All BPL Presents programs at the Dr. S. Stevan Dweck Cultural Center at Central Library are free of charge (unless otherwise noted) and reservations are required for most adult programs. Patrons with reservations will be seated on a first-come, first-served basis. Unclaimed reservations will be released fifteen minutes before the start of an event; we recommend arriving early. Patrons without reservations will be seated as capacity allows.
Reservations can be made 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week on our website by visiting the program’s calendar entry at bklynlibrary.org/bplpresents or by phone at 718.230.2200 (please see our phone reservation policy for hours and additional details). Reservations can be made up to approximately one hour before the scheduled program start time. The maximum number of seats that can be reserved per event is 3.
The Dweck Center is an accessible venue. To request additional information regarding accessibility or accommodations at the event, please contact BPLPresents@bklynlibrary.org.
Reservations for adult programs can be made with a BPL representative Monday-Friday from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm. For weekend events, reservations must be made by 4 pm on the Friday before the event takes place. Any reservations received after 4pm will not be processed. If leaving a message, please slowly and clearly state your first and last name, your phone number, the name and date of the program you would like to attend, and the number of seats you are requesting (maximum of 3).
Carnegie Hall Citywide: Invoke
Described as “...not anything but everything: Classical, Folk, Bluegrass, Americana and a sound yet to be termed seamlessly merged into a perfect one” (David Srebnik, SiriusXM Classical Producer), Invoke strives to successfully dodge even the most valiant attempts at genre classification. The…
James Baldwin Exhibition Opening & Panel Discussion
Join BPL Presents in celebrating the legacy of James Baldwin with a two-part evening.
First, we open the exhibitionTurkey Saved My Life: Baldwin in Istanbul,1961–1971—a sweeping showcase of photographs by Baldwin’s friend, photographer Sedat Pakay—with a live reading of…
CBH Talk | Zinga Fraser and Jeanne Theoharis Discuss “Shirley Chisholm: In Her Own Words”
Join us for a discussion with Dr. Zinga A. Fraser, whose new book Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words, offers a long-overdue opportunity to read the congresswoman’s powerful words for ourselves. Chisholm’s speeches and writings on education, racism, women's rights, civil rights, and…
Classical Interludes: Calidore Quartet
The Calidore String Quartet performs the thrilling last set of Beethoven’s earliest quartets. A wide-ranging emotional journey performed by one of today’s most exciting ensembles.
Quartet in A major for Strings,Op. 18, No. 5Quartet in C minor for Strings, Op. 18, No. 4 Quartet in B-flat…
CBH Talk | Glenn Adamson Discusses “A Century of Tomorrows: How Imagining the Future Shapes the Present”
What’s next? For millennia, predicting the future was the province of priests, prophets, astrologers, and seers. Then in the twentieth century futurologists emerged claiming that data and design could make planning a rational certainty. Cultural historian Glenn Adamson writes about…
CBH Talk | David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan Discuss “City Time: On Being Sentenced to Rikers Island”
David Campbell and Jarrod Shanahan both served sentences at Rikers. In their book City Time they offer an unvarnished account of the banality and brutality of incarceration at New York City’s notorious jail.
Campbell and Shanahan reconstruct the daily realities…
A Very Modern Classical Evening with Molière in the Park
Brooklyn's favorite free theater, Molière in the Park is back with a staged reading of Le'Asha Julius' new play The Regulars + Molière's The Ludicrous Ladies!
"Pairing The Regulars, a short tragedy in verse by rapper, actor, and playwright Le’Asha Julius with The Ludicrous Ladies, a one…
Edwidge Danticat Discusses We’re Alone
Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat’s childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We’re Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin…
Classical Interludes: Aizuri Quartet and Kinan Azmeh
Five Boroughs Music Festival presents Music and Migration, a collaborative program stemming from a deep friendship between the Aizuri Quartet and the Syrian-American clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh. All five of the artists have different personal relationships to and experiences of…
Amitava Kumar Discusses My Beloved Life with Katie Kitamura
An absorbing, exceptionally moving novel that traces the arc of a man’s life, an ordinary life made exceptional by the fact that he has loved and has been loved in turn.
Jadunath Kunwar’s beginnings are humble, even inauspicious. In 1935 in a village near George Orwell’s birthplace, Jadu’…
Jessica Valenti on Abortion
In a stirring and succinct examination of post-Roe America, “one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation” (Washington Post) takes on what’s become the country’s most resonant political issue.
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
In her most urgent book yet,…
Jamieson Webster Discusses On Breathing
Join BPL Presents and Jamieson Webster, who discusses On Breathing: Care in a Time of Catastrophe, a gorgeous, expansive piece of narrative non-fiction about care, dependence, and what it means to breathe in an age of environmental catastrophe.
A few moments after birth we begin to use our…
Ariel Dorfman Discusses Allegro
This thrilling historical mystery starring Mozart tells of friendship and betrayal, and how music allows us to defy death—from the acclaimed author of Death and the Maiden and The Suicide Museum.
In 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking…
Katie Kitamura Discusses Audition
Join BPL Presents as Katie Kitamura takes the Dweck stage to discuss Audition, an exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love.
Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals…
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