Yahoo News How the New Yorker Festival Is Pivoting Amid Hollywood Strikes
For 24 years, The New Yorker has leaned on the talents of actors, writers, and others from the world of Hollywood to be a part of its annual New Yorker Festival, which will be held this year Oct. 6-8.
The ongoing Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes have thrown a wrench in many plans that have traditionally relied on Hollywood talent, but the festival will go on, New Yorker editor David Remnick tells The Hollywood Reporter. And there will still be plenty of star power.
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The New Yorker, of course, is not owned by a struck company, but SAG has advised its members not to promote projects from studios that have not signed interim agreements, and the Condé Nast-owned publication has had to adapt accordingly: “We faced a challenge or two,” Remnick says.
“I think a lot of the navigation is on the side of the talent, and what they’re able to do and what they can’t. We have to be very sensitive to and aware of those parameters,” he adds of holding the event amid the double strikes. “We’re trying to sign people up to find out what those parameters are because they’re complicated. And sometimes they’re very particular.”
Among the speakers at this year’s New Yorker Festival will be Julia Louis Dreyfus (whose new film Tuesday, from A24, signed an interim agreement with SAG-AFTRA allowing her to promote the project), director Spike Lee, actors Molly Ringwald and John Turturro, acclaimed parodists Eric Idle and “Weird Al” Yankovic, the musicians Paramore, and author Judy Blume, among many others.
The festival will include a mix of conversations, panel discussions, performances and screenings that are relevant to The New Yorker’s audience.
“Our thinking from the start has always been to engage our readers — and potential readers — by kind of making a three dimensional New Yorker over the course of a weekend which is to say, you know, this magazine and a website and podcast and all the other things that we do that emphasizes culture and politics in all their vastness and variety,” Remnick says. “We want to mix people who’ve had long careers and you have the kind of retrospective aspect of it, to people who are new on the scene.”
So Paramore will perform, while writer Ted Chiang and the philosopher Daniel Dennett lead a panel on artificial intelligence; there will be a screening of the Alexander Paybe film The Holdovers, while Andy Borowitz interviews Weird Al.
Remnick will be on stage as well, of course, interviewing Julia Louis Dreyfus, “who as a talent has just done nothing but expand and expand and expand,” he says.
“And you have people who have have a lifetime of accomplishment under their belts, as I’m also talking with Spike Lee, who is one of the most important directors in modern American history full stop, and has also has just an incredible historic role to play and I can’t wait to talk to him at the same time,” he adds.
Remnick notes, however, that there is a limit to the role he can play in programming and participating in the festival. When asked what feedback he has received from The New Yorker’s editorial team and others about potential inclusions in the event:
“The main conversation is that they don’t want to see me play guitar on stage anymore,” he quips. “I did this twice with Patti Smith and let me just say my son is very against the third go, so we I had to bow to wiser heads on that one.”
The full lineup for this year’s New Yorker Festival is below.
Interviews:
The actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus in conversation with The New Yorker’s David Remnick.
The ballerina Misty Copeland in conversation with The New Yorker’s Jennifer Homans.
The filmmaker Spike Lee in conversation with The New Yorker’s David Remnick.
The actor, writer, and translator Molly Ringwald in conversation with The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins.
The actor and comedian Eric Idle in conversation with The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman.
The writer Michael Pollan in conversation with The New Yorker’s Ariel Levy.
The comedians Ziwe and Aparna Nancherla in conversation with The New Yorker’s Emma Allen.
The musician, composer, and producer David Byrne in conversation with The New Yorker’s Kelefa Sanneh.
The comedian and musician “Weird Al” Yankovic in conversation with The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz.*
The actor John Turturro in conversation with The New Yorker’s Tyler Foggatt.
The scholar and writer Elizabeth Alexander and the playwright Tony Kushner in conversation with The New Yorker’s Hilton Als.
The artist Simone Leigh in conversation with the curator Thelma Golden.
The actor and writer Rachel Bloom in conversation with The New Yorker’s Rachel Syme.
The cartoonist Roz Chast in conversation with The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik.
The podcaster Karina Longworth in conversation with The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot.
Conversations and performances:
The band Paramore, including its front woman, Hayley Williams, talks with The New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich and performs.
Michelle Zauner, the musician and writer behind Japanese Breakfast, talks with The New Yorker’s Hua Hsu and performs.
Discussions about the art of fiction:
The writers Judy Blume and Curtis Sittenfeld in conversation with The New Yorker’s Naomi Fry.
The writers Jonathan Lethem and Colson Whitehead in conversation with The New Yorker’s Deborah Treisman.
The writers Emma Cline and Mary Gaitskill in conversation with The New Yorker’s Molly Fischer.
The writers Jhumpa Lahiri and Ling Ma in conversation with The New Yorker’s Cressida Leyshon.
The writers Lauren Groff and Jesmyn Ward in conversation with The New Yorker’s Parul Sehgal.
Panel discussions:
“When Journalists Become Detectives”: A conversation on investigative reporting with The New Yorker’s David Grann, Patrick Radden Keefe, and Jane Mayer, moderated by The New Yorker’s Daniel Zalewski.
“Thinking About A.I.”: A conversation on artificial intelligence with the writer Ted Chiang and the philosopher Daniel Dennett, moderated by The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman.
“How to Be Funny”: A conversation on humor with The New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz and the comedy writer Samantha Irby.
“A More Perfect Union”: A conversation on the state of American democracy with The New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb, Jill Lepore, and Evan Osnos, moderated by The New Yorker’s Michael Luo.
Other events:
An exclusive advanced screening of the upcoming feature “The Holdovers,” followed by a conversation between the film’s director, Alexander Payne, and The New Yorker’s Susan Morrison.
A round of Cartoon Improv featuring the cartoonists Hilary Campbell, Drew Dernavich, Sarah Kempa, and Jeremy Nguyen, judged by the comedians Karen Chee and Jay Jurden and hosted by the cartoonist Emily Flake.
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