Thursday, October 1, 2026
Many village residents read the Herald for information on election campaigns, local festivals or the whereabouts of the mayor, but when Michael Halberstadt reads the paper, he sees an opportunity for humor and entertainment. Halberstadt, a Rockville Centre resident, began using editions of the Herald over the summer to create comedic Youtube videos, called “The Centre of the Universe.”
The videos combine stories, ads and pictures from the Herald into false story lines presented by Halberstadt, a 22-year-old graduate student in Boston University’s MFA playwriting program and, at times, his longtime friend Lauren Alexander.
The two first developed the idea while discussing politics over breakfasts. “After a while we began discussing local politics — namely, the mayoral election as covered by the Herald,” Halberstadt said. “We’ve always made each other laugh, but after a while our meetings began to feel like a morning talk show, and we pretended to be a “Regis and Kelly”-type program in the various diner booths, where we spoke in hushed whispers about the upcoming election and our endorsement of the RVC United party.”
From discussing Michael Leboff’s political motivations to a chance encounter with the village Cop of the Month, the two let their imaginations run wild, until Halberstadt was required to live at Adelphi University for a short time while working on a project there. While he was away, he decided to shoot the first Centre of the Universe video, based on the July 14-20 issue of the Herald.
“The video was meant mostly for [Lauren], but it spread to some of our friends, and they liked it enough that I felt compelled to make more,” Halberstadt said. “Once I was back from the program, Lauren and I began to talk critically about the videos: what worked, what didn’t work and what we wanted to try.”
One technique they experimented with was having Alexander as a co-anchor, testing the use of dialogue as opposed to monologue.
