Prelude Festival
Now in its 23rd year, the PRELUDE Festival returns with a new lineup of works-in-progress and critical conversations, organized by the artistic team: Alessandra Gómez-Misserian, Olivia Mermagen, and Dylan Sherman. This year's edition marks an exciting expansion for the festival, welcoming two new partners in Brooklyn: Coffey Street Studio in Red Hook and the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, both of which have a longstanding history of supporting artists through their programming.
This expansion reflects a broader focus on celebrating the work happening across the borough—this year, PRELUDE moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn. It steps outside the theaters in midtown and into a hotel loft inside a former barrel factory, a converted 19th-century warehouse, and private apartments. This year's artistic cohort spans solo performance, ensemble work, contemporary dance, clown, theater, performance art, and music, and multidisciplinary work. Artists were invited to present whatever best serves their practice and the work at this particular moment. For some, that meant playing with the strangeness of these alternative spaces and making something new in response; for others, it meant presenting a full piece or sharing an excerpt of work still to come. The year’s festival in service of what each artist’s work needs at this moment.
As a featured program of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, PRELUDE presents a unique snapshot of the contemporary New York experimental theater. By merging the critical with the creative ,PRELUDE provides a space for artists to share and discover emerging practices in form, craft, and technology. Since 2003, The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has presented the PRELUDE Festival at GC CUNY.
Wednesday October 7th
at Wythe Hotel and Private Home
(free and open to all, first-come first-served)
Thursday October 8th
at CUNY and Private Home
(free and open to all, first-come first-served)
Friday October 9th
at CUNY
(free and open to all, first-come first-served)
About The Festival
The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) is an annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance. The 2026 festival is co-curated by Frank Hentschker and Tomek Smolarski.
The festival presents experimental, emerging, and established theatre artists and filmmakers from around the world to audiences and industry professionals. From its inaugural edition in 2015 to its present-day hybrid avatar, The Segal Film Festival for Theatre and Performance (FTP) has served as a platform for recorded works that span the length and breadth of the performing arts.
Festival Founder and Executive Director of the Martin E. Segal Theater Center, Frank Hentschker shares his inspiration for creating the festival: “Film and digital media are an integral part of theatre and performance. I am surprised that there is not a film festival out there right now focusing on theatre and performance. I thought ‘why not create one’?”
In the time before Corona, the Segal Film Festival had evolved into the premier US event for new film and video work focusing on theatre and performance. Its mission was to invite experimental and established theatre makers to present work created for the screen – not filmed archival recordings – to audiences and industry professionals from around the world. Now, after a year and a half of digital and hybrid theatre offerings, the festival must take on a new meaning. The festival has held on to its mission of being a free and open-to-all event accessible to everyone. The 7th edition of the festival was held digitally in March 2022, and featured 80 films from 30 countries.
For queries, feedback and any more information get in touch with us at segalfilmfestival@gmail.com
Meet The Team
Alessandra Gómez-Misserian
Curatorial Director
Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others.
Dylan Sherman
Assistant Curator
Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others.
Johnny Gasper
Technical Director
Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others.
Frank Hentschker
Co-Curator
Frank Hentschker, who holds a Ph.D. in theatre from the now legendary Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany, came to the Graduate Center in 2001 as program director for the Graduate Center’s Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and was appointed to the central doctoral faculty in theatre in 2009. Currently executive director and director of programs at the Segal Center, Hentschker has transformed the center into the nation’s leading forum for public programming in international and U.S. theatre and theatre studies; each year, he curates and produces more than forty events—staged readings, lecture-demonstrations, symposia, works-in-progress, and conversations with theatre scholars, theatrical luminaries, and emerging voices in the international, American, and New York theatre scenes. Among the vital events and series he founded at the Segal Center are the World Theatre Performance series; the annual fall PRELUDE festival, which features more than twenty New York–based theatre companies and playwrights; and the PEN World Voices Playwrights Series. Hentschker also led CUNY’s nineteen performing arts centers in founding the CUNY–Performing Arts Consortium (C–PAC), producing the consortium’s first joint festival in 2009. Hentschker edited the MESTC publications Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake, Seven Works for the Theatre (2009) and New Plays from Spain (2013), and he served as president of the board of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art from 2005 to 2009. Before coming to the Graduate Center, Hentschker founded and directed DISCURS, the largest European student theatre festival existing today; he acted as Hamlet in Heiner Müller’s Hamletmaschine, directed by the playwright; performed in the Robert Wilson play The Forest (music by David Byrne); and worked as an assistant for Robert Wilson for many years.
Olivia Mermagen
Artistic Producing Director
Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others.
Charlie Sas
Prelude Coordinator
Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others.
Henry Alper
Front Of House
Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer, and curator with over 20 years of experience producing international cultural events and building bridges across disciplines through cultural diplomacy. His work spans theater, film, and performance, and he has collaborated with leading U.S. institutions including BAM, MoMA, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archive, and La MaMa Theatre, among many others.
with special thanks to
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