KINGS OF KINGS 2018
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Honoring Bklyn’s
Boro’s community leaders celebrated at Kings of Kings awards
INSIDE
‘White’ on time
Play looks at activism across the decades
By Kevin Duggan Call it a drama for dramatic times.
A new interactive play delves
deep into the turbulent 1960s,
drawing a connection to the struggles of
young political activists in 2018. “The
White Album,” opening at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater on
Nov. 28, adapts journalist Joan Didion’s
1978 essay of the same name for the stage,
and examines how the dramatic changes
of that decade resonate today, according
to its director.
“I was interested to see whether the
most defining issues that were questioned
by the youth in the 1960s resonate with
the issues of young activists today,” said
Lars Jan.
Didion’s essay takes a first-person
look at the movements and events that
challenged American society in the final
years of the decade, including the Black
Panthers, student protests, and the Manson
Family murders, all of which boiled over in
her native California.
Actress Mia Barron will recite the essay
onstage, bringing Didion’s lucid writing
voice to life, according to Jan.
“Essential to the essay is that Didion
herself is the central character,” Jan said.
“Mia translates the electricity of Didion’s
language into somebody reflecting on her
own inner life and physiology, in a way
that’s very human.”
While most of the audience will watch
Barron and a small group of actors perform
Didion’s text, an additional selection
of about 20 audience members will join
them onstage.
Before each show, Jan and his Early
Morning Opera company will recruit this
“inner audience” from among local students,
activists, and artists between the
ages of 21 and 30.
Members of this group will watch the
beginning of the play from the stage, and
then shift into the background, moving
into a glass structure that resembles a midcentury
Californian house.
Instead of hearing the rest of the play,
they will don headphones and listen to
recordings of seminal events from the
1960s, including concert films and footage
of police cracking down on protests.
Room with a view: Lars Jan’s play “The White Album” stars Mia Barrow (center)
and will immerse 20 selected members of the audience on stage in a set
designed to look like a mid-century California mansion. Rafael Hernandez
To most of the audience, the scene
onstage will look like a quiet gathering
that finally breaks into a dance party that
is fully 2018, according to Jan.
“They become kind of a visual score,”
he said.
After the show, the two audiences will
have a chance to come together for an open
discussion of the themes of the play. Jan
hopes these talks will help to create connections
across generations.
“The average age of theatergoers is such
that they will likely have lived through the
1960s, and they look at history from a very
different perspective than young people of
today,” he said.
Didion’s account of a confusing era
speaks to people from any era, said Jan.
“Joan Didion has this gorgeous brain
and writes this piece very incisively about
the confusion and violence around her
and the profound desire to create meaning
around this. And I think that that’s something
everybody can relate to,” he said.
Anyone interested in joining the “inner
audience” can write to madeline@earlymorningopera.
com.
Tumultuous times: Actress Mia Barron will read
the complete text of Joan Didion’s essay “The
White Album,” in an adaptation directed by
Lars Jan, opening on Nov. 28 at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater. Lars Jan
“The White Album” at BAM Harvey
Theater 651 Fulton St. at Ashland Place,
(718) 636–4100, www.bam.org. Nov.
28–Dec. 1 at 7:30 pm. $25–$70.
Your entertainment
guide Page 45
Police Blotter ..........................8
Standing O ............................36
Letters ....................................38
Party Line .............................40
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BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Brooklyn, meet your new
kings of Kings!
Schneps Community News
Group parent company Schneps
Communications honored
some of the borough’s
best men at its annual Kings
of Kings County Awards and
networking event at Mill Basin’s
El Caribe Country Club
on Nov. 14.
The honorees recognized
for their community service
included a host of admirable
gentlemen, such as a New
York City football legend, a
World War II veteran, members
of New York’s Bravest
and Finest, a life-saving neurosurgeon,
local business
leaders, and many more — all
of whom proudly represented
their borough.
The men all share an unwavering
enthusiasm for
what they do, according to the
event’s host.
“These fabulous men have
been so successful because
they have a passion for what
they do. It is my privilege to
recognize them,” said SCNG
President and Publisher Victoria
Schneps-Yunis.
The 2018 Man of the Year
honors went to New York Jets
veteran and CBS New York
sports analyst Erik Coleman,
who said he was honored to be
in the company of such distinguished
peers.
“I was really taken aback
to hear that I’d been honored
as the Man of the Year among
all these amazing men, knowing
what they do in the community,”
said Coleman, who
attended the evening with his
wife Sabrina, a former Bensonhurst
resident. “It’s humbling.”
And this year’s Living Legend
award went to a veteran
and lifelong Brooklynite of
the Greatest Generation, who
served fi ve tours of duty during
World War II.
“It’s a great honor,” said
Coney Islander Albert Goldberg,
who helped liberate Europe
under General George
Patton when he was just 21-
years-old.
The vet recently celebrated
his 96th birthday, and had
some simple advice for those
looking to live well into their
golden years.
“You have got to have a
good time, and you have got to
dance,” Goldberg said.
The ceremony also honored
a present-day hero, who
saved a child’s life when a
Bensonhurst building went
up in fl ames last August.
Firefi ghter James Weinert,
the recipient of the Community
Hero award, said he
saved the youngster while his
colleagues pulled a pregnant
woman and another child out
of the blaze that fateful night.
“When we got to the door,
we heard people on the other
side, so we forced the door
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