Concludes With A Conversation with Grammy Award-Winning Artist & Producer Alicia Keys
Presented In Partnership with Netflix and Freedom Together Foundation
New York, N.Y. (November 6, 2026) – The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) and Public Forum series curators Alexa Smith and Jeremy McCarter proudly announce PUBLIC FORUM: 14th with Ava DuVernay on Tuesday, December 1 at 7:00 p.m. at The Town Hall.
Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed new film 14th explores the birth, legacy, and monumental importance of the 14th Amendment—the way that its guarantees of citizenship rights and due process have helped America to take enormous strides in the direction of its founding ideals. Inspired by DuVernay’s film, and in collaboration with DuVernay herself, Public Forum will present a special one-night event bringing the world of the 14th Amendment to life. Featuring historical texts and songs, clips from the film, and a conversation with DuVernay, the evening will connect the fraught days of Reconstruction to the challenges of our own time. The extraordinary lineup of the event concludes with a special conversation with 17-time Grammy Award-winning artist, songwriter, producer, and advocate of the People’s Bill of Rights 250, Alicia Keys.
14th director Ava DuVernay said, “My thanks to Alexa Smith, Jeremy McCarter, and the brilliant team at Public Forum for centering 14th in a celebration and interrogation of our democratic ideals. I never imagined expanding on the histories and theories presented in the film through the art forms of song, dance, and oration. This will be a truly one-of-a-kind experience. I hope it reminds us that history isn’t only something we study. It’s something we make. And the next chapter is ours.”
Without the protections of the 14th Amendment, American democracy as we know it could be forever changed. The story of the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't loom large in the popular American imagination. But despite more than a century of attacks on its central promises, it remains the foundation of our nation's ideals. 14th lifts this amendment out of the staid realm of history books and places it firmly within the evolving political chaos of today, illuminating the unfortunate truth that weakening the concept of equality for all could create a threat from which none of us would be able to escape. The documentary will premiere globally on Netflix on Friday, December 4, following a theatrical release in select U.S. and U.K. theaters beginning Friday, November 27.
“14th explains how today’s struggles about the future of multi-racial democracy have deep roots in our history,” said Freedom Together Foundation President Deepak Bhargava. “Ava DuVernay shows that the ideal of equality under the law has long been bitterly contested, and chronicles how authoritarians are systematically chipping away at our hard-fought rights. I hope you’ll be able to join us for an inspiring event, in celebration and remembrance of the movement leaders who led this charge for freedom and of the leaders who are now carrying their legacy forward.”
PUBLIC FORUM presents the theater of ideas. Founded in 2010, this series of high-profile performances and conversations brings together the most acclaimed and fascinating voices in American culture and politics. Participants in its readings, concerts, and discussions have included actors James Earl Jones, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Cynthia Nixon, and Jessica Chastain; authors Salman Rushdie, Alison Bechdel, N.K. Jemisin, and Andrew Solomon; musicians Wynton Marsalis, Questlove, David Byrne, and Gustavo Dudamel; visual artist Carrie Mae Weems; civil rights champion Bryan Stevenson; theater giants Suzan-Lori Parks, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tony Kushner, Anna Deavere Smith, and Stephen Sondheim; journalists Chris Hayes, Carl Bernstein, and David Remnick; and at least one winner of the Nobel Prize.
Tickets are now onsale starting at $54. Public Supporter and Partner tickets are also available. Visit publictheater.org for more details.
BIOS
AVA DUVERNAY is an Academy Award nominee and winner of Emmy, BAFTA, Sundance, Image and Peabody Awards. Her films include Selma, 13th, Middle of Nowhere, A Wrinkle in Time and Origin. She has created seven television series, including the acclaimed When They See Us and history-making Queen Sugar. DuVernay founded ARRAY in 2011, a multi-platform arts and social impact collective dedicated to narrative change. She holds honorary doctorates from Yale University and Morehouse College and received the Smithsonian’s Great Americans Medal in 2025. That same year, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and holds advisory roles with the Directors Guild of America and American Film Institute. Her latest documentary, 14th, premieres on Netflix on December 4, following a limited theatrical release on November 27.
ALICIA KEYS is a 17-time GRAMMY® Award-winning singer, songwriter, musician, producer, founder of Keys Soulcare, New York Times best-selling author, film/television and Broadway producer, accomplished actress, entrepreneur, and a powerful force in the world of activism. Since the release of her monumental 2001 debut album, SONGS IN A MINOR, Alicia has sold over 65 million records, over 5 billion streams and built an unparalleled repertoire of hits and accomplishments. Alicia has become the #1 RIAA certified Female R&B artist of the millennium with over 37 Million certified track sales (US) and 20 Million Album Sales (US). Hit songs “Empire State of Mind” and “No One” were both RIAA Diamond-certified in 2024, having sold over 10 million units each. She is also one of the original founders of She Is The Music, an initiative to create change for women and build an equal future for music. Keys spent 13 years creating the stage musical Hell’s Kitchen, which made its world premiere Off-Broadway at The Public Theater and then opened on Broadway in 2024. It earned 13 Tony nominations and two wins and won the 2025 GRAMMY® for Best Musical Theater Album. That same year, Keys received the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award at the 2025 GRAMMYS®. Keys continues to be deeply engaged in helping to create a better world and is excited about the People’s Bill of Rights 250, a nationwide digital initiative inviting Americans to help define the rights the Constitution should protect, handing the microphone back to the people and giving every voice a say in what comes next.
FREEDOM TOGETHER believes that protecting and expanding multiracial democracy is the defining challenge of our time. That is why Freedom Together is doubling down on our mission to support people who have been denied power to build it, so they can change unjust systems and create a more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable society. We focus on building a deeper and broader pro-democracy movement led by organizations that center working-class people from diverse backgrounds. This movement aims to challenge the structural flaws in our system and forge a truly representative democracy.
THE PUBLIC continues the work of its visionary founder Joe Papp as a civic institution engaging, both on-stage and off, with some of the most important ideas and social issues of today. Conceived over 60 years ago as one of the nation’s first nonprofit theaters, The Public has long operated on the principles that theater is an essential cultural force and that art and culture belong to everyone. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, The Public’s wide breadth of programming includes an annual season of new work at its landmark home at Astor Place, Free Shakespeare in the Park at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park, the Mobile Unit touring throughout New York City’s five boroughs, Public Works, and Joe’s Pub. Since premiering HAIR in 1967, The Public continues to create the canon of American Theater and is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Their programs and productions can also be seen regionally across the country and around the world. The Public has received 64 Tony Awards, 197 Obie Awards, 63 Drama Desk Awards, 66 Lortel Awards, 36 Outer Critic Circle Awards, 13 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, 72 AUDELCO Awards, 6 Antonyo Awards, and 6 Pulitzer Prizes. publictheater.org
The Public Theater stands in honor of the first inhabitants and our ancestors. We acknowledge the land on which The Public and its theaters stand—the original homeland of the Lenape people. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal from this territory. We honor the generations of stewards and we pay our respects to the many diverse indigenous peoples still connected to this land.
The Public also gives our respect to the people of Seneca Village, a community of Black property owners who were removed from their land and whose village was destroyed in the creation of Central Park. We recognize the sacrifice that these ancestors made and honor Seneca Village’s legacy.
CONNECT WITH US
Instagram | @PublicTheaterNY
Threads | @PublicTheaterNY
TikTok | @PublicTheaterNY
###
English (US) ·