New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, was elected on an affordability agenda focused on free buses and child care. On Friday, he extended that agenda to the arts, handing out vouchers for free tickets to a long-running theater festival of experimental work and declaring that culture should be more accessible to the city’s residents.
Mamdani — the son of the filmmaker Mira Nair, a onetime rapper and a sometime patron of comedy, music and theater — this week prevailed upon the annual Under the Radar festival, which is running through Jan. 25, to make 1,500 free tickets available. And on his ninth day in office, he stood on Hillel Place in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, handing out cards with QR codes for those tickets to anyone who wanted them.
“The shared laughter in a crowded theater, the eager debrief after a musical, the heavy silence that hangs over all of us in a drama — these are moments that every New Yorker deserves,” Mamdani said later, explaining the initiative during a news conference at one of the festival’s venues, Brooklyn College’s Leonard and Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts.
Mamdani spent about 20 minutes before the news conference standing outdoors, behind a folding table with black, purple and red Under the Radar beanies, shaking hands with passers-by who had been told that if they waited in line they could meet the mayor and get a theater ticket. (The free beanies were a bonus.)
Some of those standing in line just wanted to meet the new mayor; he posed for a lot of selfies, and even used his own tie to wipe schmutz off a woman’s phone lens. Others wanted to tell him about some concern or idea that they had; he redirected several of them to talk with his aides. But some seemed grateful for the opportunity to see a show that might otherwise have been out of reach.
“A young lady told me they were giving out free tickets for a theater show, and I’ve never been to one before, so I thought maybe this would be a good opportunity for me,” said Zain Morisset, 35, a student who was second in line. “I always wanted to attend one, but they seem to be so expensive.”
The giveaway, which includes tickets distributed online, came about quickly. Mark Russell, the festival’s founder and director, said Mamdani had apparently attended a dinner on Monday at which Under the Radar came up, and that the mayor’s staff had reached out the next day about creating a free ticket initiative. Russell asked the producers and presenters of this year’s shows if they would be willing to participate, and 12 said yes — some expected to have extra capacity, and some added additional performances.
“When does a mayor actually acknowledge downtown performance — downtown being a state of mind?” Russell asked. “We thought, ‘Of course!’ It’s a stretch, but it’s something I would love to see continue, because we are trying to make a festival for the city, and this is a good way to say that, and it’s also a good way to say this is not just snobby downtown guys, it’s a citywide festival.”
The Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin helped drum up interest for the initiative at the corner of Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues, telling people about the free tickets; she is a co-director of “Reconstructing,” a new work in the festival that is running this weekend at the Brooklyn College venue. “I had some odd interactions, some short interactions, and then some incredibly beautiful interactions with people who had never heard of the festival and were thrilled to have free tickets,” she said.
Mamdani, at the news conference, argued that the notion of affordability needs to be broadened.
“When I speak about making our city more affordable, my vision is not limited to the homes that we live in or the child care that we’re making universal — it’s also a vision where we make it possible for working people to afford lives of joy, of art, of rest, of expression,” he said.
Calling the arts “a form of connection in a city that is both desperate for it and dependent on it,” he said the ticket giveaway was “just one example of an agenda and an approach that we are going to take to ensure that arts are not simply thought of as a luxury for the wealthy or a treat for the tourists.” He did not offer further specifics, but added: “We are going to spend our time, our agenda, and the time that we have in office in doing everything we can to bring arts back to New Yorkers all across the five boroughs.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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