Cate Blanchett To Be Honored, St. Vincent To Perform At May 13 Online Gala For Brooklyn Academy Of Music

Tomorrow night the Brooklyn Academy of Music will hold its annual gala, this year online, and honor actor and director Cate Blanchett, author Zadie Smith and philanthropist and producer Jeanne Donovan Fisher for their contributions to film, literature, theater and cultural philanthropy.

In accordance with COVID-19 safety and social distancing guidelines, the gala will be hosted on BAM.org and open to the public. It will start at 8 p.m. EDT.

The event supports BAM’s commitment to adventurous programming; viewers will be invited to make contributions throughout the evening, with 10% of donations received tomorrow night to be given to the Brooklyn Hospital Center.

Artists who have performed at BAM will create special tributes to the honorees. Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch company member Julie Anne Stanzak wil do a solo dance, filmed by French filmmaker Nathalie Larquet, in honor of Blanchett. Grammy Award-winning ensemble Brooklyn Youth Chorus will perform a Philip Glass composition dedicated to Fisher. And Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater company member Hope Boykin will pay tribute to Smith with an original, short performance film.

Multiple Grammy Award-winning artist St. Vincent will perform in celebration of BAM—-a performance that will be seen exclusively during the livestreamed event—while house DJ Eli Escobar will MC a living room dance party to close out the evening, at 8.45 p.m. EDT.

Blanchett has appeared on BAM’s stage in the title role of Hedda Gabler (2006) and as Blanche in Liv Ullmann’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire (2009).

Her film performances have garnered her three BAFTAs, two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards She is equally accomplished on the stage, having led the Sydney Theatre Company as co-artistic director and CEO for six years with her partner, Andrew Upton. For her onstage roles, she was nominated for a Tony Award. And In 2018, she served as jury president of the 71st Cannes Film Festival.

This year Blanchett can be seen as Phyllis Schlafly in FX’s new limited series, Mrs. America, which she co-executive produced. She will also soon be seen in Stateless. Featuring an all-female writing and directing team, Stateless examines issues of displacement, as shown through four characters caught up in Australia’s immigration system. She resides in the United Kingdom with her husband, four children, three dogs, two pigs and chickens.

Novelist, essayist and short story author Smith appeared at BAM in 2007 and 2016 as part of the “Eat, Drink, & Be Literary” series, and was part of BAM’s “Unbound” book-launch series in 2014.

She was born in London in 1975, and holds a degree in English literature from the University of Cambridge.  Her most recent novel, Swing Time, was published in November 2016 and shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and longlisted for the Man Booker 2017. She published her first essay collection, Changing My Mind, in 2009 and her second essay collection, Feel Free, in 2018. Her first short story collection, Grand Union, was published in 2019. Smith writes regularly for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books and is a tenured professor of creative writing at New York University. She lives in London and New York.

BAM trustee Fisher was elected to its board in 2006. In addition to serving on BAM’s film committee, she was a champion for the construction of the BAM Fisher, an arts, education and community center that opened in 2012.

A producer, investor and philanthropist living in New York, she is president of True Love Productions, a theater production company. Prior to producing, Fisher’s professional background was in strategic communications. She also serves on the boards of the Sundance Institute and Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.