Please join us for this special memorial service celebrating the power of theater, its legacy of influence in New York City, and all of the thespians who dedicated their lives to it.
FRIGID New York and Peculiar Works Project present
Friday, May 10, 2024 at 5:30pm EDT
UNDER St. Mark's Theater
94 St. Mark's Place, just east of 1st Avenue, NYC (directions)
Admission FREE
75 minutes
RSVP Now
Seating is VERY Limited!
Every theater-lover should know the story of the Astor Place Riots, but it’s about much more than a fight between the two biggest actors of the day. The Riots are a national tragedy unlike any other and a cautionary tale relevant to today’s extreme political culture.
Meet the dueling Macbeths who started it all, hear from local upstarts who fanned the flames of controversy, and say the names of the dead with us. We’ll mark the occasion with ceremony & satire, songs & scenes, and will close with a procession to the site where it happened.
Maria Dessena • Mick Hilgers • Ralph Lewis • Catherine Porter • Basil Rodericks • Barry Rowell • Trav S.D. • Jenny Selig • Dan Lane Williams • Zero Boy
On the night of the 10th of May, 1849, the Empire City, the great metropolis of the Union, was the scene of one of those horrors of civilization, which for a time make the great heart of humanity stop in its beatings. In the darkness of night, thousands of citizens were gathered in a central square of the most aristocratic quarter of New York—gathered around one of its most conspicuous and magnificent edifices, the Astor Place Opera House.
—The Daily Courier
Our Peculiar Works projects are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and from New York City Council member Christopher Marte; and with private funds from the Mental Insight Foundation, as well as our many, wonderful, individual donors.
