About This Show
A love letter to future generations of New Yorkers, Walt Whitman’s poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” is the inspiration for this production, which begins in 1856 with Whitman on a sunset ferry boat from Manhattan to Brooklyn’s Fulton Ferry landing. The work moves through time to a final sequence that takes place on a Q train at sunset traveling from Canal to DeKalb. The theme of the poem (one of Whitman’s best known and most beloved) is that all humans are united in their common experience of life, regardless of time and place.
Brave New World Repertory Theatre has a penchant for unorthodox productions. Last summer’s The Great White Hope lit up the Bandshell with live ragtime piano and historic images of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson in his heyday. This year’s performance, a Celebrate Brooklyn! commission, takes on Walt Whitman’s great love song to the borough in a multimedia theatrical adaptation that weaves together music, poetry, projections, dance and rap along with a slide show of historic photos of New York City from Culver Pictures, and contemporary photos by Bruce Davidson that chronicle East River crossings since Whitman’s time, by boat, bridge and subway.