OCCUPY BROADWAY!

CONTACTS:
Benjamin Shepard 917.586.7952
Monica Hunken and Benjamin Cerf 917.215.0163

Creative artists, performers occupy Broadway and commence an all-night performance in an undisclosed bonus plaza.

EVENT: Occupy Broadway (theatre/shopping district) with a 24-hour performance.  
WHEN: From December 2nd starting at 6pm until December 3rd at 6pm
WHERE: Times Square by the red stairs, between 46th and 47th streets, along 7th Ave, NY, NY
SHHH!: location released at 6pm: occupybroadway.net @OccupyWallStNYC #OccupyBroadway

NEW YORK, NY (December, 2011) – On December 2, 2011 New York artists will introduce tourists and New Yorkers going to Broadway shows or shopping themselves into debt to the idea of occupation as CREATIVE resistance with non-stop free performances.  We will set up in a privately owned public space (POPS) near Times Square, turning once blandified space into a space for cultural production.   

“The city created privately owned public spaces for the people, in exchange for bonus height and bulk in these spaces,” notes Benjamin Shepard, co-author of The Beach Beneath the Streets.  “As State Judge Stallman made clear last week, the people have a right to be in these spaces 24 hours a day.” 

In recent weeks, we have seen a push to tramp on our rights to public assembly, public space and by extension democracy itself. In response, we join a global struggle using occupation as a form of creative resistance. Occupations are spreading around the world and around New York City, even UPTOWN!  Bloomberg Beware, you take our park, Now Liberty Park is everywhere! In a time when downtown theaters are rapidly losing their spaces, being turned into high-end fashion stores, Occupy Broadway is a symbolic attempt to regain the space of theatre as an accessible, popular art form, bringing it back to where it all started - in a public space, for the common citizen.  We are using public space to create a more colorful image of what our streets could look like, with public performances, art, and music. Through this movement, New York re-imagines itself as a work of art, rather than a retail shopping mall. With capitalism gone mad, foreclosures increasing, and bank crises consuming whole communities, we are signaling through the flames that there is another way of living. Join us.

Occupy public space. Reclaim democracy. Enjoy the show. We're all part of the show! Get off the sidelines and break through the fourth wall.

With Over 70 Acts! including: The Working Groups of OWS, Mike Daisey, The Civilians, HERE Arts Center, Jenny Romaine and Great Small Works, The Foundry Theatre, The Church of Stop Shopping, Rude Mechanical Orchestra, NY Labor Chorus, The Yes Men, Ayo Jackson, April Yvette Thompson, The Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, Tony Torn, Carlo Alban, Urban Research Theatre, Yolanda Kay, The Big Bank- A Musical, Rocha Dance Theater, Reno and Penny Arcade

Sign our Manifesto online here: http://www.change.org/petitions/mayor-bloomberg-and-the-citizens-of-new-york-city-join-the-creative-resistance-occupy-broadway