The 2020 Annual Gala organized by BBLA and the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation celebrates cultural diplomacy and honors Ambassador William and Wendy Luers. Join the party featuring presentation of our annual BBLA Award for Unparalleled Service to the Czech and Slovak Communities, the VHLF’s Disturbing the Peace Award to a Courageous Writer at Risk, salutes by Czech, Slovak, and American artists and cultural diplomats. This year, we are changing things up a bit. While the U.S. is still responding to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Annual Gala has been conceived as a virtual event.
MEET US ON YOUTUBE, 7:00 - 8:45 PM
MEET US ON ZOOM, 8:45 PM
(you will receive two links and instructions via email)
GALA PROGRAM
NYC Council Member Ben Kallos
New York City Council Member Ben Kallos will open the evening with welcoming remarks. You will then enjoy stirring archival footage and images of Vaclav Havel and Prague in 1980s and 1990s, featuring visits by American celebrities, including Joan Baez and Jane Fonda, in 1990; Wendy Luers’s moving interview with Olga Havlova three days after her husband’s presidential inauguration; and interviews with Havel’s closest friends and advisors, including Madeleine Albright, Ivan Havel, Michael Zantovsky, Martin Palous, and Helena Klimova.
You will hear from distinguished BBLA and VHLF Board Members Joseph Balaz, Andy Schapiro and Marilyn Wyatt; from student and professional beneficiaries of the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation’s theater programs, novelist Jachym Topol, and journalist Jolyon Naegele.
Tomas Petricek, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, will present the 2020 Disturbing the Peace to a Courageous Writer at Risk to the renowned Cuban writer and blogger Angel Santiesteban Prats who will also speak during the program. The award comes with a $5,000 cash prize, an artist book created by Czech-American artist Katerina Kyselica, and for the first time, a residency at the Vaclav Havel Library in Prague.
Cuban dissident writer Angel Santiesteban Prats
Artist book “Poppy” by Katerina Kyselica
Prominent artist Frantisek Skala will describe the importance of the Jindrich Chalupecky Award, co-founded by Vaclav Havel and Wendy Luers and presented annually to a promising young visual artist. Guitarist Tony Ackerman will perform the music that has endeared him to Czech and American audiences alike.
Tony Ackerman
We would like to invite you also to our 2020 Gala Online Auction, presenting a very special group of Central European contemporary artworks, memorable and rare photographs of Vaclav Havel, a handmade silk wrap, and unique t-shirts featuring the iconic Havel's signature.
The evening will culminate with a showing of Ambassador William Luers’s remarkable speech on Wenceslas Square on the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. We will honor Ambassador William and Wendy Luers with the BBLA Award for Unparalleled Service to the Czech and Slovak Communities. During their posting in Czechoslovakia from 1983 until 1986, the Luers befriended the dissidents, including and especially Vaclav Havel, while fostering Czech American relations at a very difficult time. They have consistently demonstrated support for the Czech Republic and Slovakia in all spheres of their broad interests. The honorees will be introduces by Stephen Heintz, President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Lise Stone, Vice-Chair of the VHLF Board of Directors.
Wendy and William Luers with Vaclav Havel, inauguration Eve, December 1989
Wendy and William Luers with Vaclav Havel during his first presidential trip to New York City, February 1990
The 2020 Annual Gala benefits the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation’s programs supporting dissident writers, performing arts students and exploratory theater. Your support at this times allows VHLF to carry out the work that illuminates the legacy of Vaclav Havel in the U.S.
Please join us to show your support. Consider purchasing a Supporter ticket. Thank you!
For additional information, contact Pavla Niklova at +1 (917) 847-4342 or info@vhlf.org.
2020 GALA HOST COMMITTEE
Chairs
Joseph Balaz
Craig and Dorothy Stapleton
Benefactors
Riprand Graf Arco-Zinneberg and
Dr. Gräffin Arco-Zinneberg
Priscilla and Ward Woods
Patrons
William and Catherine Cabaniss
Gustavo and Patricia Cisneros
Kevin and Karen Kennedy
Rosemary Ripley and Peter Grubstein
Ben Heineman and Cristine Russell
Andrew H. Schapiro and Tamar Newberger
Jack and Patricia Stack
Jan and Marica Vilcek
Kenneth and Susan Wallach
Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation
Supporters
Martin Holub
Susan Justman
Kevin Klose
Martin Ligr
Ellen McCourt
Janet Olshansky
Julia Quincy
Aaron and Pavla Rosenstein
Theodore Sedgwick
John Seidler
Clarice Marik Snokhous
Senator Timothy Wirth
Fengsuo Zhou
Sponsors
Wendy Benchley and John Jeppson
Veronica Bisek Lurvey
Maria and Woody Campbell
George and Beth Drost
Jodie and John Eastman
Geoffrey R. Hoguet and Annalu Ponti
Henry A. Kissinger
Charlotta Kotik
Randy Lehrer
Katia and Robert Mead
Nancy and John Novogrod
Pavel and Kimberly Oliva
Martin Palous
Marian Pillsbury
John and Emily Rafferty
Victoria Riskin and David Rintels
John Shattuck and Ellen Hume
George and Elizabeth Stevens
Lise Stone and Stephen B. Heintz
Enzo and Mayalen Viscusi
Wendy Watriss and Frederick Baldwin
Tammy Westergard
Marilyn Wyatt
The Ronald and Jo Carole Lauder Foundation
Friends
George Biddle
Alexandra Champalimaud and Bruce Schnitzer
Eva Derman
Jennifer Duncan
Maggie Jackson
Richard and Mary Lanier
Olga Levina
Elizabeth Littlefield
Diana Negroponte
Sandra Novacek
Nancy Petschek-Kohn
Anna VA Polesny
James Ragan
Ene Riisna
Georgina Silhan Sager
Rose Styron
Suzanne Vega
Izzy Ventura
Eva Vogel
Olga and George Votis
“Every meaningful cultural act—wherever it takes place—is unquestionably good in and of itself, simply because it exists and because it offers something to someone. Yet can this value ‘in itself’ really be separated from ‘the common good’? Is not one an integral part of the other from the start? Does not the bare fact that a work of art has meant something to someone—even if only for a moment, perhaps to a single person—already somehow change, however minutely, the overall condition for the better? ... Can we separate the awakening human soul from what it always, already is—an awakening human community.”