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As a wave of student protests against Israel's war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments. One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel's war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City. Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members. We hear from two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil' Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. We also speak with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeatedly suppressed activism on campus since the start of the war in October, and says law enforcement in Georgia work closely with Israeli authorities as part of a police training exchange. "We no longer accept our tuition dollars and our tax money going to fund an active genocide," she says.
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 Marc J. FranklinThe last Uncle Vanya to cause a stir in New York was far more modest in physical size than the Broadway production opening tonight at Lincoln Center Theater's Vivian Beaumont Theater (to June 16), yet left a more emphatic impression. It took place in a Flatiron loft, with the audience seated in two rows running the length of the property's living room, with its brilliant actors—including Bill Irwin, Marin Ireland, David Cromer, and Will Brill (now starring in the season's deserved biggest hit, Stereophonic)—performing inches from audience members' feet. As hearts broke, guns appeared, and so many feelings went unsaid, all felt viscerally immediate and clear.
The much-anticipated LCT production—the Hollywood star Steve Carell's Broadway debut—is, first of all, such an odd duck to look at. The Beaumont stage is Lincoln Center's biggest, but what fills it here? Not much, and not much logically and engagingly. A picnic table. Random tables, chairs (kind of looks mid-century modern). The actors are in modern dress, and drift and shimmy all over the expanse—the floor looks like the cross section of tree. They sometimes seem to get lost, and so—despite some standout performances—unfortunately do we.
This production of Vanya, directed by Lila Neugebauer, has been adapted by Heidi Schreck, the playwright and performer of the exquisite
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