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

PERSON PLACE THING: NOAH EMMERICH

Native New Yorker and proud American Noah Emmerich will be at JCC on March 28 for live podcast

Native New Yorker and proud American Noah Emmerich will be at JCC on March 28 for live Person Place Thing podcast

Who: Noah Emmerich, Randy Cohen, Gregorio Uribe Trio
What: Person Place Thing live podcast
Where: Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St., 646-505-4444
When: Wednesday, March 28, $15-$20, 7:30
Why: Five-time Emmy-winning television writer, columnist, and author Randy Cohen will record his next Person Place Thing podcast live March 28 at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, sitting down with actor Noah Emmerich. The native New Yorker has appeared in such films as Beautiful Girls, Super 8, and Miracle and such TV series as The Walking Dead, White Collar, and The Americans, where he currently portrays FBI agent Stan Beeman. He has also been onstage at the Kennedy Center, the Cherry Lane, Playwrights Horizons, and other theaters. Preparing for the live show, Cohen blogged, “It is easy to confuse the actor with the role, so to clarify: He is not a troubled, complicated FBI agent. (He may be troubled and complicated; that’s not for me to say.)” Don’t be surprised if the discussion turns to politics, judging from Emmerich’s Twitter feed. The evening will also include live music by the Gregorio Uribe Trio.

SCREENING & LIVE EVENT: WAYS OF SOMETHING

Eva Papamargariti created the visuals for minute #18 of the first episode of Lorna Mills’s Ways of Something (courtesy of the artist and TRANSFER)

WAYS OF SOMETHING (Lorna Mills, 2014-15)
Museum of the Moving Image, Bartos Screening Room
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, March 25, $15 (includes museum admission), 5:30
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us

In his seminal 1972 book and BBC television series Ways of Seeing, British writer, critic, and artist John Berger explored how we encounter artistic images, from European oil paintings to advertisements and color photography. Regarding publicity images, Berger, who passed away in January 2017 at the age of ninety, said, “I believe that in many respects, these images continue that tradition. I’ve been critical of many things in that tradition, of our culture, of some of the values which it celebrates and I have illustrated my arguments by using the modern means of reproduction.” A kind of update of Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Ways of Seeing looks at paintings by Leonardo, Botticelli, Van Gogh, Hals, Caravaggio, Ingres, Rubens, and others as well as commercials, taking on issues of surveillance, gender, religion, sexuality, nudity, voyeurism, class, envy, identity, and glamour in society since the Renaissance. It is more than just a primer about art; it is an ingenious guide for how to experience all that we see every day, and it is still remarkably relevant in the digital age and the advent of social media, YouTube, and the selfie.

In 2014-15, Canadian new media artist Lorna Mills (Abrupt Diplomat, At Play in the Fields of the Lord) reimagined Berger’s show by creating four episodes that use Berger’s original narration, highlighted by his slight slurring of his “R”s, but had new visuals made by more than a hundred artists, who were responsible for one minute each; they also designed the subtitled captioning of everything that is said during their sixty seconds. Among the participating artists were Jaakko Pallasvuo, Dafna Ganani, Matthew Williamson, Marisa Olson, Eva Papamargariti, Faith Holland, Alfredo Salazar-Caro, Andrea Crespo, Jesse Darling, Morehshin Allahyari, Shana Moulton, Amy Lockhart, Luke Painter, and Mills herself. The artists incorporate film and video, archival footage, computer animation, and futuristic graphic design that replaces the original images; some of the artists digitally manipulate the works being discussed, but most transport viewers to high- and low-tech fantastical worlds. On March 25 at 5:30, Mills (minute #24 of episode four), Papamargariti (minute #18 of episode one), Allahyari (minute #14 of episode #4), Salazar-Caro (minute #24 of episode one), and Holland (minute #29 of episode one) will be at the Museum of the Moving Image for a screening of Mills’s series, followed by a discussion and a Q&A. Be sure to check out “The GIF Elevator” as well, an installation that last year featured Mills’s Yellowwhirlaway and is currently showing work by Dain Fagerholm.

COME TOGETHER: MUSIC FESTIVAL AND LABEL MARKET

come together

MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at 46th Ave.
Saturday, March 24, each session $10, both $15, 12 noon – 6:00, 6:00 – 9:00
718-784-2084
www.moma.org

The second annual Come Together: Music Festival and Label Market takes place March 24 at MoMA PS1, a joint venture between the museum and the late, lamented Other Music record shop. More than seventy-five labels will be in Long Island City, selling and sharing awesome music. There will be live performances by Laetitia Tamko’s Vagabon, Hailu Mergia, and Dead Moon, which will also be the subject of an archival exhibition; the New York premiere of The Potential of Noise (Reto Caduff & Stephan Plank, 2017), about sound designer and producer Conny Plank; “The Creative Independent,” a workshop with Brandon Stosuy, Katie Alice Greer, and Jenn Pelly; a sound design experimental workshop with Marco Gomez (False Witness); DJ sets by Yo La Tengo, phoneg1rl b2b NK Badtz Maru, Sal P, and Duane Harriott; a multisensory listening experience with Suzi Analogue’s Never Normal Soundsystem and wearable audio technology company SUBPAC; the multimedia lecture “A Cosmic and Earthly History of Recorded Music According to Mississippi Records” with Eric Isaacson; clips of live music performed at Other Music between 1995 and 2016; loops of prank calls by Longmont Potion Castle in the elevator; an interactive reading and listening room in honor of Mexican Summer’s tenth anniversary; the performative, interactive thrift-store installation “Jimmy’s Thrift of New Davonhaime” by Azikiwe Mohammed; and a zine-making workshop with Suffragette City. Among the other participating labels are 4AD, Cantaloupe Music, Captured Tracks, Daptone, Glassnote, Goner, Luaka Bop, Matador, New Amsterdam, New World, Ninja Tune, Nonesuch, Northern Spy, Rough Trade, Sacred Bones, Sub Pop, Third Man, and XL Recordings. Tickets to the fair are $10 for the 12 noon to 6:00 session and $10 for the 6:00 to 9:00 extended programming; you can get into both for $15.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2018: SPECIAL EVENTS AT THE BEACON

Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino should be more excited when they join Brian De Palma for the world premiere of the thirty-fifth anniversary restoration screening

Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino should be more excited when they join Brian De Palma at the Beacon Theatre for the world premiere of the thirty-fifth anniversary restoration screening of Scarface on April 19 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival

Beacon Theatre
2124 Broadway at 75th St.
Tribeca Film Festival runs April 18-29
212-465-6000
www.tribecafilm.com
www.msg.com/beacon-theatre

Tickets are now on sale for four special Tribeca Film Festival events taking place at the Beacon Theatre, a quartet of world premieres, three of which will be followed by discussions with some pretty serious characters.

Wednesday, April 18
Gala: Love, Gilda (Lisa D’Apolito, 2018), world premiere screening of documentary about Gilda Radner, $46-$156, 7:00

Thursday, April 19
Retrospective Special Screenings: Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983), world premiere of thirty-fifth anniversary restoration of 170-minute version, followed by a discussion with stars Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer and director Brian De Palma, $71-$356, 7:00

Monday, April 23
Horses: Patti Smith and Her Band (Steven Sebring, 2018), followed by a live performance by Patti Smith with Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty, Tony Shanahan, and Jackson Smith, including “Horses,” $55.50 – $85.50, 7:00

Thursday, April 26
Retrospective Special Screenings: Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993), twenty-fifth anniversary screening, followed by a discussion with stars Liam Neeson, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Embeth Davidtz and director Steven Spielberg, moderated by Janet Maslin, $71-$356, 6:30

Friday, April 27
Special Screenings: Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1 (Dexton Deboree, 2018), world premiere screening of documentary about the Air Jordan sneaker, followed by live performances by Kid Ink, Gizzle, and others, $61-$206, 8:00

JAPAN SOCIETY PLAY READING SERIES: MANHOOD

Japan Society Play Reading Series continues March 26 with Hideto Iwai’s Manhood

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Monday, March 26, $15, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s 110th anniversary season continues March 26 with the thirteenth installment of its popular Play Reading Series, which features staged readings of works by up-and-coming Japanese playwrights translated into English. The latest is Hideto Iwai’s Manhood, which follows four men facing the natural aging process. The play is directed by Sarah Hughes (Wood Calls Out to Wood, Afterward) with a gender-swapped cast of Kate Benson, Ugo Anyanwu, Zoë Geltman, Daniel K. Isaac, Kristine Haruna Lee, and Mia Katigbak. Playwright, actor, director, and Kishida Kunio Award winner Iwai (A Certain Woman, The Husband and Wife), a former hikikomori who spent four years as a recluse because of violence he suffered at the hands of his father and brother, and Hughes, who directs and produces theater and new media, will participate in a Q&A following the reading. Previous works in the Japan Society series include Ai Nagai’s Women in a Holy Mess, directed by Cynthia Croot, Suguru Yamamoto’s Girl X, directed by Charlotte Brathwaite, and Seiji Nozoe’s Dancing with the Bird, directed by James Yaegashi.

NYC TEEN AUTHOR FESTIVAL 2018

nyc teen author festival

Multiple locations
March 18-25, free
nyctaf.com

The tenth annual NYC Teen Author Festival starts today, kicking off a week of readings, signings, and panel discussions featuring more than one hundred authors at the New York Public Library, Barnes & Noble, the Strand, Books of Wonder, McNally Jackson, and Little City Books. Among the topics that will be discussed are “Areas of Expertise: YA Writers on YA Writing,” “Queer Voices in YA — The 2018 Edition,” and “Writing the Perils of Real Life.” Below is the complete lineup for this free festival, although attendees are strongly encouraged to purchase books at each event.

Sunday, March 18
Kick Off! with Arvin Ahmadi, Susane Colasanti, Sara Holland, Richard Lawson, Dana Mele, Krystal Sutherland, and Ashley Woodfolk, the Strand, 828 Broadway, 7:00

Monday, March 19
Areas of Expertise: YA Writers on YA Writing, with Jen Calonita, Holly Kowitt, Emmy Layborne, Sarah Darer Littman, E. Lockhart, Sam L. Miller, Jess Verdi, Katherine Webber, and Ibi Zoboi, New York Public Library, Mulberry Street Branch, 10 Jersey St., 6:00

Tuesday, March 20
The Complexity of Characters, with Corinne Duyvis, Michele Hodkin, Billy Merrell, Alyssa Sheinmel, Yvonne Ventresca, and Ismee Williams, Little City Books, Hoboken, 7:00

Wednesday, March 21
The Past Ten Years, the Next Ten Years, with Zoraida Cordova, Gayle Forman, Lexa Hillyer, Tiffany Jackson, Kody Keplinger, Justine Larbalestier, and Scott Westerfeld, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., Berger Forum, 6:00

Friday March 23
Queer Voices in YA — The 2018 Edition, with Arvin Ahmadi, Kheryn Callender, Billy Merrell, Sam J. Miller, Sarah Moon, Mark Oshiro, and Will Walton, moderated by David Levithan, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., South Court, 2:00

Evolution of a Writer, with Jen Calonita, Alison Cherry, Kody Keplinger, Sarah Darer Littman, Alexandra Monir, Matthue Roth, Leila Sales, and KM Walton, moderated by Aimee Friedman, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., South Court, 2:50

Ambitious Girls, with Katie Bayerl, Kayla Cagan, Sharon Cameron, Maria Dahvana Headley, Tiffany Jackson, Lauren Spieller, and Amy Trueblood, moderated by Melissa Walker, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., South Court, 3:50

Bookish Romance, with Jennifer Castle, Mia Garcia, Shani Petroff, Lindsay Ribar, Tiffany Schmidt, Jennifer E. Smith, and Stephanie Kate Strohm, moderated by Kieran Scott, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., South Court, 4:40

Barnes & Noble Reader’s Theater/Signing with Tara Altebrando, Gina Damico, Lauren Gibaldi, Emily X. R. Pan, Kim Purcell, Randy Ribay, and Maggie Stiefvater, Upper West Side B&N, Eighty-Second St. & Broadway, 7:00

Saturday, March 24
Debuts, with Kheryn Callender, Lindsay Champion, Kim Chance, Kit Frick, Amy Giles, and Anna Hecker, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., Celeste Bartos Forum, 1:00

What a Difference a Decade Makes, with Molly Booth, Sharon Cameron, Sara Holland, Laurent Linn, Andy Marino, Amy McNamara, Michelle Schusterman, Peternelle van Arsdale, Marit Weisenberg, Martin Wilson, and Jeff Zentner, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., Celeste Bartos Forum, 1:50

Writing the Perils of Real Life, with Heather Demetrios, Kevin Emerson, Maxine Kaplan, Emily X. R. Pan, Bonnie Pipkin, and Gae Polisner, moderated by Brendan Kiely, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., Celeste Bartos Forum, 2:30

Evolution of a Writer, with Patty Blount, Donna Cooner, Heidi Heilig, JJ Howard, Dana Mele, Nisha Sharma, Abby Sher, and Suzanne Weyn, moderated by Kass Morgan, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., Celeste Bartos Forum, 3:25

Debuts, with Alisa Kwitney, Derek Milman, Mark Oshiro, A. M. Rose, Julia Rubin, Nisha Sharma, and Ashley Woodfolk, moderated by Leila Sales, New York Public Library, 476 Fifth Ave. at Forty-Second St., Celeste Bartos Forum, 4:10

Into the Wilds, with Cathleen Bell, Rhoda Belleza, Alison Cherry, Lindsay Ribar, Michelle Schusterman, Alexandra Monir, Melissa Ostrom, Sarah Nicole Smetana, and Kaitlin Ward, moderated by Kass Morgan, McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St., 7:00

Sunday, March 25
Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing, with Arvin Ahmadi, Katie Bayerl, Cathleen Bell, Patty Blount, Kheryn Callender, Sharon Cameron, Kim Chance, Shani Petroff, and Randy Ribay, Books of Wonder, 18 West Eighteenth St., 1:00

Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing, with Alison Cherry, Lindsay Ribar, Michelle Schusterman, Susane Colasanti, Donna Cooner, Gina Damico, Heather Demetrios, Lauren Gibaldi, and Amy Giles, Books of Wonder, 18 West Eighteenth St., 1:30

Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing, with Lexa Hillyer, Michelle Hodkin, Sara Holland, Amalie Howard, Kody Keplinger, Richard Lawson, and Emmy Layborne, Books of Wonder, 18 West Eighteenth St., 2:00

Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing, with Barry Lyga, Dana Mele, Billy Merrell, Sam J. Miller, Sarah Moon, Melissa Ostrom, Emily X. R. Pan, and Bonnie Pipkin, Books of Wonder, 18 West Eighteenth St., 2:30

Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing, with Gae Polisner, Kim Purcell, A. M. Rose, Julia Lynn Rubin, Kieran Scott, Alyssa Sheinmel, Abby Sher, Sarah Nicole Smetana, and Jennifer E. Smith, Books of Wonder, 18 West Eighteenth St., 3:00

Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing, with Stephanie Kate Strohm, Amy Trueblood, Peternelle van Arsdale, KM Walton, Kaitlin Ward, Marit Weisenberg, Scott Westerfeld, Ashley Woodfolk, Jeff Zentner, and David Neilsen, Books of Wonder, 18 West Eighteenth St., 3:30

DISTANT OBSERVER: TOKYO/NEW YORK CORRESPONDENCE

Takeshi Kawamura and John Jesurun have teamed up for Distant Observer at La MaMa

Ellen Stewart Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
66 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Thursday to Monday, March 16 – April 1, $21-$26
212-475-7710
lamama.org

Japanese playwright and director Takeshi Kawamura and Michigan-born Obie and Bessie–winning multimedia artist John Jesurun have collaborated on Distant Observer: Tokyo/New York Correspondence, making its world premiere March 16 to April 1 at La MaMa. In a cross-cultural theatrical conversation, Kawamura (Japan Wars, A Man Called Macbeth) and Jesurun (Chang in a Void Moon, Deep Sleep) alternated writing chapters involving a murderer seeking to reinvent himself in Japan’s Suicide Forest; they will share both writing and directing credit for the piece, which features Anastasia Olowin, Kotoba Dan, Claire Buckingham, Kyle Griffiths, and Samuel Im. The March 18 performance will be followed by a talkback with Kawamura, Jesurun, and Japanese theater scholar and journalist Kyoko Iwaki, moderated by CUNY’s Dr. Frank Hentschker.