Jan 30 & 31, Feb 6 & 7: My Name Is Rachel Corrie

Jan 30 & 31, Feb 6 & 7:  The New Olde Bank Theatre announces an encore production of the off-Broadway play My Name Is Rachel Corrie.

Here is a play where the real dialogue begins when the curtain comes down. 

MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE is theater that not only stirs our hearts but sticks in our heads.

—    Newsweek

On Friday, January 30^th at 8 pm The New Olde Bank Theatre in Verona will once again raise the curtain on the controversial off-Broadway play, MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE.  The NOBT first presented RACHEL CORRIE in November 2008; the sold-out run also marked the Pittsburgh premiere of the play.  Due to popular demand, the production is receiving a limited four-night encore production.

On March 16, 2003, twenty-three-year-old American Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza as she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home.   Composed from Rachel's own journals, letters and emails — My Name Is Rachel Corrie paints a portrait of a passionate young woman, who left the safety of her home in Washington State to work as an activist in the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner, My Name Is Rachel Corrie has been surrounded by controversy.  It was originally slated to premiere stateside at The New York Theatre Workshop, but was cancelled due to its political content.  Later productions in Toronto, Oregon and Florida were also cancelled when the show was deemed too controversial.  Nevertheless Rachel Corrie has impassioned proponents, and has raised an unprecedented call to support political work and the difficult discourse it creates.

Courtney Day Nassar of Pittsburgh stars as Rachel Corrie.  Sean Michael O'Donnell of Pittsburgh is directing.

The limited engagement will play January 30^th & 31^st and February 6^th & 7^th at 8 p.m. at The New Olde Bank Theatre, 722 Allegheny River Boulevard in Verona.  Tickets are $12.  Seating is limited and reservations are required.  For more information or to reserve tickets, call 412.251.7904.  To purchase tickets online, visit www.newobt.com.  To speak with the artistic staff or cast, please contact Sean O’Donnell, Artistic Director of the NOBT, at 412.251.7904 or via email at info@newobt.com.

Jan 25: Rustbelt Radio Q&A

Rustbelt Radio is a weekly radio news hour about social justice issues, produced by community volunteers.  It is a project of the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center, a voluntary collective dedicated to serving the local community with a system for disseminating print and online news.  Coverage will be the issues and events ignored by mainstream media, and also those issues that mainstream media covers with the inherent bias of a news organization run as a business.

In order to keep Rustbelt Radio on the air, they are looking to train new community members.  They hold periodic training sessions at the WRCT Studios on the CMU campus (in the basement of the University Center).  

To learn more, visit their website  Rustbelt Radio : Pittsburgh Indymedia or email radio@indypgh.org .

Jan 25: Talk on Arthur Szyk at CMU

January 25:  Justice Illuminated:  The Art of Arthur Szyk (lecture and reception).   

Exhibit curator Irvin Ungar will give a presentation on the art and messages of the Polish-Jewish artist Arthur Szyk (pronounced "Shik"). Szyk was the leading political artist in America during WWII, fighting the Nazis through his art. His illuminated Haggadah has been called one of the greatest illustrated books of all time. Rabbi Ungar has curated museum exhibitions of Szyk's art for the Library of Congress, and served as consultant for a Szyk exhibit at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. He is the Curator of The Arthur Szyk Society. 

2 p.m. at the Posner Center.  Live webcast will be available at search.library.cmu.edu .

Beginning Jan 23: Art of Social Movements at CMU

January 23 -- Signs of Change:  Visualizing Social Movement Cultures.  A multimedia presentation by curators Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee, followed by an opening reception for the Miller Gallery exhibition, which will run through March 8.  

Talk at 4:30 in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center;  reception 6-8 p.m. in the Miller Gallery.

Jan 20: Mountaintop removal film/talk at Duquesne

January 20:  Mountain Top Removal:  film on the devastating effects of large-scale coal mining on West Virginia families and communities.  Throughout southern Appalachia, coal mining through mountaintop removal is on the rise, blasting and leveling highland forests and destroying streams.  The process literally changes the geology of the region.  Citizens suffering from the resulting flooding, pollution, and destruction of their homes are fighting back to oppose big coal's impact on their lives.  Bo Webb, an activist with Coal River Mountain Watch, will introduce the film.

 This is the first event in a series on human rights, Abundance & Abuse.  Other films include Fast Food Nation (Jan 26), A Killer Bargain (Feb 3), Darwin's Nightmare (Feb 11), Frozen Angels (Feb 17), and Persepolis (Feb 25).  http://www.duq.edu/humanrights

7 p.m. in 105 College Hall at Duquesne University.

Jan 19: MLK Day Celebration at CMU

January 19:  Martin Luther King Day Celebration at CMU.  Keynote address by Michael Eric Dyson, "King, Obama, and the American Dream," as well as student speakers Carlton Reeves and Terryn Hall.

Rangos Ballroom, University Center. 

Jan 14: Terra Madre with Sierra Club, Slow Food, and Grow PIttsburgh

January 14:  Terra Madre -- Earth Mother, in Italy, Pittsburgh, and the World Around;  a joint meeting of the Allegheny Group of the Sierra Club, Slow Food Pittsburgh, and Grow Pittsburgh

Food itself is becoming a more obviously central issue, the world around. We are firmly committed as a Club to the ideas behind Buy Fresh, Buy Local. Slow Food and Grow Pittsburgh share this commitment with us.  It’s all about true “homeland security,”  with minimum transportation between farmer and consumer, and better quality, with food picked fresh near by. It’s about a good living for our farmers.

Join us for a special report from Greg Boulos and Jen Montgomery, owners of Blackberry Meadows Farm and delegates to the Terra Madre conference in Turino, Italy, in October, 2008, less than three months ago. They were sent there to soak up all that was taking place while 5000 other farmers and chefs shared their livelihoods and home places. It’s one of the great gatherings of the world food and agriculture community – totally focused on maintaining quality of farming and farm produce in every place food can be grown. It will be an exciting report for all of us.

Then we will come back to Pittsburgh’s urban reality, where Grow Pittsburgh is making a tremendous contribution to the raising of food within the city limits. They’re involved in all sorts of projects, from Garden Dreams of Mindy Schwartz in Wilkinsburg to the  Mildreds Daughters Farm of Barb Klein and Randa Shannon and many other imposing efforts. Miriam Manion is the Executive Director and she will share with us the organization’s dreams and need for help in achieving those dreams.  This is unbelievably exciting and worthwhile work.  http://www.growpittsburgh.org/growpittsburgh

We’ll end, as usual in meetings with Slow Food, with some excellent refreshments and conversation.

(7:30-9 p.m. at the Phipps Garden Center at Fifth & Shady Avenues;  free & open to the public)