SOLIDARNOŚĆ
September 6 & 7, 2025
September 6 & 7, 2025
9/6 11:00 am Fort Greene Park
New York theatre artists Meropi Peponides and Beto O'Byrne will ask random park visitors and DOWN TO EARTH audiences to sit in a circle to discuss what needs to be changed—and write down the demands of the people of New York on a large white notepad. The results will be forwarded to newspapers, as well as to local and national politicians. In the 1980s, Solidarność (Solidarity) was a broad anti-authoritarian social movement in Poland, using methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of worker’s rights and social change. The Polish Government attempted in the early 1980s to destroy the union through the imposition of martial law in Poland and the use of political repression. On the first day of the strike dock workers in Gdansk sat in a circle at the shipyard and wrote the most urgent demands of the workers on a 4 x 8 plywood sheet. The sheet is now a centerpiece of the Solidarność museum Gdansk.
About The Artists
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Meropi Peponides is a theater maker, dramaturg, curator, podcast producer, writer, and co-founder of Radical Evolution. She also currently serves as a co-creative director of the 2026 Under the Radar Festival, and was producer and then co-director at Soho Rep from 2014 - 2023. She has been co-creating and producing theatre for 18 years with a focus on devised ensemble work, new plays, site-specific work and community-based performance. Her work explores cross-cultural affinity and seeks to disrupt cultural hierarchies by drawing inspiration from BIPOC and nonwestern traditions. Upcoming with Radical Evolution: Canciones, an immersive, site-specific play with music and The Hunger Project (working title, commission from Soho Rep). Select fellowships/Speaking Engagements: Socialism 2024 Conference, 2024 Sobremesa with A Todo Dar productions, 2021 CUP Fellow. Other organizations with which she has collaborated include The Foundry Theatre, The Movement Theatre Company and The Public Theater. BA, UCLA. MFA, Columbia University (Dean's fellow). She also organizes with Artists Co-Creating Real Equity (ACRE) and Justice Committee. www.radicalevolution.org
Beto O’Byrne hails from East Texas and is the co-founder of Radical Evolution, a multi-ethnic, multi-disciplinary producing collective based in Brooklyn, NY. The author of 20 plays, screenplays, and original tv pilots, his works have been produced in Austin, Louisville, Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York City. He was the 2017 playwright-in-residence at the Stella Adler School of Acting and a 2050 Playwriting Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop. In addition, O’Byrne is an advocate for the performing arts field, having worked with organizations such as Theatre Communications Group, La Cooperativa of Latinx Theatre Artists of NYC, and the Latinx Theatre Commons. He is the creator of the World of Kir fantasy series and teaches writing and theatre classes at Bard College, where is a visiting artist-in-residence. MFA, Dramatic Writing: University of Southern California. www.betoobyrne.com