Brilliant Cuban artist and activist Tania Bruguera will share early excerpts of her new Galileo Brecht workshop project. The stage is the stunning Agger Fish Corp. building, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, once used for building ships—like the Arsenale in Venice where Galileo worked in 1593 as consultant, advising military engineers and instrument makers, and helping with shipbuilding and related problems like ballistics. Science, politics and religion were part of the culture wars of the 16th century. When do we need to stand up for the truth and for what we believe in? And when are we forced to lie to save our lives so we can eat a piece of chicken? 20th century German dramatist Bertolt Brecht’s iconic play, Life of Galileo, reflects about the life and times of Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo di Galilei (1564–1642), who is brought to the Vatican in Rome for interrogation by the inquisition. Upon being threatened with torture, Galileo recants his teachings that the earth is round and revolves around the sun. His students are shocked by his surrender in the face of pressure from the church authorities. Brecht, after immigrating in 1941 to the Untied States from Hitler’s Germany, translated and reworked the first version of his play in collaboration with the actor Charles Laughton. The result of their efforts was the second, less optimistic "American version" of the play, entitled simply Galileo. In 1947, shortly after the opening of Galileo in Los Angeles, Brecht was subpoenaed in the US by the House Un-American-Activities Committee. On 30 October 1947, he testified that he was never a Communist party member. The next day, he left the US, lived in Switzerland for a year, and returned to Germany in 1949.