January 19 | Le Poisson Rouge | New York City

With Billy Crudup, Margaret Colin, E.L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Tom Stoppard, Iva Bittova, and the Belarus Free Theater

All proceeds benefit the Belarus Free Theater.

PHOTO GALLERY
• View the photo gallery on Flickr

WATCH
• Entire event

• Iva Bittova performs
• Tom Stoppard introduces the event
• Nikolai Khalezin and Michael Laurence read poetry by Vladimir Nikolaev
• E.L. Doctorow reads from City of God
• Billy Crudup and Margaret Colin perform a play by Tom Stoppard
• Don DeLillo reads from Mao II
• Iva Bittova performs again
• The Belarus Free Theater performs an excerpt from Zone of Silence

Two weeks ago, the members of the Belarus Free Theater were either in jail or in hiding. Now, miraculously, they are performing their play Being Harold Pinter as part of the Under the Radar Festival in New York. Soon they will be back in Belarus, where they will continue to risk the wrath of President Aleksandr Lukashenko, the man known as “Europe’s last dictator.”

On the eve of their return to Minsk, the Belarus Free Theater joins internationally-acclaimed playwright Tom Stoppard, PEN American Center, and a stellar supporting cast for an evening celebrating artistic freedom and the courage of hundreds of writers, artists, journalists, and intellectuals targeted in Lukashenko’s latest crackdown following the nation’s flawed December elections. Billy Crudup, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Tom Stoppard, and other guests come together for a farewell gathering featuring literature, music, and cocktail conversation about the power of art and the future of Belarus.