the Press Release

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact
Trevor Fitzgibbon, Fitzgibbon Media
202-406-0646
[email protected]
CULTURE PROJECT PRESENTS THE GROUNDBREAKING SERIES
“BLUEPRINT FOR ACCOUNTABILITY:
THE WALL STREET-WASHINGTON CONNECTION”
AT GASTON HALL, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
THE EVENING WILL BE MODERATED BY DYLAN
RATIGAN AND WILL FEATURE
ELIOT SPITZER, MATT TAIBBI, RON SUSKIND, VAN JONES,
HEATHER MCGHEE AND JESSE LAGRECA
DRAMATIC READINGS PERFORMED BY
ANNA KHAJA (TRUE BLOOD)
CHARLES PARNELL (NCIS)
STEVEN PASQUALE (RESCUE ME)
WITH EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
JODIE EVANS
ANDREW KARSCH (Producer, Moneyball)
DIRECTOR TERRY KINNEY (Steppenwolf, thirtysomething, Oz)
"The Financial Crisis that exploded in 2008 isn’t past but prologue."
- Matt Taibbi
“The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it,
but they can’t control it.”
– John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
March 21, 2012
On March 27th, 2012, Culture Project will stage and live-stream an ambitious program called
Blueprint for Accountability: The Wall Street Washington Connection, hosted by The
Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University at 7:00 pm. The highlevel multimedia panel will confront the economic crisis in the United States and provoke fresh
dialogue about the role of financial and corporate powers in the political and democratic life of
this country.
49 Bleecker Street, Suite 602 | New York, NY 10012 | 212 925 1806 phone | 212 925 2531 fax | www.cultureproject.org 1 This program is being presented as part of the annual Lannan Spring Symposium and Literary
Festival (http://lannan.georgetown.edu/category/events/symposia/). This annual series invites
artists, journalists, poets and other intellectuals from Georgetown University, the DC Metro area
and abroad to address -- through lectures, readings and panel discussions -- a multifaceted
theme pertinent to the present time. Past themes include poetry of war and remembrance, the
relationship between literacy and democracy, and writing as an immigrant in the United States.
“Blueprint for Accountability” will feature a powerful and provocative panel discussion with
former New York Governor and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, contributing editor to Rolling
Stone Magazine Matt Taibbi, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and author Ron Suskind, author
and President of “Rebuild the Dream” Van Jones, Occupy Wall Street activist and writer for
Daily Kos Jesse LaGreca, and Demos Washington Director Heather McGhee, moderated by
MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan.
The evening will utilize vital archival footage as well as bring to life compelling dramatic scenes
performed by acclaimed actors.
Culture Project has previously affected tangible policy change – namely with its multiple awardwinning dramatic play The Exonerated, which traveled to Chicago in 2002 for the National
Gathering of the Death Row Exonerated. This performance inspired Illinois Governor George
Ryan to commute the sentences of over 164 Illinois death row inmates from death row to life in
prison, a feat skeptics would deem impossible. Culture Project is confident that this evening will
yet again influence policymakers to create significant change and hold those responsible
accountable for their actions.
Culture Project is proud to partner with FORA.tv, an online forum that helps intelligent, engaged
audiences get smart about the people, issues, and ideas changing the world. FORA.tv gathers
the web's largest collection of unmediated video drawn from live events, lectures, and debates
consistently happening at the world's top universities, think tanks and conferences, for users to
watch, interact with and share. The event will be streamed live by FORA.tv and made available
on-demand following the presentation. Rolling Stone Magazine will also carry the live stream on
their page.
“Blueprint for Accountability: The Wall Street Washington Connection” will be presented
at Gaston Hall, Georgetown University (37th and O St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007) on
Tuesday March 27, 2012 at 7:00PM EDT. It is an invitation-only event.
Support provided by The Arca Foundation, Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice,
Panta Rhea Foundation, Cynthia Ryan and the Schooner Foundation, Veatch Foundation,
Charles Stewart and Mott Foundation.
Live Stream: http://bit.ly/yqqniJ For more information on “Blueprint for Accountability,” please visit:
blueprintforaccountability.org
Visit “Blueprint For Accountability” on:
Facebook
Twitter
49 Bleecker Street, Suite 602 | New York, NY 10012 | 212 925 1806 phone | 212 925 2531 fax | www.cultureproject.org 2 BIOGRAPHIES
VAN JONES has emerged as a leading champion of smart solutions for America's middle class.
As an advisor to the Obama White House, he helped run the inter-agency process that oversaw
$80 billion in green recovery spending. A Yale Law School graduate, he has a 20-year track
record as a successful, innovative and award-winning social entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of
three successful nonprofit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of
Change, and Green For All. He is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights
and the clean energy economy, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and
American Progress Action Fund. He holds a joint appointment at Princeton University as a
distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program
in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs. Van is on the board of several organizations and non-profits, including
Demos, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and
Human Rights, and the Campaign for America's Future. TIME magazine called him one of the
100 most influential people in the world in 2009. He is also the best-selling author of the
definitive book on green jobs, The Green Collar Economy.
JESSE LAGRECA is a freelance writer for Daily Kos. He is also an articulate activist and
protester who has gained large media coverage and supporters because of his role in the
Occupy Wall Street Movement. In an interview with Fox News, LaGreca criticized the corporate
media and Fox News. Although Fox News never aired the video, the raw footage went viral
making LaGreca the face of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Since Fox News, Jesse
LaGreca has made numerous appearances on television talk shows ABC’s “This Week” with
Christiane Amanpour and MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” with Ed Shultz.
HEATHER MCGHEE is the Director of Demos' Washington office, where she develops and
executes strategy for increasing the organization's impact on federal policy debates in
Washington. Previously, she was the Deputy Policy Director, Domestic and Economic Policy, for
the John Edwards for President 2008 campaign, and a Program Associate in Demos' Economic
Opportunity Program. Her writing and research on debt, financial services regulation, retirement
and inequality have appeared in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, USA
Today, the Detroit Free-Press and CNN. She is the co-author of a chapter on retirement
insecurity in the book Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and its
Poisonous Consequences (New Press, 2005). She holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale
University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
DYLAN RATIGAN is the host of MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show, one of the highest-rated,
daytime shows on the network. This make-versus-take, analysis-driven daily broadcast
fearlessly takes on the world of politics, money, and the unholy alliance between big business
and government. The former global managing editor for corporate finance at Bloomberg News,
Ratigan has developed and launched more than half a dozen broadcast and new media
properties. They include CNBC’s Fast Money and Closing Bell, as well as DylanRatigan.com,
which is home to his podcast, “Greedy Bastards Antidote.”
ELIOT SPITZER attended Harvard Law School and worked his way up in the Manhattan District
Attorney's office. He was elected New York Attorney General in 1998. As attorney general,
Spitzer made a name for himself as a crusading prosecutor. Not only did he lock horns with the
49 Bleecker Street, Suite 602 | New York, NY 10012 | 212 925 1806 phone | 212 925 2531 fax | www.cultureproject.org 3 Gambino Mafia crime family, he also became known as the "Sheriff of Wall Street." In May
2002, he won a spectacular victory when he uncovered emails revealing that Merrill Lynch was
riddled with financial conflicts of interest that affected its advice to customers. Merrill Lynch
settled out of court for $100 million. Known for his strict ethics and persistence, Spitzer was
elected governor in 2006.
RON SUSKIND is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who has written some of
America’s most important works of nonfiction, including the fall’s New York Times bestseller,
Confidence Men: Wall Street Washington and the Education of a President. He is also the
author of bestsellers including, The Way of the World, A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of
Extremism; The One Percent Doctrine, Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies Since
9/11; The Price of Loyalty, George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O’Neill;
and A Hope in the Unseen, An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League. From
1993 to 2000, he was the senior national affairs reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he
was awarded the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. He currently writes for various national
magazines, including The New York Times Magazine and Esquire Magazine.
MATT TAIBBI is an American author and polemical journalist reporting on politics, media,
finance, and sports for Rolling Stone and Men's Journal. Previously he edited and wrote for The
eXile, the New York Press, and The Beast. His July 2009 Rolling Stone article "The Great
American Bubble Machine" famously described Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid
wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that
smells like money." He is the author of the book Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids,
and the Long Con That Is Breaking America.
STEVEN PASQUALE most recently starred on Broadway in Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty.
A regular on the theater scene, Pasquale's credits include Archibald Craven in The Secret
Garden (World AIDS Day Concert), Henrik in A Little Night Music (opposite Victor Garber,
Natasha Richardson and Venessa Redgrave), Captain Taylor in A Soldier's Play (Second
Stage, opposite Taye Diggs), Tom in the Neil LaBute off-Broadway hit, Fat Pig, Robbie in the
Ahrens/Flahrety/McNally musical A Man of No Importance (Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle
nominations), Beautiful Child, The Spitfire Grill, Spinning Into Butter, Andrew Lippa's The Wild
Party and he created the role of Fabrizio in Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas' The Light in the
Piazza. Television audiences have followed him for five seasons as Sean Garrity on the FX hit
show "Rescue Me." His other television credits include a recurring role on HBO's Emmy and
Golden Globe Award winning drama "Six Feet Under" and Sofia Coppola's "Platinum". His film
credits include the role of Dallas in Alien vs. Predator: Requim, Aurora Borealis which premiered
at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, and Jonathan's Segal's The Last Run. His solo album,
"Somethin' Like Love", was released by the Grammy nominated record label PS Classics.
CHARLES PARNELL is an American actor best known for being the second actor to portray
Police Chief Derek Frye on All My Children. Parnell took over the role previously played by actor
William Christian. He joined the cast of the show on September 8, 2005, and made his final
appearance on September 24, 2007. Parnell also provides the voice of Jefferson Twilight on
Cartoon Network's The Venture Bros. Before taking the role of Derek Frye, Parnell played
Achilles in "Iphigeneia at Aulis", a play by Euripides translated and adapted by Kenneth
49 Bleecker Street, Suite 602 | New York, NY 10012 | 212 925 1806 phone | 212 925 2531 fax | www.cultureproject.org 4 Cavander at the Yale Repertory Theater, New Haven, Connecticut. He has most recently
appeared in the television shows Fringe, NCIS: Los Angeles, and, The Mentalist.
ANNA KHAJA is the 2011 winner of the Ovation Award for Lead Actress in a Play for Shaheed:
The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto (also nominated for Best Production of the Year) which
she wrote and performed in both LA and NY. Anna also played the "The Academic" in the U.S.
Premiere of David Hare's Stuff Happens at the Mark Taper Forum (Ovation Nomination). So
controversial was her portrayal, the L.A. Times published a Special Opinion piece solely about
her character and performance. In 2007, she originated the role of the Iraqi mother "Nerjas,"
delivering a 45 minute monologue in the US Premiere of Canadian playwright Judith
Thompson's Palace Of The End. For her performance she received an LA Weekly Award for
Solo Performance as well as a nomination for a Lead Actress Ovation Award. She has received
outstanding notices from and features in the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Los
Angeles Times, Backstage West, Backstage NYC, NYTheater.com, NPR/WNYC Radio,
Hollywood Reporter, LA Weekly, Audrey Magazine and Variety. Anna first gained recognition on
the big screen in King of California, as the unyielding but vulnerable cop who faces off with - and
is eventually seduced by - Michael Douglas. Then, in six more features, Anna plays an eclectic
mix of roles alongside Jim Carrey and Bradley Cooper (Yes Man), Chris McDonald (Reunion),
JK Simmons and Alexis Bledel (Post Grad) , Milo Ventimiglia (Order of Chaos). She recently
shot California Solo with Robert Carlyle and Danny Masterson as well as Admissions with
James Cromwell - both due out in 2012. Her television appearances include The Closer, House
M.D., Private Practice, This Might Hurt, Flash Forward, Numb3rs, Sleeper Cell, Dirt, Weeds and
the new NBC half hour comedy, BENT. Watch for her recurring role on the upcoming season
True Blood on HBO.
LEAD PRODUCER – JAYASHRI WYATT is the director of productions and the lead producer
of the Blueprint for Accountability series at the Culture Project. She has worked closely with
directors Fisher Stevens, John Caird and Kenny Leon to conceptualize many of Culture
Project’s multidisciplinary and activist programs, curating panels, writing and adapting scripts
and producing short films. She works with committed advocacy partners, journalists, and
intellectuals to create original programming on a range of politically urgent subject matter.
Jayashri also co-produced Breaking the Silence, Beating the Drum – a special concert and
cultural evening to commemorate the end of the transatlantic slave trade at United Nations
Headquarters (2009) as well as Twin Spirits in New York (2010) and Los Angeles (2011) with
Trudie Styler and Sting.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – JODIE EVANS is co-founder and co-director of CODEPINK and
has been a peace, environmental, women’s rights and social justice activist for forty years. She
has traveled extensively to war zones promoting and learning about peaceful resolution to
conflict. She served in the administration of Governor Jerry Brown and ran his presidential
campaign. She has published two books, “Stop the Next War Now” and “Twilight of Empire,”
and has produced several documentary films, including the Oscar-nominated “The Most
Dangerous Man in America” and Howard Zinn’s “The People Speak.”
Jodie is the board chair of Women’s Media Center and sits on many other boards, including
Rainforest Action Network, Drug Policy Alliance, Institute of Policy Studies, Women Moving
Millions and Sisterhood is Global Institute. She is the mother of three.
49 Bleecker Street, Suite 602 | New York, NY 10012 | 212 925 1806 phone | 212 925 2531 fax | www.cultureproject.org 5 EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - ANDREW S. KARSCH divides his time between the worlds of
motion pictures, politics, and technology. He established Longfellow Pictures and took on
running companies for both William Randolph Hearst III and Sidney Kimmel. Among his
producing credits is the Academy Award-nominated Best Pictures, Moneyball and The Prince of
Tides, as well as The Emperor’s Club, Conviction. He runs his online company, ‘Outside.In,’
founded with partners Steven Berlin Johnson and Mark Bailey; and a new motion
picture/multimedia company, Insurgent Media, LLC, with partners Erik Gordon and Fisher
Stevens. Politically, Mr. Karsch worked with Senator Edward M. Kennedy running his campaign
for the U.S. Senate in 1976 and served as the Senator's Issues and Media Director for the state
of New York during his 1980 Presidential campaign. During the last Presidential campaign, Mr.
Karsch worked with Rock the Vote to create and produce the largest youth registration drive in
history. Political work remains one of his core concerns and he continues to advise candidates,
campaigns, and foundations.
DIRECTOR – TERRY KINNEY is a stage, film and television actor, and founder of Steppenwolf
Theater in Chicago. At the height of the company's fame, Kinney and Sinise were
Steppenwolf's artistic co-directors, winning numerous awards, and even transferring some
productions, such as their monumental adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath",
to Broadway. In addition to Kinney and Sinise, the company included such first rate actors
as John Malkovich, Joan Allen and John Mahoney. As an actor, Kinney was nominated for a
Tony Award for his appearance as the "Reverend Casey" in "Grapes." Kinney made his
movie debut in 1985, with a bit part in Seven Minutes in Heaven (1985), and has been much in
demand as a supporting actor ever since. On television, he had a small but recurring role
on "thirtysomething" (1987) and appeared as a regular on the HBO prison drama “Oz” (1997).
CULTURE PROJECT is dedicated to addressing critical human rights issues by creating and
supporting artistic work that amplifies marginalized voices. By fostering innovative collaboration
between human rights organizations and artists, we aim to inspire and impact public dialogue
and policy, encouraging democratic participation in the most urgent matters of our time.
CultureProject.org
BLUEPRINT FOR ACCOUNTABILITY, Culture Project’s acclaimed town hall series, is a bold
hybrid of journalism, theatre and film that brings together leading experts in politics, journalism,
academia, and social activism along with visionary artists, to create high-voltage, multimedia
conversations designed to educate, entertain and mobilize citizens for vigorous engagement in
restoring accountability into our civic society.
THE LANNAN CENTER FOR POETICS AND SOCIAL PRACTICE AT GEORGETOWN
UNIVERSITY, funded by the Lannan Foundation, is devoted to literary art, cultural practice and
poetics in the contemporary world. Based within the Department of English, the Center
convenes poets, writers, thinkers and activists in seminars, lectures and symposia that promote
creative expression, cultural diversity, social justice and freedom. http://lannan.georgetown.edu/
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49 Bleecker Street, Suite 602 | New York, NY 10012 | 212 925 1806 phone | 212 925 2531 fax | www.cultureproject.org 6