Author: Nicole Brydson

April 1, 2010 / / Reading
March 22, 2010 / / Reading
February 2, 2010 / / Housing
January 26, 2010 / / Reading

Welcome to our newest literary feature, Live From the Franklin Park Reading Series. Our first installment of video from this series, which runs the first Monday of the month at Franklin Park in Crown Heights, features storyteller Jake Goldman, and the (very) amusing tale of how he used his screenplay writing degree (read: useless) working for a (ahem) new media company here in New York. Mr. Goldman is co-host of True Tales of College, a monthly storytelling series that was highlighted in the New York Times. We’ll feature one local reading from this series per week, so get excited, and join us live the second Monday of the month for a comforting beverage and some great stories.

December 1, 2009 / / Visual Art

How and why did Basque artist Itziar Barrio end up creating a public billboard art installation on the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Fulton Street in Bed-Stuy? Barrio spoke with us about the concept of her irreverently engaging piece, and why the ideas surrounding art and community are more universal than local.

November 17, 2009 / / Reading

Last night Amy Sohn crossed Brooklyn’s psychic divider – Flatbush Avenue – into Crown Heights. At Franklin Park’s Reading Series, the Park Slope maven read from her book Prospect Park West, which has caused a stir among the swanky slope set.

After reading a passage from her novel that takes place at Southpaw – whose investors also own Franklin Park – she read a passage that references a character’s fixation on Roman Polanski, which was written and released before the 76 year-old director was jailed recently on a 30 year old charge of statutory rape. Sohn made sure the crowd knew she doesn’t share that fixation with her character. Watch the video after the jump.

November 9, 2009 / / Performance Art

Matthew Maher is a brave man. Along with three other members of the Civilians investigative theater troupe, based here in Brooklyn, Mr. Maher interviewed his parents about their marriage and subsequent divorce for a new project entitled You Better Sit Down: Tales From My Parents’ Divorce.

The show will run at Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo from November 12-14 and will be filmed and edited for online release. Mr. Maher will portray his own parents’ story, as will fellow actors Caitlin Miller, Jennifer Morris and Robbie Sublett. The show, director Anne Kauffman, aims to be a unique event in the world of theater, and promises to “reveal the stories behind the statistics.” Mr. Maher tells us about it, after the jump.

November 3, 2009 / / Music

Over the weekend, The Long Count, an indie rock opera featuring music by The National’s Bryce and Aaron Dessner and visuals by artist Matthew Ritchie, played its last performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave festival. Watch our exclusive video from the BAM artist talk where the Dessner brothers explain the genesis of their first symbolic symphony.

October 21, 2009 / / Politics
October 7, 2009 / / Music