Democracy: A Theater Festival

The Brick announces it's ever-changing and ever-intriguing Summer Theater Festival theme. This one involves a great deal of crowd-sourcing and voting and such.

From their website:

In an election year, it is important for all U.S. citizens to do their patriotic duty. For that reason, The Brick is extending its annual Summer Theme Festival Series with DEMOCRACY, an experiment in civic curation that asks audiences to vote for the shows that will participate in our traditional June festival. From there, they will compete with each other during a runoff election cycle in June to determine who will win the title of President of The Brick.

Interested candidates must fill out a Campaign Registration Form (see below) in order to be eligible for the Primary Election, which will be held on Tuesday, March 20. Candidates are also required to create a campaign ad (to be hosted on The Brick's YouTube page) and send a representative to The Brick for a live Primary Debate on Sunday, March 18, where they will be allowed to plead their case before the public. Primary voting will take place online and be open to everyone on the Internet. The 12 shows with the most votes will be invited to take part in the General Election in June, where they will compete with each other to be elected President of The Brick, for a term beginning in January 2013.

Over the course of June, the candidates involved in the General Election will each have no fewer than four Public Appearances (i.e., performances) at which to bring their case directly to the voters, along with multiple other events and online campaigns that leverage social media, endorsements from prominent political and artistic figures, etc. The General Election cycle will conclude on Sunday, July 1, with live voting that will take place exclusively in-person at The Brick, at the end of which the winner will be announced prior to a gala celebration.

While the open election process forbids us from declining candidates based on race, creed, sexual orientation, subject matter, etc., we do encourage candidates whose Public Appearances will be most concerned with the themes of Democracy – its history, its process, our great country's past, present and future, and all related subject matter and ideas pertaining to the word itself and the concept of popular government.