it’s a blast until it’s devastating.”

Boston-based Arlekin continues its residency at Classic Stage with The Merchant of Venice, following its highly acclaimed staging of Polish playwright Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s 2008 drama, Our Class, which was inspired by a horrific 1941 pogrom that occurred in the small village of Jedwabne in Poland. Running November 22 to December 22, the uniquely unpredictable work is built around a cable access program that is putting on the play, complete with low-budget foibles, casting controversies, and technical glitches. T. R. Knight stars as the host of The Antonio Show, with Richard Topol as Shylock, Alexandra Silber as Portia, Gus Birney as Jessica, Tess Goldwyn as Nerisa, José Espinosa as Bassanio, Stephen Ochsner as Launcelot Gobbo, and Noah Pacht as Lorenzo. At one point, Shylock puts on a Dracula costume, a funny yet incisive way to demonize the character who famously declares, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

“The first Quarto published in 1600 titled this play The most excellent historie of the merchant of Venice with the extreame crueltie of Shylocke the Jewe towards the sayd merchant, in cutting a just pound of his flesh: and the obtayning of Portia by the choyse of three chests. That’s a mouthful,” Golyak, who was born in Kyiv and came to America as a Jewish refugee when he was eleven, said in a statement. “It casts Shylock as a cruel villain and sets the expectation of a love story, a comedy, and a ruinous tragedy all wrapped into one. We are true to this in our production and we deliver all of it — an undercurrent of bias, a comedy, romance, action, and escapades — a real romp of a performance. But antisemitism is a light sleeper, and as the story plays out, it inevitably awakens and the result is devastating. It mirrors who we are, the times we live in, and how quickly the tides can turn.”

Rich Topol stars as Shylock and José Espinosa is Bassanio in Arlekin’s Merchant at Classic Stage (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Golyak and Arlekin have previously presented such innovative virtual successes as Witness, State vs. Natasha Banina, and chekhovOS /an experimental game/ in addition to the hybrid The Orchard with Jessica Hecht and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

“The more antisemitism rises in the world, the more people are hating on the Jews, the more Jewish I feel,” Golyak, whose great-grandparents were killed at Babi Yar, recently wrote. “But the play, and Jewish life, and this world are devastating. I’m shattered like glass. In sooth, as an artist, as a parent, as a Jew, and as a human, I guess I do know why I am so sad.”

“It’s a wild ride,” Golyak also noted about the play.

Judging from what I saw at the rehearsal — you can get a sneak peek here — it’s a wild ride we all need to take.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A DYSTOPIC LAND OF WONDER AT THE JOYCE

GALLIM returns to the Joyce with New York premiere of evening-length Wonderland (photo by Dan Chen)

GALLIM: WONDERLAND
The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at Nineteenth St.
November 13-17, $62-$82
www.joyce.org
www.gallim.org

Brooklyn-based GALLIM explores the us vs. them mentality so prevalent in contemporary American society — and at the center of the recent presidential election — in the New York premiere of Wonderland, running November 13-17 at the Joyce. GALLIM presented a thirty-minute iteration of the work in its 2010 Joyce debut, but two years later founding artistic director Andrea Miller expanded it to an hourlong evening-length piece that takes place in an antitotalitarian dystopia.

The cast features Gothenburg Ballet’s Arika Yamada as Megalomatrix, Vivian Pakkanen as the Fool, Georgia Usborne as the Guilty, Donterreo Culp as the Beloved, guest artist Billy Barry as the Jester, Bryan Testa as the Dog, India Hobbs as the Seer, and Nouhoum Koita as the Everyone, with the Pack consisting of Jasmine Alisca, Victoria Chassé Dominguez, Briana Del Mundo, Waverly Fredericks, and Thomas Hogan. (Barry and Yamada originated their roles in 2010.)

“We are witnessing an extreme departure from one another’s physical and emotional individuality, from the foundations of human dignity, and from the very elements that make us free,” Miller said in a statement. “On social media, millions join virtual armies, charging against each other like packs of vicious wolves — same species, unseen enemies — driven by forces of real terror that we fail to fully comprehend. Wonderland navigates these dark pathways of daily alienation, inducement, and mutual aggression.”

Among Miller’s inspirations for the show is Cai Guo-Qiang’s Head On, an installation of ninety-nine life-size stuffed wolves charging toward a glass wall, part of his 2008 “I Want to Believe” exhibition at the Guggenheim. The score ranges from Chopin, Joanna Newsom, and the Chordettes to William Basinsky, Black Dice, and Jeannie Robertson, with atmospheric sound design by Miller and Jakub Kiupinski and Cristina Spinei of Blind Ear Music. The set is by Jon Bausor, lighting by Vincent Vigilante, and costumes by Jose Solís.

Wonderland pits the individual against dangerous groupthink with animalistic movement in a world threatening to go off the rails. Miller added, “Can we imagine — or perhaps remember — the destructive outcomes on the other side of totalitarian promises and societies? Maybe art, maybe dance, through their creative freedom, can remind us of the way back to empathy and shared humanity.” There will be a curtain chat at the November 14 show to provide further illumination.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

SEARCHING FOR CONNECTIONS AFTER THE ROBOT APOCALYPSE

A painter (Emily Sullivan) seeks connection in Loneliness Was a Pandemic (photo by Danny Bristoll)

LONELINESS WAS A PANDEMIC
Theaterlab
357 West Thirty-Sixth St., between Eighth & Ninth Aves., third floor
Thursday – Sunday through November 24, $35-$50
theaterlabnyc.com

What happens when the robot apocalypse occurs and artificial intelligence takes over what’s left of humanity? Olivia Haller provides one all-too-believable possibility in Loneliness Was a Pandemic, making its world premiere at TheaterLab through November 24.

“Tell me why this is valuable,” a robot (Andrew Moorhead) says to a thirtysomething painter (Emily Sullivan) at the start of the play. He is referring to a canvas by Vincent van Gogh; she describes what makes the work more than just a historical artifact, how it is both technically perfect and moving and beautiful, but the robot cannot grasp the concepts of personal emotions.

“We know the brain patterns you emit when you experience certain feelings. We have tried to replicate them, to respond in certain ways when we receive certain stimuli, but it does not make sense,” he explains. “There is no purpose to it. They do not serve a function.”

The robot has been charged with learning from the woman how to create art; it is the only reason why she is still alive, having been spared the fate of most of the planet’s citizenry. She is restricted to a white building, traveling between her apartment and a studio where she gives the robot lessons every day; the only objects onstage are an easel, a cart with painting supplies, a chest, a mattress on the floor, and a one-level bookcase on which sits a tome on twentieth-century Austrian painter Martin Häusle, who specialized in landscapes and stained-glass windows. There are no windows in the painter’s rooms for her to see the outside world.

She occasionally converses with her close friend, a writer (Cleopatra Boudreau) who appears on live video projected onto a sheet on the back wall. She is teaching her robot how to write a screenplay, and it’s not going well. “Do they want to feel? Or do they just want to make art because it’s the one thing they know they cannot do?” she asks, giving an example of the robot’s inability to grasp emotion.

The two humans yearn to be together again, especially when their talks are cut short and the prophetic words “Connection Lost” replace the video feed. Meanwhile, above the painter, piano lessons seem to be going much better as the sound of a lovely melody can be heard through the ceiling.

There is also a second robot, a voice (Yi Ming Sofyia Xue) that makes such pronouncements as “What do you have? When you look up at the stars, is there anyone watching out for you? Are you alone? It is time to wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”

Soon, when the painter decides to fight back, she has to face her relationship with reality as the robot continues to interrogate her.

A painter (Emily Sullivan) is charged with teaching a robot (Andrew Moorhead) how to make high-quality art in play set in postapocalyptic future (photo by Danny Bristoll)

So far, artificial intelligence can only repurpose existing text and images, uploaded legally or illegally to its database, and cannot create unique art from scratch, like humans do. For example, when I entered the question “What is the play Loneliness Was a Pandemic,” this was part of the response I got from ChatGPT: “Loneliness Was a Pandemic is a play by Benjamin Benne, a playwright known for exploring themes of human connection, isolation, and the impact of societal forces on individuals. This play, like many contemporary works, touches on the emotional and psychological effects of loneliness in a world increasingly shaped by social media, technology, and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. . . . The specific plot details of Loneliness Was a Pandemic may vary depending on the production or interpretation, but the core themes revolve around the search for meaningful connections, the exploration of personal identity, and the toll that loneliness takes on mental and emotional well-being. It’s an evocative metaphor, reflecting how widespread and deeply rooted loneliness has become in modern life.”

Although aspects of that answer are correct, specific details are way off, and most of it is essentially word salad. Benjamin Benne is a real playwright who has written such works as Alma, In His Hands, and What / Washed Ashore / Astray, none of which deal with robots, AI, the pandemic, or a postapocalyptic future.

Haller’s play works much better when it is not focusing on art as a necessary part of life, where art provides a critical pathway to developing feelings, emotions, and identity, and instead zeroes in on the need for interpersonal relationships. The words “pandemic” and “virus” never appear, although the overall atmosphere evokes what so many of us experienced during the coronavirus crisis, stuck inside, contacting friends and loved ones only via screens. It was also a time bursting with artistic invention; even cooking took on new importance as a culinary art, something that is argued in the play.

“I miss you! Of course I miss you! I’m lonely all the time! But what am I supposed to do about it?” the painter says while the connection with the writer is lost yet again.

Director Alex Kopnick makes good use of Joyce He’s claustrophobic set, enhanced by Sarah Woods’s stark lighting, Mitch Toher’s immersive sound, and Bryan Eng’s music. The cast, in appropriate costumes by Sophie Taylor, is young and strong, bringing a yearning vibrancy to the proceedings. One can only hope that art will continue to be made by humans, not robotic machines, as their careers proceed.

To keep the conversation going, there will be talkbacks on November 11 with engineer and roboticist Glenn Gartner and robot-dog trainer Agnieszka Pilat, on November 13 with Hello SciCom founder and CEO Sarah Siskind, Deveaux Barron from togather.ai, mrgn.ai CEO Yoni Rubin, and costume designer and anti-AI-in-the-arts advocate Sophie Taylor, and on November 16 with Rubin, Zach Cascalho Cox of Google, and OpenAds.ai cofounder Steven Liss.

[According to ChatGPT, “Mark Rifkin is a writer, editor, and cultural commentator whose work spans a variety of topics including literature, arts, and contemporary culture. A regular contributor to This Week in New York, Rifkin brings a keen eye for detail and an insightful perspective on the latest happenings in New York City’s dynamic cultural scene. Whether reviewing theater productions, analyzing art exhibits, or offering thoughtful commentary on social trends, Rifkin’s writing is known for its engaging prose and depth of knowledge. He is passionate about exploring the intersections of history, identity, and creativity, and his work reflects a commitment to both critical analysis and celebration of the vibrant life of the city.” You can follow Mark Rifkin on Substack here.]