If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m a sucker for nostalgia -- however grim. That’s probably why Fight Back, David Wise’s immersive ACT UP meeting, stayed with me long after I walked back out onto West 13th Street.
In August,
I wrote about being there and what it felt like to be dropped into an ACT UP New York meeting on March 13, 1989. There are no actors, no script and no audience -- just a room full of people asked to live, breathe and organize as if lives quite literally depended on it. Because at the time they did. From the moment you arrive at the New York LGBT Community Center, the clock rewinds, and suddenly you’re talking about Robert Mapplethorpe, Madonna, Jerome Robbins and Ed Koch’s deadly inaction as if it’s all unfolding right now. It’s unsettling, moving, occasionally frustrating and, at least for me, affecting.
So here’s the update: Fight Back is happening again, with the first 2026 event taking place Thursday, March 19, at 7 p.m. -- and you’re invited.
Remember: This is not theater in the traditional sense. It’s a carefully constructed experiment in empathy and collective memory. Every participant is assigned a real person who actually was -- or plausibly could have been -- at that 1989 ACT UP meeting. You decide, with guidance beforehand, how actively you want to participate. You don’t need to be an actor. You don’t need to speak at all. You just need to show up willing to step into the room and sit with the weight of that moment in history.
The meeting lasts about 2–3 hours and takes place at the Center, 208 W. 13th St., Manhattan. There’s a $19.89 required donation -- a thoughtful nod to the year at the heart of the experience -- with cost alternatives available when you sign up.
If you’re wondering whether it’s worth your time, I found it an effective way to put today’s reality into perspective and to remember how much of it was fought for.
If you’ve already done Fight Back, consider coming again. If you haven’t, this is the moment. And if you know someone who should experience it, spread the word.
THURSDAY, MARCH 19 @ 7pm
at the Center (208 West 13th Street, Manhattan)
Read more and sign up
HERE.
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