Happy Havel Day | September 28, 7 PM

Bohemian National Hall | 321 East 73rd Street, Manhattan
September 28 | 2016,  7 PM

—- PROGRAM —-

—- Guests of Honor —-
Dagmar Havlova
spouse of Vaclav Havel
Adriana Krnacova
mayor of Prague

—- Salutations —-
Jan Hamacek
Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies
of the Parliament of the Czech Republic

Penny Abeywardena
Commissioner for International Affairs
of the New York City Mayor’s Office

—- Master of Ceremonies —-
Margaret Nagle
Winner of three Writers Guild of America Awards,
screenwriter, and human rights activist

—- Performances —-

Samuel Becket, Catastrophe  |  Vaclav Havel, Mistake
There was much mutual respect between these two playwrights, and a shared concern that artists should never be silenced. Beckett, who tended not to mix politics with his art, made an exception by writing his most overtly political play, Catastrophe, and dedicating it to the then jailed dissident in 1982. Havel responded in kind after his release the following year by penning the play Mistake for Beckett.
Irish Times, December 22, 2011

—- Performers —-
Blair Brown
(Orange Is the New Black, Tony Award for Copenhagen)

Kathleen Chalfant
(Angels in America; The Affair)

Denis O‘Hare
(American Horror Story; co-author of An Iliad
Tony Award for Take Me Out)

Stephen Spinella
(Tony Award for Angels In America)

—- Direction —-
Michael Sexton
Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Society

—- Disturbing the Peace Award —-
Timothy Garton Ash
of Oxford University presenting  the inaugural Award for a Courageous Writer at Risk
to the Burmese writer Ma Thida

—- Readings —-
From Ma Thida’s Prisoner of Conscience:
My Steps through Insein (Silkworm Books, 2016)
and Vaclav Havel’s unpublished essay
A Day in a Prison Cell, (c. 1977-78),
from the personal archive of David Dusek,
translated by Paul Wilson

—- Closing remarks —-
Martin Palous
Director, Vaclav Havel Initiative for Human Rights
and Diplomacy at the Florida International University

—- Music —-
Michael Kocab
composer, singer, and political activist

Terre Roche
singer-songwriter and founding member of the trio The Roches

Ondrej Pivec
composer, piano, and organ player

and gospel singers
Stephanie Fisher, Ayana George, and Linwood Smith
——————-

TICKETS AT: havelday.eventbrite.com           MORE INFO AT: info@havelcenter.org

Vaclav Havel Library Foundation honors, preserves, and builds upon the legacy of playwright, dissident, and former President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel.