Reboot Ideas Festival Programming and Experiences Revived Online
● NEW YORK, January 2021
Reboot has turned the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic into an opportunity to create new innovative conversations and experiences online to bring the Jewish community together.
With the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic continuing indefinitely, the national nonprofit Reboot canceled its inaugural Reboot Ideas Festival planned for March 2020 and launched Reboot Ideas to gather educators, listeners, thought-provokers, creators, and people of action for virtual programs with audacious inquiry and meaning.
During the quarantine, Reboot Studios, the incubator and project accelerator of Reboot has produced several new online gatherings and podcast and video series with unique takes on a life none of us could have imagined last year.
● Reboot Ideas: The world is an ever-complicated place and will be even more complicated in the coming years. For 20 years, Reboot has been gathering and catalyzing some of the best and brightest change-agents for off-the-record conversations about Jewish identity and meaning and has seen first-hand the power of imagination and uncensored dialogue to translate and transform the big issues of our time. As the stakes rise, we are amplifying these vital ideas and bringing in wider perspectives to identify and carve new pathways for wandering Jews and the world we live in. In response to COVID-19, we are creating a series of public digital programs to showcase and amplify these conversations and ideas. We plan to expand this to public gatherings when public health and safety allows. Watch our Reboot Ideas conversations here
● Dispatches from Quarantine: The new series is an irreverent and inspiring look into the lives of the older legends we love, capturing oral history from celebrities, including the final interview of Carl Reiner before his passing, and conversations with Larry King, Ellen Burstyn, Norman Lear and Tommy Chong.
● Joy of Quarantine: A new video series with comedian Jena Friedman offering a playful look inside the quarantine kitchen.
Reboot has turned the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic into an opportunity to create new innovative conversations and experiences online to bring the Jewish community together.
With the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic continuing indefinitely, the national nonprofit Reboot canceled its inaugural Reboot Ideas Festival planned for March 2020 and launched Reboot Ideas to gather educators, listeners, thought-provokers, creators, and people of action for virtual programs with audacious inquiry and meaning.
During the quarantine, Reboot Studios, the incubator and project accelerator of Reboot has produced several new online gatherings and podcast and video series with unique takes on a life none of us could have imagined last year.
● Reboot Ideas: The world is an ever-complicated place and will be even more complicated in the coming years. For 20 years, Reboot has been gathering and catalyzing some of the best and brightest change-agents for off-the-record conversations about Jewish identity and meaning and has seen first-hand the power of imagination and uncensored dialogue to translate and transform the big issues of our time. As the stakes rise, we are amplifying these vital ideas and bringing in wider perspectives to identify and carve new pathways for wandering Jews and the world we live in. In response to COVID-19, we are creating a series of public digital programs to showcase and amplify these conversations and ideas. We plan to expand this to public gatherings when public health and safety allows. Watch our Reboot Ideas conversations here
● Dispatches from Quarantine: The new series is an irreverent and inspiring look into the lives of the older legends we love, capturing oral history from celebrities, including the final interview of Carl Reiner before his passing, and conversations with Larry King, Ellen Burstyn, Norman Lear and Tommy Chong.
● Joy of Quarantine: A new video series with comedian Jena Friedman offering a playful look inside the quarantine kitchen.
● Podcasts: In Quarantine with Steve Bodow, Closening with Jessie Kahnweiler and Kasher vs Kasher with Rabbi David Kasher and his brother, comedian Moshe Kasher.
● Saturday Night Seder: A streaming Passover seder, co-written and executive produced by Reboot Board Member Benj Pasek and hosted by Jason Alexander with an impressive list of celebrity guests from Idina Menzel, Cynthia Erivo, Bette Midler and Josh Groban to Mayim Bialik, Ben Platt, Dan Levy, Nick Kroll and more. The celebrity charity stream was seen by millions and has raised $3.5 million for the CDC Foundation.
● DAWN: An imaginative and experiential all-night celebration of Shavuot with more than 100 presenters on three concurrent streams that reached more than 30,000 viewers.
The Reboot Ideas Festival was to include more than 30 invigorating conversations on hot button issues like identity, antisemitism and Israel, plus age-old explorations of mortality and the mind, presented by leaders in entertainment, media, technology and social justice including Joey Soloway (creator of Transparent), Josh Radnor (star of How I Met Your Mother), Rabbi Sharon Brous (founding Rabbi of IKAR), Jonathan Ames(creator of Bored To Death), Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie(Founding Spiritual Leader of Lab/Shul), Manny Yekutiel (owner of Manny’s) and dozens more.
The planned program included after dinner delights with a live podcast by Ask Ronna with Ronna (& Bryan), stand-up comedy straight from the London Fringe Festival with Alex Edelman, a special preview of Transparent: The Musical by Faith Soloway and the West Coast premiere of a one-woman show, A Map of Myself: My Odyssey to America, by Sara Abou Rashed.
The festival participants were to gather to celebrate ancient Sabbath and Seder rituals supercharged with meaning and memories with music, poetry and kinetic conversations.
Much of the original programming is being reimagined online.
● Saturday Night Seder: A streaming Passover seder, co-written and executive produced by Reboot Board Member Benj Pasek and hosted by Jason Alexander with an impressive list of celebrity guests from Idina Menzel, Cynthia Erivo, Bette Midler and Josh Groban to Mayim Bialik, Ben Platt, Dan Levy, Nick Kroll and more. The celebrity charity stream was seen by millions and has raised $3.5 million for the CDC Foundation.
● DAWN: An imaginative and experiential all-night celebration of Shavuot with more than 100 presenters on three concurrent streams that reached more than 30,000 viewers.
The Reboot Ideas Festival was to include more than 30 invigorating conversations on hot button issues like identity, antisemitism and Israel, plus age-old explorations of mortality and the mind, presented by leaders in entertainment, media, technology and social justice including Joey Soloway (creator of Transparent), Josh Radnor (star of How I Met Your Mother), Rabbi Sharon Brous (founding Rabbi of IKAR), Jonathan Ames(creator of Bored To Death), Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie(Founding Spiritual Leader of Lab/Shul), Manny Yekutiel (owner of Manny’s) and dozens more.
The planned program included after dinner delights with a live podcast by Ask Ronna with Ronna (& Bryan), stand-up comedy straight from the London Fringe Festival with Alex Edelman, a special preview of Transparent: The Musical by Faith Soloway and the West Coast premiere of a one-woman show, A Map of Myself: My Odyssey to America, by Sara Abou Rashed.
The festival participants were to gather to celebrate ancient Sabbath and Seder rituals supercharged with meaning and memories with music, poetry and kinetic conversations.
Much of the original programming is being reimagined online.
Supporters
We are grateful to all of our generous supporters, in particular:
Rebecca & Nathan Milikowsky Family Foundation
Chris Larsen Fund
Laura Lauder
Suzanne Felson
