A Free Soundwalk For Coney Island Avenue Announced In Brooklyn

At just over 5 miles long, Coney Island Avenue runs through the heart of New York City's most populous borough, connecting Park Circle at Prospect Park to the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. The roadway between these points is home to a rich multitude of cultures and communities: halal eateries in Little Pakistan, yeshivas in Midwood, repair shops in Sheepshead Bay, and plenty of bodegas along the way. But that's just scratching the surface.

Coney Island Avenue - the soundwalk - is a new (and completely free) experiential audio theatre project from Brooklyn-based director Brad Ogden, and it is designed to accompany an individual listener's self-guided walk down that 5-mile avenue. Ogden adapted the piece from a story by award-winning writer Roohi Choudhry, another Brooklynite, and drew inspiration from the ways her piece so powerfully captured the spirit of the street for which it is named and the city in which it is set.

With sound and song, Coney Island Avenue introduces listeners to a host of voices, the most prominent of which belongs to Ayesha. Ayesha comes to Brooklyn from Karachi. Everything is new, like her marriage to Ahmad. Then the towers come down. Men start vanishing from the neighborhood. And Ayesha is about to get caught in the storm.

"In some ways, this post-Trump pandemic era feels about as dark as the time when the story is set," reflects Choudhry about her fictional piece that inspired the soundwalk. "I find that dispiriting, considering that twenty years have passed since [9/11]. But I also think: this is a story about a young woman alone fighting to make a life for herself somehow in the midst of tumult. And we're still finding that resilience, here in Brooklyn, here in this pandemic, over and over again. That's sad and hopeful at the same time."

Coney Island Avenue features original music by Sona Koloyan and performances by Peregrine Teng Heard, John Maddaloni, Maryam Mustafa, Page Ridgeway, and Sabina Sethi Unni. It was directed and produced by Brad Ogden, adapted from the short story The End of Coney Island Avenue by Roohi Choudhry, and inspired by the play Coney Island Avenue by Charles Mee.

"I was trying in this story to figure out how I write about the big systemic forces that shape all our lives," says Choudhry, "as well as the ordinary joys and indignities for characters that I really care about. It's always felt false to me to speak about either one without the other."

Experience Coney Island Avenue wherever you are. For instructions on how to download or stream all six audio tracks, visit coneyislandavenue.com. If you're in New York, consider taking the soundwalk; the duration of the walk varies for each individual but averages just under two hours, and headphones are recommended.