No Book Bans

Broadway (and Off-Broadway) Banned Books Week

No Book Bans is proud to celebrate the second annual Broadway (and Off-Broadway) Banned Books Week, a new annual tradition celebrating the freedom to read during National Banned Books Week.

Book bans aren't just about the books—they target entire communities by trying to erase their stories from public life. Broadway Banned Books Week fights back by protecting our stories and our libraries the Broadway way: by championing inclusivity, community, and celebrating the very stories that connect us all.

Building on the success of our inaugural effort, No Book Bans is proud to return this year. Keep an eye out for ticket giveaways, merchandise giveaways, and, in partnership with The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, a guide to some banned and challenged plays you can check out and read yourself.

Broadway (and Off Broadway) Banned Books Week

Stay tuned for more details!

No Book Bans and the Broadway community are launching Broadway (and Off Broadway) Banned Books Week, a new annual tradition celebrating the freedom to read during National Banned Books Week.

Book bans aren't just about the books—they target entire communities by trying to erase their stories from public life. Broadway Banned Books Week fights back by protecting our stories and our libraries the Broadway way: by championing inclusivity, community, and celebrating the very stories that connect us all.

The week kicks off on Monday, October 6th with the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) & Broadway Read Out Against Book Bans at the BPL's Central Branch, featuring:

• George Takei, honorary chair of National Banned Books Week (Broadway's Allegiance) in conversation with a BPL librarian
• Members of the Broadway community reading from banned books
• Free banned-book and swag giveaways from Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster
• Voter registration and arts activities for the public

Broadway Banned Books Week continues with ticket and merchandise giveaways and engagement from participating shows: BEETLEJUICE, MEXODUS, MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, THE OUTSIDERS and the New Victory Theater. No Book Bans will host a post-show talkback with the cast of MEXODUS on Thursday, October 9th.

No Book Bans was founded in 2022 to support children’s access to work that rejoices at the exploration and understanding of one’s unique identity. We believe the banning of books and plays erases people's identities from our culture, and we value the library and the theatre as a repository of those stories and identities. These include all stories – that opens readers’ eyes to a place in a bigger world – that celebrates the joy of all people by including Black joy, the joy of Indigenous people and people of color, the joy of LGBTQIA+ people, Latine joy and Asian joy, Muslim joy and Jewish joy, disabled joy, and immigrant joy. We support everyone’s access to art that reminds them of their own power.

Take action with us

• Sign our statement below to add your voice and keep updated!
• Apply for a Digital Public Library card from Brooklyn Public Library Card. Anyone ages 13-21 can sign up and have access to BPL's collection. Sign up or help someone else to do so here
• Help protect everyone's Freedom to Read by donating to Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned fund

CALL ME IZZY Talkbacks

This summer No Book Bans hosted two talkbacks after CALL ME IZZY, the one-woman Broadway show starring the incomparable Jean Smart.

As part of CALL ME IZZY'S initiative Izzy's Project, No Book Bans was first able to host a talkback featuring the superhero of fighting book bans, Judy Blume, alongside playwright Jamie Wax, director Sarna Lapine, Gabriella Steinberg, Theatre Circulating Librarian at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and youth advocate for libraries Asa Kurtz.

No Book Bans was thrilled to return to host another talkback with the wonderful Jamie Wax and Sarna Lapine. We were also excited to welcome Margaret Hall of the Autistic Theatremakers Alliance and to be joined by Jean Smart herself!

Thank you to all our talkback participants for reminding us all how essential storytelling and access to those stories are and for inspiring us to continue doing the work.

No Book Bans was proud to partner with JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN for their Spirit Week and their Spirit Week 2.0! In collaboration with our amazing publishing partners: Dramatists Play Service, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, and Flamingo Rampant, No Book Bans giveaway banned plays and books to multiple audiences. Audience members went wild for the giveaway and have already asked for another one.

In addition, each audience member received information about why banning books is bad and dangerous but happening all over the country and an opportunity to donate to Brooklyn Public Library Books Unbanned Initiative to protect libraries and everyone’s freedom to read, as well as a chance to sign up for their Digital Library Card, available to anyone across the country age 13-21 and providing access to BPL’s entire catalog.

No Book Bans was proud to once again sponsor the TYA/USA National Festival and Conference which took place this year in Bethesda Maryland. Coalition members connected with atendees regarding the current attacks on arts organizations and their funding, and encouraged them to take action.

Left to right: Danya Taymor, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Nick Higgins. Photo Credit: Rebecca J Michelson

During the week, The Outsiders sponsored a book drive and encouraged audience members to contact their Congressional representatives regarding the Books Save Lives Act, unveiled by Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley in 2023. The week culminated in a post-performance talk back following the evening performance on Saturday, September 28, moderated by the show's Tony Award-winning director Danya Taymor, featuring Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Nick Higgins (Chief Librarian at Brooklyn Public Library), Dan Novack (Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Penguin Random House) and Youth Advisory Council members.

Photo Credit: Rebecca J Michelson

Support the Book Save Lives Act

Broadway Licensing Global is the first theatrical publisher to join No Book Bans with a strong statement against book and play bans, as well as offering resources to their artists and those who license their work.

No Book Bans is proud to endorse Representative Ayanna Pressley’s Books Save Lives Act. Want your theatre or organization to join us in supporting this important legislation? Reach out so we can support you!

Join us and sign our statement:

As members of the Theatre for Young Audiences community, we make works about, with, and for young people – and we must actively oppose any effort to ban that art from young people.

We hold a unique responsibility to our audience members and young artists because we are often their first exposure to live theatre. We know from experience the sparks of joy, creativity, and empowerment that are kindled when we see ourselves authentically reflected on stage.

To pass that power and joy on to the next generation, we make art that both reflects children’s own experiences and art that engages them with experiences they hadn’t previously considered. And sometimes, we make art that helps children imagine paths and worlds they never have before, art that inspires them to take charge of the creation of such new possibilities.

For the sake of young people and the new possibilities they create for our future, we cannot stand by as bans on books spread across the country. Frequently, the books being targeted were created by historically marginalized and oppressed people – sending a message that these stories are unworthy of being included in art AND that their very existence, and thus the existence of the people who tell them, is wrong. Erasing historically marginalized and oppressed people from being seen is an act of violence.

We believe that making space for authentic, diverse stories sends a message of love, whether on the stage or the bookshelf.

We support children’s access to work that rejoices at the exploration and understanding of one’s unique identity – that opens readers’ eyes to a place in a bigger world – that celebrates the joy of all people by including Black joy, the joy of Indigenous people and people of color, the joy of LGBTQIA+ people, Latine joy and Asian joy, Muslim joy and Jewish joy, disabled joy, and immigrant joy. We support children’s access to art that reminds them of their own power.

Some of these stories deal with discrimination and racism – and that may make audience members feel discomfort at the actions of others, their own actions, or the state of the world. However, the acts of creating and experiencing art – as a writer, artist, reader, or audience member – provide a framework for bravely exploring new ideas and processing the discomfort inherent in challenge and growth.

It is in this way that art serves its most noble function: to open our eyes and hearts to other people, other cultures, other perspectives, and to our own identities - and in doing so, lessen the distance between human beings. Inclusive art invites us to be better at caring for each other.

We stand against the banning of art and invite you to join us in opposing these bans. We offer some ideas for how you can do so:

• Sign on to this statement, share it with your networks, or create and share your own version
• Consider your season selection; are members of all of your communities represented in your season? Do the people and stories targeted by book bans have places in your season? Bans target people and their stories; you don’t have to adapt a book that has been targeted by a ban to tell a story by and about people who are being targeted by those bans.
• Consider representation in traditional stories. Can you keep stories from the canon and update them in partnership with the communities you serve, so that everyone is reflected?
• Consider your community; are people from historically marginalized communities welcomed and celebrated in your spaces as leaders, artists, staff, audience members and students?
• Does your community have the tools they need to advocate to their elected officials? Can you support their advocacy with templates, contact information, voting rights information, and information about legislation being drafted and voted on that impacts your community?
• Connect your community with the local non-profits and mutual aid groups that are directly providing aid for people from marginalized backgrounds to care for their physical and mental health, safety, comfort, access to human rights, and advocacy needs.