PETA at the ballet
Friday, December 11th, 2009
By: Tom MacDonald
tmacdonald@whyy.org
Children and their families heading to this Saturday's matinee performance of The Nutcracker Ballet could be confronted by animal rights activists.
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Members of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, will be outside the Performance of the Nutcracker at the Academy of Music on Saturday, handing out anti-fur stickers to children and leaflets to their parents. Kate Brindle is a spokesperson for PETA. She says they want to talk about the presents people are buying for the holidays.
Brindle: Every year millions of animals are drowned they are beaten to death or strangled or electrocuted and some of them are skinned alive in order to make purses or fur coats or other trinkets that nobody needs. We are asking kids and parents to stick up for animals by boycotting fur and leather and other cruelly derived products.
The group it isn't protesting the ballet, just targeting a big crowd at a central location. Ballet officials refused to comment about the protest.