Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge

10/15/2026

TONIGHT!!!

10/15/2026

🦇 ONE WEEK UNTIL OPENING NIGHT! 🦇

The castle doors are opening soon, and Dracula is waiting.

Join us for Dracula: The Musical, beginning October 21. Tickets are still available at [insert ticket link].

Don’t miss your chance to enter the darkness.

https://cur8.com/14395/project/142009

10/14/2026

An Alex Gibney documentary without 4 hours of Elan Musk…instead one of the bravest, greatest writers and thinkers of the generation, SALMON RUSHDIE….

7:00 pm nightly @ 7:00 pm (except Sundays @ 5:00 pm)
KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMON RUSHDIE by Alex Gibney.
More than 30 years after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie over the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. The event marked the 20th anniversary of a writer-refuge program - a setting meant to celebrate safety and creative freedom. It was there that a young man rushed the stage, intent on killing him with a knife. Using excerpts from Rushdie’s works, including his powerful memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Alex Gibney’s documentary is both a striking testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attempt on Rushdie’s life.
The film incorporates never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in the days and weeks following the attack. This material offers a graphic, unflinching, and deeply intimate account of what happened, including archival footage of Rushdie’s early career and rise to literary fame, the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, and events leading up to the attempted murder. It also traces Rushdie’s physical and spiritual recovery, including the challenges he continues to face, from losing an eye to the reduced use of one hand.
​
Knife blends reportage with fictionalized dialogues to explore the mindset of the attacker, probing the “why” behind the violence. At its core, the film is a portrait of resilience - of Rushdie’s own extraordinary strength and the love that carried him through this ordeal - and a call to action against censorship and hatred. It argues that art itself can be a form of resistance.
In Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, Gibney, working with longtime collaborators Andy Grieve (editor) and Will Bates (composer), crafts a poetic dreamscape that reflects how Rushdie views his writing as his own “knife,” a tool to fight back, reclaim his story, and respond to violence with imagination and art.

10/12/2026

Now Playing: 7:00 pm nightly
KNIFE: The Attempted Murder Of Salmon Rushdie

By Alex Gibney

KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMAN RUSHDIE.Special Preview with...

10/11/2026

TOMORROW NIGHT!!!
SUNDAY @ 7pm - THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE.
With live piano accompaniment by David Bradley & His Piano

10/11/2026

10/10/2026

OPENING TONIGHT!!!

10/10/2026

OPENING RECEPTION OCTOBER 10,
6-9pm

DIVINE DECAY:
NEW WORKS BY RACHELLE O'BRIEN AND RORY O'NEILL SCHMITT. Music by RED LAWS

10/10/2026

7:00 pm nightly @ 7:00 pm (except Sundays @ 5:00 pm)
KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMON RUSHDIE by Alex Gibney.
More than 30 years after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie over the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. The event marked the 20th anniversary of a writer-refuge program - a setting meant to celebrate safety and creative freedom. It was there that a young man rushed the stage, intent on killing him with a knife. Using excerpts from Rushdie’s works, including his powerful memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Alex Gibney’s documentary is both a striking testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attempt on Rushdie’s life.
The film incorporates never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in the days and weeks following the attack. This material offers a graphic, unflinching, and deeply intimate account of what happened, including archival footage of Rushdie’s early career and rise to literary fame, the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, and events leading up to the attempted murder. It also traces Rushdie’s physical and spiritual recovery, including the challenges he continues to face, from losing an eye to the reduced use of one hand.
​
Knife blends reportage with fictionalized dialogues to explore the mindset of the attacker, probing the “why” behind the violence. At its core, the film is a portrait of resilience - of Rushdie’s own extraordinary strength and the love that carried him through this ordeal - and a call to action against censorship and hatred. It argues that art itself can be a form of resistance.
In Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, Gibney, working with longtime collaborators Andy Grieve (editor) and Will Bates (composer), crafts a poetic dreamscape that reflects how Rushdie views his writing as his own “knife,” a tool to fight back, reclaim his story, and respond to violence with imagination and art.

10/09/2026

Opening October 9:

7:00 pm nightly @ 7:00 pm
(except Sundays @ 5:00 pm)
KNIFE: THE ATTEMPTED MURDER OF SALMON RUSHDIE by Alex Gibney.
More than 30 years after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie over the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. The event marked the 20th anniversary of a writer-refuge program - a setting meant to celebrate safety and creative freedom. It was there that a young man rushed the stage, intent on killing him with a knife. Using excerpts from Rushdie’s works, including his powerful memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Alex Gibney’s documentary is both a striking testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attempt on Rushdie’s life.
The film incorporates never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in the days and weeks following the attack. This material offers a graphic, unflinching, and deeply intimate account of what happened, including archival footage of Rushdie’s early career and rise to literary fame, the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, and events leading up to the attempted murder. It also traces Rushdie’s physical and spiritual recovery, including the challenges he continues to face, from losing an eye to the reduced use of one hand.
​
Knife blends reportage with fictionalized dialogues to explore the mindset of the attacker, probing the “why” behind the violence. At its core, the film is a portrait of resilience - of Rushdie’s own extraordinary strength and the love that carried him through this ordeal - and a call to action against censorship and hatred. It argues that art itself can be a form of resistance.
In Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, Gibney, working with longtime collaborators Andy Grieve (editor) and Will Bates (composer), crafts a poetic dreamscape that reflects how Rushdie views his writing as his own “knife,” a tool to fight back, reclaim his story, and respond to violence with imagination and art.