Happy Birthday to New York’s PAC / by David Hwang

Luminaries gathered to kick off the Perelman Performing Arts Center’s inaugural Icons of Culture Festival, beginning with an award bestowed to MTV pioneer Tom Freston.

Tuesday night, PAC NYC—which is chaired by Bloomberg, and whose name derives from patron Ronald Perelman—took a well-deserved victory lap for a debut year done right as it kicked off its first Icons of Culture Festival, a five-day celebration featuring talent like opera diva Renée Fleming, Questlove, Kathleen Turner, Instagram’s The Dogist, Alanis Morissette, tightrope walker Philippe Petit, Michael Imperioli, and others, including (what’s this?!) VF’s own Little Gold Men podcast, recording a live chat with John David “The Protagonist” Washington on Friday.

During an election cycle, the acronym PAC can have heavy implications. But for theater lovers and concertgoers in New York City, PAC NYC now means the Perelman Performing Arts Center. Featuring three expandable and contractible theaters, a restaurant, a terrace, toilet stalls with green and red lights so you never have to touch the handle to discover a locked door, and a slick-looking lobby with regular free events, its first year boasted talks led by David Letterman, a new opera from Huang Ro and David Henry Hwang, and a one-man show from Laurence Fishburne as well as The Jellicle Ball.

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