{"id":400188,"date":"2025-11-24T00:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T00:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/400188\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T00:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T00:21:13","slug":"trio-disrupts-nycs-met-opera-in-wild-anti-fascism-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/400188\/","title":{"rendered":"Trio disrupts NYC’s Met Opera in wild anti-fascism protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

A self-described comedian-activist was one of three protesters whose demonstration against \u201cfascism\u201d<\/a> in the \u201cart world\u201d interrupted the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan last week, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

Davidson Boswell, 34, of Harlem was charged with criminal trespassing after he decried late billionaire mega-city-arts benefactor David H. Koch from his seat while two activist buddies stormed the opera house\u2019s storied stage in Lincoln Center and waved banners about 9 p.m. Friday, police said.<\/p>\n

A performance at the storied Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan was disrupted by protesters last week. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

Security guards ended up hauling the protesters off the stage as the curtain dropped, according to videos posted to social media.<\/p>\n

The brouhaha paused the show for roughly 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

Koch, who died in 2019, is the namesake of the famed complex\u2019s theater<\/a> that houses the New York City Ballet and whose conservative donor network has been linked to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, according to NBC News.<\/p>\n

Comedian activist Davidson Boswell screams from his seat at the Met during the demonstration. X@SeanJoseph1978<\/p>\n

Project 25 is a far-right so-called blueprint for the future that aims to restore \u201cthe family as the centerpiece of American life\u2019\u2019 while taking other measures from outlawing pornography to closing the border.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe David Koch Theater, it\u2019s across the street?\u201d Boswell screamed to the crowd Friday. \u201cIt\u2019s the same people, they fund it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

A video titled \u201cspending the night in jail and fascism normalized in the art world\u201d was posted by Boswell to his Patreon page on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The chaotic protest was executed by the newly formed \u201ccomedic interventionists\u201d group \u2014 dubbed Goofballs \u2014 and activists with the environmental advocacy group Climate Defiance, according to sources familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

Boswell says Lincoln Center \u201cis in no position to criticize ICE or fascism because they are helping to normalize it.\u201d Patreon\/Davidson Boswell Show<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s protest halted a performance of a revitalized production of \u201cCarmen\u201d set on the US-Mexican border.<\/p>\n

One of the activists on stage was clad in military fatigues while the other was dressed as a stage hand.<\/p>\n

Both held up signs reading, \u201cWe love Lincoln Center, but they\u2019re in bed with fascists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kochs are murderous ballsacks,\u201d the signs continued. \u201cKoch funds Project 2025, and the horrors depicted on this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nate Smith, 37, and Aaron Toplin, 31, were arrested along with Boswell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis production of \u2018Carmen,\u2019 in which the opera singers are depicted as ICE agents ripping families apart is clearly meant to criticize ICE,\u201d Boswell told The Post in a statement.<\/p>\n

But he said the show is \u201cdeeply disingenuous and hypocritical\u201d because New York\u2019s arts scene has accepted tremendous donations from Koch.<\/p>\n

A request for comment from the Metropolitan Opera was not returned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A self-described comedian-activist was one of three protesters whose demonstration against \u201cfascism\u201d in the \u201cart world\u201d interrupted the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":400189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[9600,5229,95178,189596,5248,50558,405,403,7619,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-400188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-activism","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-david-koch","11":"tag-koch-brothers","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-metropolitan-museum-of-art","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-city-life","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115601820202216196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}