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AROUND THE QUADS

Ambitious Humanities Festival Planned To Accompany Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

By Alex Sachare ’71

An extensive and ambitious Humanities Festival is being planned to accompany the New York production of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, examining the play and its contexts from a range of perspectives.

Columbia and Michigan have commissioned the Royal Shakespeare Co. to bring Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel, which was written in 1980, to the stage and to the United States for the first time. The play will be presented in London in January and February and in Ann Arbor, Mich. from March 12–16 before making its New York debut at the Apollo Theater on 125th Street March 21–30.

Throughout March, the Midnight’s Children Humanities Festival will bring together prominent writers, filmmakers, scholars, journalists, critics, performers and religious and community leaders as well as the general public for events on the Columbia campus (Miller Theatre, Lerner Hall and other venues), in Harlem and in other New York City cultural venues, including the Asia Society and Symphony Space. In addition, a collaboration between Columbia’s Center for New Media Teaching and Learning and the School of the Arts is creating a range of online explorations and interactive learning experiences on related topics.

Among the planned events are an interview with Rushdie, a look at how the novel was turned into a dramatic presentation, readings by cast members and other actors, lectures and discussions that will place the play in a historical and social context, roundtables with writers whose work has affinity with Rushdie’s, an examination of censorship and civil rights focusing on Rushdie’s experiences as well as an Indian film festival and an Indian music festival (in partnership with the Asia Society).

The calendar of events for the festival is in development. Log onto www.MidnightsChildrennyc.com for the latest information.

In addition, a special program is being developed for public and parochial high school students in Columbia’s neighboring communities, who will be able to attend a performance of Midnight’s Children after learning about the play and its themes in workshops to be conducted in their schools. For both content and teaching staff, these workshops will draw upon a four-way partnership among the education department of the Royal Shakespeare Co., students and alumni of the School of the Arts, graduate students who teach the Core Curriculum and Columbia’s Double Discovery Center, which will tap into its pre-existing relationships with the schools. For the past 35 years, the DDC has provided academic enrichment programs helping New York City students graduate from high school and college at a rate significantly higher than the national average.

Midnight’s Children is a complex work combining three main tales: the turbulent history of 20th-century India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; the saga of a Muslim family; and the story of one man, Saleem Sinai, whose telepathic powers allow him to communicate with other children born near midnight on August 15, 1947, dawn of Indian independence.

Twelve performances are scheduled to be held at the Apollo Theater, including an “Alumni Night” performance at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, for which alumni will be able to purchase tickets at a 20 percent discount. Tickets are priced from $20 to $80, with alumni receiving a 10 percent discount on all performances and tickets available to students for $10. In addition, packages for alumni are being developed that will include tickets to the play and admission to Humanities Festival events. The alumni hotline for tickets and information is (212) 870-2537.

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