The Brooklyn Rail

I remember one delightful and lengthy dinner at the home of my late friend Marielle Bancou-Segal (international stylist, textile designer, artist, and generous mentor to Ken Burns, Bryan Doerries, among others) with her close friend Harvey Lichtenstein in the spring of 2007, our three-hour-long conversation was focused on our mutual admirations of Peter Brook alongside Karen Brooks Hopkins (Harvey’s former development assistant and his eventual successor); it was clear to us that one legend passes on the baton to the next, and that the Brooklyn Academy of Music, this remarkably made-from-ground-up institution, deserved a fluid continuity with greater growth and vitality under Karen’s leadership.

Just as the BAM Harvey Theater was dedicated in Harvey’s honor when he retired in 1998, BAM’s section of the development in a new building—part of a local consortium at 300 Ashland Place, incorporating additional film screens, an all-purpose performance space, and public-facing archive—is named BAM KBH in honor of Karen. On the occasion of Karen’s ever-inspiring publication, BAM... and Then It Hit Me (powerHouse Books, 2022), I invited Karen and our old friend Bryan Doerries (Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions, Rail Editor-at-Large) on the Rail’s ever-popular New Social Environment to discuss the history and evolution of her thirty-six years of remarkable leadership at BAM, America’s oldest performing arts center. The following conversation continues and expands on the topics they discussed, including new thoughts on Karen’s remarkable book, the history and evolution of BAM, the launch of BAM KBH—and the challenges and opportunities of sustaining artists and arts organizations in this precarious time. 

–Phong H. Bui, Brooklyn Rail Publisher and Artistic Director

Bryan Doerries (Rail): All right, so Karen, it’s December 16, 2024. A lot has changed since you wrote your book, BAM … and Then It Hit Me. There’s been a pandemic. You’ve been on a global book tour. Arts and culture are in a precarious place right now. Just to jump right into it, how have your thoughts about building creative communities and sustaining organizations like BAM evolved and changed since you wrote your book? And what do we do at this critical moment to stay on the right path?

Karen Brooks Hopkins: The arts are in a very, very tenuous position right now. Let’s discuss fundraising first, since it’s always the biggest challenge. Corporate funding has generally evaporated in New York City. There are political reasons for this, and other reasons too. Corporations don’t need controversy. They don’t want it. In many instances, corporate grants are sponsorships of arts events and often present too much risk. Foundation funds have also become more narrowly focused. In some cases, funds are going directly to artists, which is a wonderful thing, but the money is not getting to institutions. So, if there’s no funding for the presenters of the work that artists are making, this breaks down the architecture of how artists and institutions work together. Many high–net-worth individuals have gone to Florida, and a large number of nonprofit board members have aged out. When the funding is this difficult, the whole sector is living on the edge. So, there is a funding crisis in the field that I think is extremely significant. It needs to be reported on and should be investigated. We’re going to see a lot of changes based on the scarcity of money. Beyond that, there’s the political landscape. And the other question going forward is, will we see any kind of censorship? Will we see institutions that just don’t want to touch anything controversial because it will be harmful to them? Individuals came out of the pandemic and were unsure of where to turn. And while audiences have started to come back, there is still a problem on many levels. Costs are up, and audiences and funding have been down. So, when you put all of that together and add things like remote work—which makes no sense for arts organizations that need to build teams and need to connect with their audiences and donors—it doesn’t look good. But one of the hopeful things that can happen going forward is the possibility that the arts could and should be seen as an investment for communities, rather than simply a sector needing philanthropy.

Rail: Move past the charity model, the idea that culture has no value and must be sustained by the generosity of donors.

Hopkins: Yes, we need to move from philanthropy to investment. When communities that have a density of arts organizations are successful—economically, socially, and of course, artistically—then there is a reason for cities and municipalities of all kinds to make an ongoing financial commitment to them. That’s money which doesn’t have to be raised. It’s a different kind of funding, and that is where I think we should push. I think it portends an exciting future for communities of all sizes. One of the themes in my book is powering up communities through investment in arts and culture. And recently I’ve started doing this talk called “The Lightning Round,” where I’ve identified twenty communities worldwide—large, small, all different kinds—that have made commitments to the arts which really changed the economic base of those neighborhoods.

Rail: Yes, that’s great. When we last sat down and talked, shortly after your book launched, you laid out a theory of philanthropic fundraising based on convincing donors to get engaged with arts organizations. But it feels like, in some ways, what you’re describing is an investment model that speaks to the American ethos. On the West Coast, for instance, the idea of philanthropy, or charitable giving to the arts—the entire nonprofit structure—is often seen as a failure, precisely because it relegates the arts to the margins, and defines them as something that has no value. Other countries understand the value of the arts, so much so that they provide vast subsidies to support them. But Americans, by and large, do not recognize the value of the arts or their impact upon communities. Nor does our government invest in them. There were times when the arts—under Republican administrations, counterintuitively—had more governmental support. I wonder if you could talk about the Reagan years, which were a particularly fertile time for BAM. Are there any lessons or strategies from your leadership at that time which could be applied to the present moment, or that, at the very least, might offer some glimmer of hope?

Hopkins: You know, it’s a funny thing. If you look at the two presidents who have had the most affinity for arts and entertainment, they would have to be Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. After all, Trump is a TV guy, and Reagan was a movie guy. During the Reagan years, we had a very enlightened chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Frank Hodsoll. Reagan was not interested in destroying the agency. He was interested in using it as a tool to improve his reputation and standing in cities. So, the National Endowment for the Arts, through its challenge grant program, made a substantial grant to the Next Wave Festival at BAM. It was an amazing thing that happened in 1983 when we started. It was a different time. People were not discussing censorship then, which came later, but Reagan saw the potential of the NEA to advance his agenda in cities across the United States. So it was actually a very positive time for that kind of funding for BAM. Brooklyn was a borough that needed something strong to help get it going and to build its reputation as a culturally-oriented destination. We had historic theaters and a very tightly branded idea for the Next Wave Festival, which was multicultural, multinational, multi-genre, multi-everything, as long as the work had an experimental or avant-garde point of view. So, ironically, federal funds helped launch the Next Wave Festival.

Rail: Amazing. There it is. A glimmer of hope.

Hopkins: Now, under the Trump administration, it looks like the next National Endowment is possibly doomed.

Rail: I’ve heard rumors that maybe Sylvester Stallone is going to be the candidate of choice.

Hopkins: So maybe Rocky can bail it out!

Rail: Exactly.

Hopkins: If Donald Trump sees a way to maintain the agency through his own lens, then it’s possible cities like New York could benefit. It’s too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but the idea of government funding, at the state and city level, is going to be handled like many things—on a state to state, city to city basis. There won’t be this massive federal umbrella like what we saw during the pandemic. Back then I thought that there could be a sea change, because for once, the federal government would really understand and value the contribution the arts brings to communities. And they did. They stepped forward and made financial commitments. I hoped it would continue. But then, of course, that didn’t happen. The pandemic ended. The institutions spent the money, and then Donald Trump was re-elected president. So, where we’re going from here is a big question mark. The good news is that in many red states, there are very active arts communities that have proven to be quite successful as a draw for people. I mean, if you look at Texas, for example, the city of Dallas. It’s a blue city in a red state, and it has incredible arts assets. And many rural communities have built festivals and arts institutions that are beloved by those communities. The situation may not be as grim as we think it’s going to be. Let’s hope.

Rail: Let’s hope.

Hopkins: You know, anyone who works in the arts has to be an optimist. They may not be optimists in terms of the kind of work that they like to see on stage. Many of us really like to live in a Chekhovian environment most of the time. But the positive, unshakable belief many of us have that the arts can thrive, and that cities like New York can be a place of massive creative expression and artistic development, is worth holding on to. Since the founding of this country, with or without federal investment or enough real philanthropy, we’ve seen that happen. At the end of the day, Americans are interested in being creative. And we’ve also seen that there are donors of many kinds, of many different political points of view, who have stepped up for the arts. Many of them are collectors, and through their interest in collecting they have developed an affinity for museums and visual arts institutions. The visual arts world also was an enormous supporter of the Next Wave Festival. They were the first ones to jump in with full enthusiasm. And hopefully this type of “full on” support will supersede whatever political storm is coming our way.

Rail: I sure hope so. I think that point about how the gallery world and established artists in the visual arts—such as Roy Lichtenstein, who illustrated the first Next Wave Festival poster—fueled the festival is so important. In your book, you talk about the conscious effort BAM made in those early days to court the New York City gallery world to come over to Brooklyn and be part of the exchange. You even chartered buses to shuttle people to Fort Greene. By connecting the experimental and avant-garde performing arts to the visual arts, to the gallery world, and the audience that came with it, BAM conferred a kind of value upon what it was presenting. It was a shrewd strategy, and it worked. Maybe it’s a strategy we should think about adopting in the present climate, all the while never losing sight of the fact that even though Americans do not intrinsically value the arts, let alone experimental, multinational, genre-blurring, avant-garde performing arts, we claim to value innovation. We claim to value invention and ingenuity and entrepreneurial risk taking. But when it comes to the arts, we don’t make the connection. Perhaps that’s the danger of the philanthropic, nonprofit model. It causes us to see the arts as the object of charitable giving, but not an essential driver of our culture or economy. And that disconnect has always seemed strange to me, because it’s part of our identity as Americans to believe in creation and innovation, and yet, when it comes to the arts, we simply refuse to invest in a serious or sustained way.

Hopkins: It really blows my mind. I said it in the book, and I’ll say it again, the arts inspire love of learning. The arts build community. The arts introduce different traditions and heritages. The arts generate the largest tourism dollars. I could go on and on, but at the end of the day, art is the only thing that endures, from generation to generation to generation. Why we don’t see their value and all support them massively is unbelievable to me.

Rail: So, you recently completed this global book tour, where you evangelized the arts in communities all over the world, and you engaged with diverse audiences about this very subject.

Hopkins: I organized the book tour because I really wanted to get out there and talk to people. The book took four years to write. I wrote it because I wanted to tell the story of my thirty-six-year run at BAM. The first twenty years I spent working for Harvey Lichtenstein, who was president and executive producer. Then I succeeded him as president in 1998, working with Joseph Melillo as our executive producer, and there we stayed, working together, for the next sixteen plus years. During that time, we built an endowment of 100 million dollars for BAM. Before 1992, BAM, which opened its doors in 1861, had no endowment. And that’s a long time to go without any endowment. We built buildings. We produced the Next Wave festival and many, many other programs, thousands of shows. BAM became the largest international presenter in the United States, and we brought work from all over the world. We built a movie business, opening four cinemas showing independent films and a cinematheque into the building, which brought an additional 200,000 people to BAM annually—the youngest audience, and the cheapest ticket, which kept the lights on 365 days a year. By the time I left, we had an annual attendance of up to 750,000 people a year. Our team was composed of an army of people, an amazing group of staff, board members, elected officials, donors, and friends of the institution that all joined forces to make something really incredible happen in Brooklyn. The culmination of this was the creation of the Brooklyn Cultural District, which today has nine institutions at its core, ranging from 250 seats to 19,000 in the Barclays Center at the district’s southern tip. It has become one of the great cultural districts in the United States and in the world.

Rail: The development of cultural districts was one of the main subjects you talked about with audiences all over the world. What else did you talk about and what did you learn?

Hopkins: When I wrote the book, BAM … and Then It Hit Me, and I told the story of those thirty-six years and the people and the places and all the things that I just mentioned, I realized that I really wanted to put an old-fashioned in-person book tour together. So, with the assistance of Mary Reilly, who helped manage my tour and was the director of artist services during my time at BAM, we arranged engagements as far-ranging as the Sydney Opera House in Australia, to the National Theatre in London, to Cambodian Living Arts in Cambodia. Cambodia was particularly touching because everyone was in their twenties, as the generation prior had been slaughtered, and these young people wanted to rebuild their traditions. They were proud of their cultural heritage. Thanks to my publisher, powerHouse Books in Brooklyn, we deeply discounted the book, so that these young Cambodians could have access to it. In addition, I gave many talks in the United States in places such as Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Hudson in upstate New York, among others. The big thing that came out of the tour for me, coming back to my original point, was that I thought at the beginning of the tour my job was to talk about BAM, because, frankly, that had been my job for thirty-six years. But what I realized as the tour really took off was that my job was to be a champion and advocate for the arts everywhere I went. That is what I did, and that is what I continue to do. So now with this new administration coming in, I want to continue to beat that drum and blow that horn and get the word out about all the powerful things the arts can deliver to individuals and communities who embrace what they have to offer.

Rail: We have to beat the drum and blow the horn! It’s the clarion call. So, you traveled the world. You went around the United States, and you encountered passionate audiences everywhere you went. Why do you think communities were so hungry for this conversation in some parts of the world?

Hopkins: Maybe it was because, after the pandemic, people were just excited to be together. In Sydney I had more than 250 people attend my talk, which was incredible. Sometimes the crowds were smaller, sometimes they were larger. I talked to people in Sydney, in Melbourne, in Adelaide. So, I hit three cities in Australia, followed by Abu Dhabi and Cambodia. It was quite a remarkable range of places. We created a map that showed all of our stops, and it was thrilling. This was a real lesson for me about how important the arts are to our daily lives, to our ability to learn and to our ability to be creative individuals. Dismissing this powerful sector is a real loss. The cost is so minimal compared to the incredible scope of the return. In my opinion, everyone should consider supporting the arts!

Rail: So now you’ve done this global tour. You’ve been in contact and dialogue with audiences all over the country and the world, in red states, in far flung parts of the globe. You’ve come back and, at long last, a building that was announced at your retirement, which would be named in your honor, a cultural building in Brooklyn, is finally about to launch—the BAM KBH—on January 9. What does this moment feel like—ten years after the announcement? And what does it signify now that the moment is finally here?

Hopkins: Well, it’s pretty amazing. To be honored in this way is very special. It’s been a ten-year process. I retired in 2015, and now it’s 2024. There were a lot of difficulties getting the building built. It’s a complex building in that, unlike the other buildings on the BAM campus, it hosts several tenants. It’s a residential building that also has an Apple store and a Whole Foods. It’s a beautiful building that the developers, Two Trees, a great Brooklyn development company, created, working with the great architect Enrique Norten. There is a “cultural condo” in the base of the building, with 50,000 square feet of cultural space. BAM has 20,000 square feet of that space, and that’s the piece that is being named in my honor. It’s the BAM KBH, because at BAM, everyone called me KBH, Karen Brooks Hopkins. So, as opposed to the BAM Karen, we landed on the BAM KBH, and I feel good about that. I think it’s pretty cool. I asked the great Phong Bui to draw my portrait to be hung in the BAM KBH, having seen his astonishing drawings for all the artists that have been associated with the Brooklyn Rail over many years. In fact, it was David and Jane Walentas of Two Trees who introduced me to Phong.

Rail: Oh, really?

Hopkins: And then Phong and I forged a great friendship, so I asked him if he would make the portrait, which he did, and I’m very proud of it. The naming will take place and be in honor of my work over thirty-six years. And the rest of the BAM space will be the home of several screens for the BAM Rose Cinemas and the Scripps Studio, which will be a multi-dimensional studio, a box for all different kinds of creations. It will also be the home of the BAM Hamm Archives. This is very significant because the opening of BAM goes back to the Civil War, to 1861. Mary Todd Lincoln was in the house during the opening events. You could say that the history of BAM is American history, New York state history, New York City history, and Brooklyn history—it’s all wrapped up at BAM. The archive represents the legacy of our institution, and to have it housed in this building makes me particularly proud, because it tells an incredible story. The archive started as a series of green garbage bags on the floor of someone’s office, and now will be housed in a beautiful, temperature-controlled space with a reading room filled with programs and press and photographs and ephemera from the 160 plus years of BAM’s existence. I’m thrilled about that, and happy that it will finally have a home, along with the other great institutions that will be in the building, like the Brooklyn Public Library, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), and 651 ARTS, which serves many local Brooklyn artists.

Rail: It’s a cultural hub for the Cultural District, which has been decades in the making.

Hopkins: Yes, it’s been a long time coming. But building in New York City is very complicated. There are a lot of rules and regulations, and many different parties involved. There was a pandemic, and then the general funding crisis that the arts experienced. Trying to get capital funds in addition to operating funds is not easy; so I’m thrilled that the City of New York (led by Laurie Cumbo, the current New York City Department of Cultural Affairs [DCLA] Commissioner) has been a champion of this building along with the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). I’m looking forward to the building being activated by all the institutions, plus the activation of the plaza outside, which will really add to the personality of the district.

Rail: Absolutely.

Hopkins: If you think about the district itself, as I say, with nine core institutions and fifty-five additional institutions surrounding it—that’s pretty remarkable.

And the concept behind this district is the opposite of what we saw built during the sixties and seventies, where there were these big, Eurocentric, massive buildings, with fountains, like Lincoln Center, which later had to spend a billion dollars to be more connected to its public! These cultural centers were built defensively, off the street, where many people would come up through the parking lots and never engage with the neighborhood. The Brooklyn Cultural District is the opposite. It consists of institutions, small and large. There is ethnic diversity, racial diversity, as well as a range of visual arts and performing arts, and everything is packed tightly together, sitting on one of the largest transportation hubs in New York City. I believe that the Brooklyn Cultural District, when fully activated, will represent the energy of twenty-first century New York City. That is the goal of the district, and I hope it will be the goal of districts that will be built everywhere—that they replicate and feel like they are part of the cities in which they make their homes.

Rail: Not fortresses of culture but integrated into the community itself. And there’s also the possibility of collaboration between all these amazing organizations that are now in downtown Brooklyn.

Hopkins: That’s really the future. What is the next step beyond a simple series of existing cultural institutions all connected geographically because they’re in proximity to each other? The next step, I think, is twofold. One is that these districts will be pulled together by public art, so that when you enter, you will say, “I am now in a space of art.” This is very important. And then there is the opportunity, just as you said, for the institutions to do something together, such as annual festivals and collaborations. These institutions cannot just be geographically connected, they must be programmatically and socially connected. Ultimately, these districts will become part of the fabric of their communities, internally and externally.

Rail: That’s so exciting. That the energy you and your colleagues at BAM generated by creating this downtown cultural district will continue to accrue, and where it goes next and how it iterates and evolves is beyond your control, but most likely it will outlast this administration and the next. All kinds of connections, collaborations, projects, and initiatives are going to be generated just from bringing these organizations together in this community.

Hopkins: Yes. This is the thing about real estate, it’s a long game.

Rail: Indeed.

Hopkins: And while it took ten years for this building to get built, BAM has always been a long game. The first BAM was built in Brooklyn Heights in 1861. It burned to the ground in 1903 and then was rebuilt by a committee of a hundred citizens from Brooklyn who put up the money and built the Peter J. Sharp Building at 30 Lafayette Avenue, which opened in 1908. That building almost faced the wrecking ball in the 1960s, when Harvey Lichtenstein came. Harvey arrived at BAM in 1967 and rebuilt the place, but before that, it sat empty. It was the home of cooking classes. There were karate classes, there were travel log presentations. It was not being used for the purpose for which it was built.

Rail: The long game.

Hopkins: These things have ups and downs, and that is why when you look at great cultural buildings, they defy political administrations, and hopefully, they last. That’s the great thing about art, as I said before, it endures. It lasts.

Rail: I appreciate you bringing us back to this earlier phase of BAM’s existence, in the sixties, when Harvey found his way back to BAM, after having been a student at Brooklyn Tech in the forties, and attending an event there. That time in the sixties and seventies was one of immense scarcity, a time of very little funding for the arts, and Harvey, out of the shell and remains of this place that had karate and cooking classes, created a global epicenter for experimental and avant-garde theater, music, dance, and opera. In doing so, he changed the course of Brooklyn’s trajectory. We don’t know what’s going to come next. Obviously, this interview is taking place in December of 2024. By the time it hits the stands, things may have changed drastically. But this charge to play the “long game,” to keep our eyes on the larger prize, to see the possibility in adversity, to create during difficult times and under conservative administrations, seems vitally important now. It’s built into the story of BAM. It’s also at the center of your book, which is—among other things—a manifesto about cultural districts and about the possibility of radical transformation that culture and the arts can provide neighborhoods and communities. And there is no more fitting capstone, it would seem, to the writing of the book and to your global tour, than for the BAM KBH to be launching in early January. It’s a moment of great optimism, and a reminder of the long game, in the face of great uncertainty.

Hopkins: And as I worked as the president of BAM and as its chief development officer for so many years, I would be remiss not to close this discussion with gratitude—gratitude for my chairman, Alan Fishman, and the chairman before him, Bruce Ratner, who had a vision for Brooklyn and believed in it. I also am grateful to Joe Melillo, my artistic partner for so long, and Harvey Lichtenstein, who was our mentor and our boss. I appreciate our audience, the staff, the rest of the board, all of our supporters, elected officials and community leaders and everyone who fought for Brooklyn as a place where their dreams could be realized, and as a place that reflected New York’s future. In a way, Brooklyn was reborn as a cultural mecca during our time. It’s a great story.

Rail: It’s a terrific story. And I encourage everyone reading this interview to go get Karen’s book, BAM... and Then It Hit Me, and to dive deeper into her story, and the story of the institution she served for so many years, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which seems like a fitting place to close our discussion: a place of optimism, but also realism. If there was one lesson to be gleaned from your book about the emergence of BAM as a cultural force, it’s that every moment of adversity also comes with a potential opportunity for growth and innovation, especially when you’re being forced by circumstances to think outside the box, and the stakes are as high as they were in your early days of BAM. I think that’s what people are seeking right now—a story that reinforces that possibility and girds us for what may be just around the corner.

Hopkins: I always like to say, delayed gratification is the fundraiser’s creed, and I think that is really what’s in play here once again!

Rail: Let’s get used to delayed gratification while also keeping our eyes on the future. Thank you so much, Karen Brooks Hopkins, for sitting down for this second interview.