Kerry Kennedy, Blythe Danner, Joy Behar, Catherine Curtin, Roberta Kaplan, and more will join NPC’s Annual Fundraiser on two evenings.
July 12, 2020: Andromeda’s Sisters: An Arts and Advocacy Forum in Two Parts, takes place remotely via Zoom on Friday, August 14 and Thursday, September 3, 2020. The Neo-Political Cowgirls’ annual fundraiser will feature its signature event in two evenings: one of monologues written by female identifying playwrights, and another of social justice and advocacy. Joining the trio The fundraiser is an opportunity for not-for-profit social justice organizations and leaders to speak about their work; for audiences to network and get engaged in advocacy and creative exploration; and for female-identifying playwrights and actors to be celebrated through their stage work. Andromeda Sisters is a fundraiser for the dance theater company, The Neo-Political Cowgirls, an organization created for women in theater to help increase the female voice in the narrative of our society’s stories.
Andromeda’s Sisters: An Arts and Advocacy Forum in Two Parts will take place over two nights:
On August 14 our theater arts program will present a reading of monologues written by female-identifying playwrights. Participants include: Blythe Danner (“Will & Grace,” “Huff”), Joy Behar (“The View”), Lucy Boyle (The Blue Deep), Dipti Bramhandkar (The Accident), Lynn Grossman (TriQuarterly, Story Quarterly, Equator Magazine), Tanya Everett (The Public, HERE, The Tank), Catherine Curtin, (“Homeland,” “Stranger Things,” “Orange Is The New Black”), Laura Gomez, (“Orange Is The New Black”) Florencia Lozano, (“Narcos,” “As The World Turns”), Welker White, (The Irishman, Goodfellas, The Wolf Of Wall Street) Kathryn Grody (“The Lemon Sisters,” “Law And Order,” Men With Guns), Sarah Bierstock (“Honor Killing”). More to be announced soon.
The September 3 event will focus on advocacy and is co-produced by Richard Solomon, founder and CEO of Vantage Point Consultants, and co-founder and Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Illinois Holocaust Museum. The first portion of the evening will be a conversation with Integrity First For America Executive Director Amy Spitalnick and attorney Roberta Kaplan about IFA’s landmark lawsuit against the two dozen neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and hate groups responsible for the August 2017 Charlottesville violence. The trial is scheduled for this fall. Roberta Kaplan also co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund and is an adjunct professor of law at Columbia University Law School. Journalist Dahlia Lithwick will be moderating the conversation.
During intermission attendees will have a chance to be in break away rooms and talk with invited guests of note.
The second portion of the September 3 event will feature Kerry Kennedy, President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, as she speaks about the organization’s tireless work pursuing equality and social justice at home and around the world.
Recent work by the organization includes a partnership with activist and professional football player Colin Kaepernick to fight for criminal justice reform; extensive tracking and analysis to help eradicate the increasing “forcible disappearances” of citizens in Venezuela; and helping students learn about the right to health during a global pandemic in its Speak Truth To Power educational program.
Following Kerry Kennedy’s comments, noted artists and performers will read from her powerful human rights book Speak Truth To Power.
Tickets for Andromeda’s Sisters will be tiered, providing access to audiences from all walks of life. For tickets or more information, please visit www.npcowgirls.org. All funds raised by this annual event directly support the theater work and arts education outreach of The Neo-Political Cowgirls.
About the Participants:
ROBERTA KAPLAN: Roberta (“Robbie”) Kaplan is the founding partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP. A formidable litigator with decades of experience in both commercial and civil rights litigation, Ms. Kaplan has consistently been recognized as one of the nation’s top litigators, as well as one of the top ten women litigators. In addition to receiving the Gold Medal Award from the New York State Bar Association and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Law Journal, she has been named “Litigator of the Year” by The American Lawyer, “Lawyer of the Year” by Above the Law, and the “Most Innovative Lawyer of The Year” by The Financial Times, among numerous other honors. She is also a co-founder of the Times Up Legal Defense Fund.
Ms. Kaplan has become an expert in cutting-edge areas of law. As the ABA Journal has recognized, Ms. Kaplan is “a specialist in emerging law. She litigates cases that shape the legal structure within which Americans live, love, work and hail cabs.” Ms. Kaplan leads a high-stakes commercial litigation practice, representing clients like Airbnb, Uber, Elysium Health, Columbia University, and Fitch Ratings in their most high-profile and complex legal challenges. Although she is perhaps best known for successfully arguing before the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor, Ms. Kaplan has continued her deep-seated commitment to using the law to advance the public interest. From partnering with Integrity First for America to launch a lawsuit against the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who organized the racial- and religious-based violence that took place in Charlottesville, to suing President Trump for fraudulently promoting a multi-level marketing company, Ms. Kaplan has placed high-profile public interest litigation at the center of her practice.
Ms. Kaplan is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she currently serves as an adjunct professor of law. She holds an A.B., magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Harvard College.
KERRY KENNEDY is President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. She is the proud mother of three daughters, Cara, Mariah, and Michaela. A human rights activist and lawyer, she authored New York Times best seller Being Catholic Now, as well as Speak Truth to Power and Robert F. Kennedy: Ripples of Hope. Kerry, the seventh of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy’s eleven children, has devoted more than 40 years to the pursuit of equal justice, the promotion and protection of basic rights, and the preservation of the rule of law. She works on a range of issues, including child labor, women’s rights, disappearances, indigenous land rights, judicial independence, freedom of expression, ethnic violence, criminal justice reform, immigration, impunity, and environmental justice. She has led hundreds of human rights delegations in support of these causes. Under Kerry’s leadership, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights partners with the bravest people on earth to create lasting change. She appears regularly as a commentator on national and worldwide television networks, and is a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines. Kerry served as Chair of the Amnesty International USA Leadership Council for over a decade. She serves on the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace, Human Rights First, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, Laureate and Leaders, Nizami Ganjavi International Center, HealthEVillages, as well as RFK Human Rights’ numerous international chapters. She is on the Advisory Committee for the Association of American Indian Affairs, the Albert Schweitzer Institute, Sankofa, San Patrignano, and the Center for Victims of Torture.Kerry has received high honors from President Lech Walesa of Poland for aiding the Solidarity movement, The Humanitarian award from the Congress of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, and many other honors. A member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bars, she is a graduate of Brown University and Boston College Law School. She holds honorary doctorates of law from Le Moyne College, University of San Francisco Law School, and University of New Caledonia, and honorary doctorates of Humane Letters from Bay Path College and the Albany College of Pharmacy.
AMY SPITALNICK is the Executive Director of Integrity First for America, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to holding those accountable who threaten longstanding principles of our democracy—including our country’s commitment to civil rights and equal justice. IFA is backing Sines v. Kessler, the landmark federal lawsuit filed by a coalition of Charlottesville community members against the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and hate groups responsible for the August 2017 violence. Trial is scheduled for October 2020.
Amy joins IFA with well over a decade of experience in government, politics, and advocacy. She previously served as Communications Director and Senior Policy Advisor to the New York Attorney General; Communications Advisor and Spokesperson for the New York City Mayor; and Communications Director in the New York State Senate. She has also worked on a number of federal, state, and local campaigns and advocacy organizations.
Amy frequently appears in national media, including NPR, The New York Times, MSNBC, and CBS News. She is a Truman National Security Project Partner; a New Leaders Council faculty member; a 2017 Women in Power Fellow at the 92nd Street Y; and the 2008 Dutko Fellow for Policy and Public Service. In 2013, Amy was named a City & State 40 Under 40 Rising Star. She graduated from Tufts University.
About the company:
NEO-POLITICAL COWGIRLS: The Neo-Political Cowgirls is a not-for-profit dance theater company dedicated to exploring and celebrating the female voice. Founded in 2007 by Kate Mueth, we are committed to making work for women and about women– to creating a space where women and girls from all walks of life can share their experiences, joys, concerns, and spirits through professional dance. Storytellers at heart, NPC encourages their audience members to feel involved. Their site-specific projects are ground- breaking and invigorating, and they believe in removing conventional walls that traditionally separate audience and actors.
KATE MUETH: Actor, Director, Choreographer Kate Mueth founded her award winning The Neo-Political Cowgirls in 2007 to help fill the dearth of women’s voices and opportunities on the American stage. Since then, NPC has staged a multitude of newly conceived, rule- breaking theater productions that have engaged and excited theatergoers from their home base in East Hampton, NY, to Berlin and New York City’s Off-Broadway.
