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European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 18, Fall, 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Report from London (December 2022) By Dan Venning Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF My last theatre-going trips to London were in 2018 and 2019, before the COVID pandemic swept across the globe, shuttered theatres, and transformed theatre-going after the world began to reopen. In the reports I wrote for European Stages after those trips, I identified several major trends that ran through many of the productions I saw. In 2018, numerous productions engaged, in one way or another, with the global #MeToo movement, acknowledging the assaults and microaggressions faced by women and AFAB (assigned-female-at-birth) people. At the end of 2019, only a few months before the pandemic struck, Britain was gearing up for a national snap election that was, in some respects, a sort of second referendum on Brexit. In this particular moment, many of the productions I saw dealt with Britain’s place (often as a former imperial power) in global politics, or the marginalized people within British society. In December 2022, I once again spent nearly a month in London, taking twenty students from Union College in Schenectady, NY to see shows across the city. As in my previous trip, I selected shows eclectically to show my students just some of the many sorts of theatrical productions available in London: West End musicals ( Cabaret ), works at the National ( Hex and Othello ), shows in Shakespeare’s Globe’s indoor candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse ( Hakawatis and Henry V ), new works ( My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican, Baghdaddy at the Royal Court, The Doctor and Orlando on the West End), and long-running mainstays ( The Woman in Black and Heathers ). In addition to the productions I saw with my students, I separately attended As You Like It at the new @sohoplace theatre; my first West End panto, Mother Goose ; the long-running & Juliet on the West End in advance of its Broadway transfer; and A Streetcar Named Desire at the Almeida, which had sold tickets so quickly that I could not book for my large student group. While my previous London reports consisted of similarly diverse shows, in this iteration, I found few thematic links running through the content or staging of these works. If there was a link between these shows, it was the truism that artists and audiences are rediscovering how to engage with theatre in the post-COVID landscape. Indeed, COVID continued (and continues) to affect how theatre is made and seen. About half of the audience members were masked at every performance (I was always masked). Several members of my term abroad contracted COVID while in London and had to quarantine for five days and miss performances. I had booked tickets to Tammy Faye at the Almeida, a new musical (with music by Elton John, lyrics by Jake Shears, and book by James Graham, featuring superstar Andrew Rannels among others, based on the life of evangelist Tammy Faye Messner), but several performances, including ours, were cancelled due to illnesses in the cast. I booked another show to make up for the cancellation: the solo piece One Night Stand with E.V. Crowe and friends at the Royal Court… and then that was also cancelled due to illness (thankfully Orlando , which I booked at that point, was not cancelled!). And yet throughout the theatres, there was palpable joy—even in the grimmest productions—that artists and audiences were once again able to come together in the same space. Because I found few concrete links beyond the ways COVID continues to inflect theatre-going, I discuss the productions irrespective of the order in which I saw them, but in ways that allow me to draw links between particular shows. Both the first ( Cabaret , 1 December 2022) and final ( A Streetcar Named Desire , 23 December 2022) productions I saw were directed by Rebecca Frecknall, Associate Director for the Almeida Theatre. Frecknall is an unabashedly feminist director who reimagines classic dramatic works—often American—for the contemporary stage and her work desperately needs to be seen on major stages in the United States. Her Summer and Smoke in 2018 was haunting in its simplicity and Patsy Ferran justifiably won the Olivier for her luminous performance; unfortunately Frecknall’s 2019 The Duchess of Malfi featuring Lydia Wilson was less so, sapping the play of its disturbing power in a bland, ultramodern staging that seemed to focus more on the men than the titular Dutchess. I’m glad to say that both of her productions I saw in 2022 were stellar. Cabaret was staged at the Playhouse Theatre on the West End, which was rechristened The Kit Kat Club. Audience members entered through the stage door and wound their way through the basement halls of the theatre, as if we were entering the venue depicted in the show. Stickers were placed over our cell phone lenses to prevent photographs and everyone was given a shot of vodka. Cast members of various genders dressed in vaguely BDSM sexual garb made eyes with us and danced provocatively. Three separate bars were set up in each lobby level and a half hour before curtain an elaborately staged dance number by the “boys and girls” of the Kit Kat Club was executed on the bar of the main lobby (Julia Cheng’s choreography was impressive throughout the show, but particularly here). The show had swept the 2022 Olivier Awards but by the time I saw it all the stars who had won acting awards had rotated out. The Emcee was played by understudy Matthew Gent at this performance and Sally Bowles by swing/alternate Emily Benjamin (both of whom would take over the roles as main cast in 2023), yet this cast was spectacular. Of particular note were Michelle Bishop as Frӓulein Kost (and the Kit Kat girl Fritzie), Vivien Parry as Frӓulein Schneider, and Benjamin as Sally Bowles. Parry seemed to channel the spirit of Lotte Lenya with her rendition of “So What” and Bishop, under Frecknall’s direction, brought genuine pathos to the role of Kost. As a prostitute at the bottom of the social hierarchy, we could understand how Kost would embrace Naziism to find anyone she could denigrate in response to the way society had rejected her. At the end of the show, Benjamin’s rendition of “Cabaret” was among the strongest musical numbers I’ve seen live, surpassing, to my mind, recordings of Liza Minelli: the upbeat lyrics paired with her personal despair had much of the audience in tears. Sid Sagar as Cliff Bradshaw was less successful, but this may be because he seemed to have been directed to be emotionless throughout, preventing any sort of audience empathy with the character who was the analogue of Christopher Isherwood, the queer author of the stories on which the musical is based. Tom Scutt’s stage was almost in the round and his costumes implicated the audience in the rise of fascism that Kander, Ebb, and Masteroff’s show depicts. The Emcee rose from the stage gleefully with a tiny party hat for “Wilkommen” as everyone reveled together in the celebration we were attending; by “Money” he was dressed in a neo-fascist demonic outfit, and at the end of the show he and the boys and girls of the Kit Kat Club wore simple, sexless brown outfits, evoking Hitler’s brownshirts a century ago in the 1920s. Yet in the final moments as they marched in a circle carrying suitcases, Isabella Byrd’s lighting turned the set to a stark gray, making them look like photos of men and women with suitcases on their way to trains to concentration camps. Collaboration would save no one. Thankfully, Frecknall’s production (with original star Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee) is transferring to Broadway in 2024, when the August Wilson Theatre will temporarily become the Kit Kat Club. Cabaret . Photo: Marc Brenner. Of all the shows I saw in London, Frecknall’s version of A Streetcar Named Desire was the strongest—easily the best Tennessee Williams I have ever seen—despite the fact that it was in previews with the actor playing Blanche holding her script throughout. The production sold out within hours of tickets going on sale, but Lydia Wilson, who had been cast as Blanche, dropped out of the production for health reasons two weeks before performances began. The first week of performances were cancelled and Wilson was replaced by Patsy Ferran, who had been such a revelation as Alma in Summer and Smoke four years earlier. On the preview I attended, after barely two weeks of rehearsal, Ferran carried her script, occasionally glancing quickly at it at the beginning of each scene, but never looking at it again. Also at the performance I attended on 23 December, Frecknall herself stepped into the role of Eunice (without a script). Seeing her onstage in her own production was a marvelous experience. Madeleine Girling’s set was a nearly bare square with a few scattered props (and periodic rain effects) and Frecknall’s production raced through the words at the beginning of Williams’s script at lightning pace so that the action could effectively open with Blanche’s arrival in New Orleans. Yet this production was less about the conflict between Blanche and Stanley than about toxic masculinity and patriarchal abuse. Blanche was certainly traumatized, but never for a moment portrayed as “crazy,” and Stanley’s violence towards her throughout the play had little to do with any hatred for her per se. Instead, Stanley wanted complete control over his victimized wife Stella—and his clearest path to getting this, as for any abuser, was to isolate Stella from anyone with whom she could find mutual love or care, particularly her sister. The actor who played Stanley, Paul Mescal, was not a hulking brute but appeared to be an attractive, soulful, young husband with a somewhat silly mullet. Yet in spite of this physical attractiveness, Mescal played Stanley as a profoundly ugly man on the inside: consumed with jealousy, self-pity, and white male rage, taking out his anger most clearly on his abused wife, her sister, and his supposed “friend” Mitch. In this color-conscious production, Stella was played by the British-Indian-Singaporean actor Anjana Vasan (so she and Blanche were clearly not full biological siblings, but loved one another no less) and Mitch by Black actor Dwane Walcott. Walcott’s scenes with Blanche and Stanley took on particular resonances—as Stanley viciously notes that Mitch will never achieve his own career successes, or when Blanche asks Mitch if he has been on the titular streetcar and Mitch does not respond. One of many revelations was that Frecknall’s production made it seem as if Mitch must have always been written for a Black actor. Her feminist version of A Streetcar Named Desire (which won an Olivier for Best Revival, and for which Vasan and Mescal also took home Oliviers), even in previews and with Ferran holding her book-in-hand, will make it hard for me to read or see Williams’s play in the same light again. A Streetcar Named Desire . Photo: Marc Brenner. Nearly as successful were two new adaptations of older works: Robert Icke’s The Doctor and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s My Neighbour Totoro . Icke, the former Associate Director for the Almeida (the position Frecknall now holds) created this production at that theatre before it transferred to the West End where I saw it on 8 December 2022. Like his earlier revelatory adaptations Oresteia and Hamlet , The Doctor has since been presented at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. The Doctor is Icke’s loose adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s play Professor Bernhardi , a work about anti-Semitism in early twentieth-century Europe. While holding fast to most of the events in Schnitzler’s plot—which hinges on a leading doctor’s refusal to admit a priest to deliver last rights to a young girl dying of a botched abortion and the ways in which that Jewish doctor is punished by society—Icke’s adaptation is strikingly contemporary, engaging with identity and perception in today’s world. His script notes that “Actors’ identities should be carefully considered in the casting of the play. In all sections except for [an onstage debate], each actor’s identity should be directly dissonant with their character’s in at least one way […] the acting should hold the mystery until the play reveals it. The idea is that the audience are made to re-consider characters (and events) as they learn more about who the characters are” (viii). For example, when a priest (who we later learn is Black) enters in Act I, the stage direction reads “ The FATHER is played by a white actor .” Hardiman, a particularly chauvinistic white male doctor, was played by the female Afro-Jamaican actor Naomi Wirthner. The central character, Dr. Ruth Wolff, was played by Juliet Stevenson, an actress who does not “look Jewish” at all. Wolff claims to see only talent and facts, never race or sex, and the audience is forced to engage with what actually not seeing these palpable facts about identity would feel like. In one particularly affecting moment, Ruth’s neighbor Sami, played by cis woman actor Matilda Tucker, is revealed to be a trans girl who appears masculine to most people who can see her within the world of the play. We periodically see flashbacks to Ruth’s conversations with her deceased partner Charlie, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, the disease Ruth seeks to cure. Charlie was played by the Black woman actor Juliet Garricks, but Icke never lets us learn Charlie's “actual” gender or race within the world of the play. Hildegard Bechtler’s simple and evocative set and costumes (the set was simply a slowly rotating white room) contributed to all these effects. Icke’s challenging production forced audiences to engage with what they can, cannot, or will not see. The Doctor . Photo: Manuel Harlan. The RSC’s My Neighbour Totoro (7 December 2022) was another stellar adaptation. It won Olivier awards for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play as well as for Phelim McDermott’s direction, Joe Hisaishi’s music as orchestrated and arranged by Will Stuart, Jessica Hung and Han Yun’s lighting design, Tony Gayle’s sound design, Tom Pye’s set design, and Kimie Nakano’s costume design. Also certainly deserving of an award—although an Olivier category does not exist—were Bail Twist’s puppet designs, which were created by the Jim Henson Creature Shop, Significant Object, and Twist’s own Tandem Otter Productions. The production was a faithful adaptation by Tom Morton-Smith of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 Studio Ghibli animated film My Neighbor Totoro , about two sisters who move with their father to the rural Japanese countryside in 1955 so that they can be closer to their mother who is in a specialized hospital. In the countryside, the sisters—Mei, aged four, and Satsuki, aged ten—discover mythical creatures from Japanese folklore, including soot spirits, “Totoros” (kind and intelligent furry forest creatures varying in size from tiny to immense), and a giant cat that is also a bus in which the creatures ride. The sisters see tiny sprouts grow into giant trees overnight. Miyazaki’s masterful animated film is a paean to childhood, Japanese folk culture, and imagination, made even more powerful through Hisaishi’s unforgettable score. A cartoon, with all its impossible magic and music, was brought to life onstage through astounding performances by an entirely Asian cast, including twenty puppeteers in Bunraku-style black outfits, singer Ai Ninomiya, and the award-winning designers. Adult actors Mei Mac (Mei), Ami Okumura Jones (Satsuki), and Nino Furuhata (Kanta, a young neighbor boy) empathetically played young children in a way that contributed to the affective power of the production. During the curtain call, the puppeteers swiftly demonstrated how they had manipulated some of the puppets, from the hand-and-rod chickens to the immense King Totoro and Cat-Bus. Notably, production press photos never show the Totoros; they have to be seen to be believed (the production is being revived in 2023 in London and I have no doubt it will tour worldwide considering its success there). My Neighbour Totoro . Photo: Manuel Harlan. Coincidentally, another production I attended was also an adaptation of a film released in 1988: Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s Heathers , based on the cult film written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann (13 December 2022). The musical adaptation of Heathers has similarly achieved cult status with young musical theatre aficionados, despite never having been staged on Broadway. It opened off-Broadway in 2014 at New World Stages, then premiered in the UK (with a few rewritten songs) at the off-West End venue The Other Palace in 2018, transferred to the West End later that year, transferred back to The Other Palace after the pandemic in 2021, and closed in 2023. All of these productions were directed by Andy Fickman. Heathers is set in Westerberg High School in the 1980s and centers on Veronica, a girl who manages to gain acceptance from the popular clique of Heather Chandler, Heather McNamara, and Heather Duke, at the cost of her friendship with the unpopular Martha Dunnstock. Veronica begins a relationship with a new boy at school, the soulful outsider J.D., who reveals himself as a full-fledged sociopath, poisoning the lead Heather and murdering two jocks who try to sexually assault Veronica. Veronica goes along at first—penning a fake suicide note from Heather Chandler that takes the school by storm and later helping to stage the killings of Ram and Kurt as a murder-suicide as if the two were closeted gay lovers. But when J.D. decides to blow up the entire school, Veronica finally takes the initiative and stops his murderous rampage. At the off-West End Other Palace, Fickman’s production as designed by David Shields lacked any technical spectacle but the energetic performances by young actors Erin Caldwell (Veronica), Nathanael Landskroner (J.D.) and Maddison Firth (Heather Chandler) brought the mostly young audience to their feet. O’Keefe and Murphy’s songs from the show are superb, particularly Veronica’s joyously sexual “Dead Girl Walking,” Kurt and Ram’s Dads’ “My Dead Gay Son,” J.D.’s “Our Love is God,” the Heathers’ show stopping poppy “Candy Store,” and the eleven o’clock number “Seventeen,” an ode to high school life. While Heathers had a significant run on- and off- the West End, it pales in comparison to The Woman in Black , which opened in London in 1989 (only one year after the original films of Heathers and My Neighbor Totoro were released), closing in March 2023 after running thirty-three years on the West End. Scores of actors have played the roles of Arthur Kipps and the young unnamed Actor who endeavors to bring Kipps to life (as well as the uncredited ghost role) and playwright Stephen Mallatratt died in 2004 less than halfway through the show’s immensely long run (Dame Susan Hill, from whose 1983 novel Mallatratt adapted the play, is still alive and still writing). I was especially glad to see the show on 6 December 2022 only months before it ended its historic run. It has made its way into numerous British school curriculums and part of the audience was filled with teenagers in school uniforms who had been bussed in to see the show on the West End. Robin Herford’s production, simply designed by Michael Holt, takes place “in this Theatre in the early 1950s” and begins when Arthur Kipps (Julian Forsyth, when I saw it) attempts, poorly, to tell his haunted ghost story for the stage. With a few simple props, the young Actor (Matthew Spencer) takes on the role of the young Kipps, while Kipps himself plays every other character (save the ghost) from his past. Through the power of the imagination, affecting performances, one uncredited woman actor, and a few carefully placed jump scares facilitated by Kevin Sleep’s lighting design and Sebastian Frost’s sound design, the audience is transported from a bare stage into a small seaside town and its haunted house on the moors. Rumors abound of ghosts in London’s theatres—including the murdered actor William Terriss at the Adelphi and the 18 th Century “Man in Gray” at Drury Lane—and if such ghosts do exist, I expect the Fortune Theatre will be a stage haunted by The Woman in Black for some time to come. The Woman in Black . Photo: Mark Douet. In contrast to the simplistic power of imagination celebrated in that show, Hex at the National Theatre (5 December 2022) demonstrated the ways in which spectacle—and powerful performances—cannot save a thoroughly misconceived production. Staged in the National’s massive Olivier Theatre, with its marvelous gigantic drum revolve stage, Hex , a musical adaptation of the Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, is obviously a pet project for Rufus Norris, the artistic director and chief executive of the National. Norris, who directed the production, also wrote the lyrics and developed the concept along with Katrina Lindsay. The convoluted book for Hex is by Tanya Ronder and music is by Jim Fortune. Lindsay’s set and costume designs are spectacular, including a castle that descends from the upstage wall, three flying fairies who deliver their performances while suspended midair, and numerous other delightfully staged creations, including bumblingly misogynistic princes who wish to wake the sleeping beauty, a chorus of poisonous thorns, and many more fantastical effects. The plot centers on the “low” Fairy (the marvelous singer Lisa Lambe), who loses her powers after accidentally “hexing” the young princess Rose (Rosie Graham) and putting her into a sleep until she can find a true love’s kiss. Fairy wants to regain her powers and join the effervescent “High Fairies” (Kate Parr, Olivia Saunders, and Rumi Sutton), so seeks a prince to undo the curse; she finds him in Bert (Michael Elcock), the half-human son of Queenie (another superb singer, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt), an ogress who has turned vegetarian in order to resist her urges to consume human flesh. After a convoluted plot that also involves generations of stewards named Smith and Smith-Smith (Michael Matus), Fairy sneakily preventing Queenie from eating her grandchildren (Rose and Bert’s children Duncan and Dyllis), and much more, Fairy succeeds and is elevated to “high fairy” status—renouncing her lifelong goal only seconds later to rejoin her earthbound friends. Tone shifts abound—the show was billed for ages eight and up, but in addition to fairy-tale hijinks it includes a baby-eating ogress, graphic descriptions of animal slaughter, and a “comic” song from the princes about sexual coercion. Even worse is the music: Fortune’s tunes and Norris’s lyrics are sometimes earworms precisely because of their banality (Bert cannot stop singing about his name in “Prince Bert,” impressively and athletically choreographed by Jade Hackett; Rose and Bert’s romantic duet “Hello” consists mainly of the words “Hi, Hi, Hello”). Of the twenty-eight songs, eight are reprises (with one song reprised twice). Hex aspired to be a creative retelling of fairy tales along the lines of Sondheim’s Into the Woods , instead it demonstrated what happens when an artistic director of a major theatre is too enamored of his own project. Hex . Photo: Johan Persson. The other production I saw at the National, Clint Dyer’s staging of Othello (16 December 2022), was far more successful. Othello is a deeply troubling play, written by a white man over four hundred years ago but engaging with the charged issues of racism and spousal abuse and murder. Probably my favorite analyses of this play come from the Black British actor Hugh Quarshie (see “Is Othello a Racist Play on YouTube).and Ayanna Thompson’s new intersectional feminist introduction to Arden revised edition (2016)both of which acknowledge the ways in which the play remains strikingly painful today, especially for Black or woman/AFAB readers and audiences. Dyer’s production, in the National’s smaller proscenium Lyttelton Theatre, with a set designed by Chloe Lamford that looked like some sort of public forum, began with a stagehand sweeping the stage as images were projected on the upstage wall showing the long and troubling production history of this play. In Dyer’s production, almost every character, from ensemble members to Cassio (Rory Fleck Byrne), Bianca (Kirsty J Curtis), Montano (Garteth Kennerley), or the Duke of Venice (Martin Marquez) was also credited as “System”—in other words, these people were part of a system of oppression that would lead to Othello and Desdemona’s deaths. Only three characters were not also listed as “System”: Othello (Giles Terera), the Black man oppressed by systemic racism, Desdemona (Rosy McEwen), his white wife who rejects the system to love a Black man, and Iago (Paul Hilton, who was as superb in this as he had been in the benevolent roles of Walter and Morgan in The Inheritance ), who manipulated the system to destroy Othello and Desdemona. Notably, during the trial in Act I, Iago sat to the side alongside Roderigo/System (Jack Bardoe), making a noose out of a long rope. Iago and Roderigo assumed that the trial would be perfunctory and Othello would be executed—and they might have been right, had the Turkish invasion of Cyprus not required Othello’s military leadership. But perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the production was how Dyer conceived of the role of Emilia/System (Tanya Franks): throughout the production, one of her arms was in a cast and she had a massive black eye. She was obviously being abused by her husband Iago, yet no one commented or even subtly acknowledged this fact. Dyer effectively communicated that systems encourage horrific cruelties (towards women by men, towards Black people by white society) and react violently not to abuse but instead to those who dare to oppose these oppressions. Othello . Photo: Myah Jeffers. Another successful and contemporary staging of a Shakespearean play was Josie Rourke’s gorgeous intersectional production of As You Like It (15 December 2022), the second play to be staged at the new @sohoplace theatre, an ultramodern complex that is London’s first purpose-built West End theatre to open in fifty years. Staged in the round, Robert Jones’s set consisted mainly of a large piano center stage where Michael Bruce played underscoring for the action and accompaniment to the songs (Bruce also composed all the music) throughout the show. When the characters entered Arden, leaves fell from above, covering the stage in an autumnal tapestry. At that point, Jones and Poppy Hall’s Elizabethan-style costumes gave way to more contemporary, rustic attire. Particularly noteworthy was the casting: Leah Harvey (a Black nonbinary female-presenting actor who uses they/them pronouns) played Rosalind—and Harvey was not the only nonbinary actor in the cast: Cal Watson (they/them) played Le Beau and the second de Bois brother. Several of the actors and their characters were deaf, including Rose Ayling-Ellis, who played Celia, and Gabriella Leon, who played Audrey. These identities mattered in the play: Celia and Audrey communicated using a mixture of British Sign Language (BSL) and sign-mime, and most of the characters communicated with them in this way. But the vicious Duke Frederick (Tom Edden) refused to communicate with his daughter in sign, forcing her to lip read and to speak orally to him. Duke Frederick also used his daughter’s disability against her: turning his back to her as he spoke in anger, so that she could not read his lips and understand what he was saying. The play’s scenes of reconciliation and love at the end were particularly moving because of these intersectional identities. Instead of returning in “women’s weeds,” Harvey’s Rosalind simply walked offstage and back on, and then Alfred Enoch’s Orlando recognized them. Ben Wiggins’s Oliver demonstrated his reformation by struggling to learn BSL so that he could communicate with Celia, with whom he had fallen in love. In fact, the American actor Martha Plimpton, always excellent in Shakespeare, despite a solid performance as a female Jacques, with the famous “All the world’s a stage” speech, was one of the least compelling parts of the production. Rourke’s staging demonstrated that Shakespeare’s fictionalized Forest of Arden can allow us to imagine and visualize a world where everyone can be celebrated, no matter their race, gender identity or expression, or disabilities. As You Like It . Photo: Manuel Harlan. The same day I saw Othello at the National in the evening (16 December 2022), I had also attended a matinee of Henry V at the nearby Shakespeare’s Globe, meaning that I saw three Shakespearean productions in London within two days. Unfortunately, Holly Race Roughan’s staging of Henry V was the least inspiring of any of the productions I saw during my time in London, including the misconceived Hex . Roughan had a clear concept: that war and power could corrupt even the most well-intentioned leader and that brutally violent men can come to be revered as heroes. Over the course of the play, her Henry (Oliver Johnstone) transformed from an optimistic, well-intentioned ruler to a dangerous psychopath, raging at his people, ordering executions without a second thought, and killing the Dauphin at Agincourt in retribution for the insult that helped spark his war. Henry’s scene with Katherine had not a single spark of romance, but was the culmination of his violence as he demanded her hand in an overtly political marriage, and then the play ended with the scene (usually much earlier in the play; Act 3, scene 4) between Katherine and Alice (Eleanor Henderson) as Katherine began to learn English in preparation for her forced marriage. Perplexingly, this was followed by an epilogue where the actress who had played Katherine, Joséphine Callies, transformed into a modern immigrant, responding to a British naturalization exam; perhaps a comment, albeit unrelated to the earlier action of this production, on the fact that England, which had once had imperialist dreams of conquering foreign lands, after Brexit now places major barriers against Europeans who wish to become British citizens. While Roughan’s concept was clear, everyone spoke Shakespeare’s verse excellently, and the production was one of the best lit I’ve seen in the indoor Wanamaker Playhouse (designer Moi Tran’s metallic upstage wall reflected the candlelight that serves to light productions at this indoor recreation of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars playhouse), little else made sense. Except for Johnstone as Henry, the nine remaining cast members played all the other roles in the play, often with only the smallest costume or accent change meant to indicate a change in character. However, sometimes this convention wasn’t followed: an actor removing a coat might mean a change in character, or simply that character removing their coat. Even for a Shakespeare scholar, it was often unclear to whom Henry was speaking; I could tell that my fellow audience members were totally befuddled. This is the sort of misconceived production that sadly leads modern audiences to feel that they “just don’t understand” (or like) Shakespeare. Henry V . Photo: Johan Persson. Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights , a new play by Shakespeare’s Globe writer-in-residence Hannah Khalil, which I had seen two days earlier at the Wanamaker (14 December 2022) was far more successful. A testament to women’s empowerment, storytelling, and collaborative creation, the play follows five women (Wahida the Dancer, played by Houda Echouafini; Fatah the Young, played by Alaa Habib; Zuya the Warrior, played by Laura Hanna; Akila the Writer, played by Nadi Kemp-Sayfi; and Naha the Wise, played by Roann Hassani McCloskey) who are imprisoned and awaiting their marriage to, sexual assault by, and subsequent execution at the orders of the unseen King, who is currently married to (the also unseen) Scheherazade. In contrast to the original version of the tale, it is not Scheherazade but these women who come up with the stories that Scheherazade will tell her husband, saving all their lives. The play includes riffs on classic stories from the 1001 Nights along with new tales, as if they are stories from these women’s lives, or ones told to them by their mothers, sisters, cousins, or female friends. At one point, they argue about a story that Zuya tells, which metaphorically depicts male violence and women cleverly overcoming it: Akila realizes that it will enrage the King and might lead to everyone’s death, and that this is not the moment to share that particular tale. The women argue about self-censoring, but ultimately agree with Akila that “there is a power in words. Stories. They must be told in the right way and at the right time” (61). The five very different women, placed in the same dire situation, forge close relationships, and earn their freedom, but, as they leave after 1001 nights, they vow to find some way to free Scheherazade (who had shared their stories) from her vicious husband. The moving play, presented with an Arab cast, was aided by the material conditions of the Wanamaker playhouse, where the candlelight (actors had to hold light sources at the same time as playing their roles) enhanced the sense that Rosa Maggiora’s set was indeed a dank prison room, one of the many sorts of cages (metaphorical or literal) throughout history from which women have had to escape. Hakawatis . Photo: Ellie Kurttz. Like Hakawatis, Baghdaddy at the Royal Court (8 December 2022) was a new feminist Arab play—but in every other respect the works could not have been more different. Written by Jasmine Naziha Jones, who also performed the central character, Darlee, a second-generation British-Iraqi girl from age eight to twenty, the play, which is dedicated to Jones’s father, delves into the relationship between Darlee and her Iraqi Dad as the girl comes of age during wars between the West and Iraq. The expressionist play was staged by Milli Bhatia on a set of stairs designed by Moi Tran—similar in some respects to Chloe Lamford’s set for Othello —and also featured a chorus of “Quareens”—“spiritual companions from another dimension,” two female and one male, helping Darlee “reconcile her childhood memories with Dad’s story” as an immigrant (2). Part clown show and part fictionalized reconstruction of a traumatic childhood, the show built up to two monologues: Darlee’s railing against a so-called democratic Western society that has never fully accepted her and Dad’s lament for his family who died in the Iraq war after he came to the UK. The play—and Jones’s performance as a fictionalized version of her younger self—was deeply painful but felt only half-formed, perhaps as do any of our half-remembered recollections of childhood. Baghdaddy . Photo: Helen Murray. Orlando (17 December 2022), as adapted by Neil Bartlett from Virginia Woolf’s novel and staged by Michael Grandage at the Garrick Theatre on the West End, featuring the nonbinary actor Emma Corrin as its titular immortal gender-defying character, was another sort of coming-of-age story. Of course, Orlando comes into his/her/their own over the course of centuries (and also it’s no coincidence that Orlando shares the same name as one of the romantic leads in the gender-bending As You Like It ). Excepting Corrin and Deborah Findlay, who played Mrs Grimditch, a very long-serving confidant to Orlando and the audience, the remaining cast (consisting of one man and eight women or nonbinary performers) all played both a chorus of Virginia Woolfs and Orlando’s many, many loves. When Orlando appears, the audience briefly sees him frontally naked (Corrin wore a prosthetic penis for this moment) and when Orlando transforms into a woman, she is once again naked (although this time only seen from the waist up). The play was a celebration of transformation and potentiality, ending by acknowledging that Orlando might thrive in the world today (or an approaching future, signified by an intensely bright door at the top of Peter McKintosh’s set that Orlando passed through at the end of the play) in a more accepting world that Woolf herself, who committed suicide in 1941, could only dimly imagine. The play was especially moving to my students on the mini-term, several of whom are trans and/or nonbinary; one said she was going to get a tattoo of that bright door that signified the possibilities of the future if we are willing to “try courage” (78). Orlando . Photo: Marc Brenner. Less successful in its feminism but still a delightful spectacle onstage was the jukebox musical & Juliet (20 December 2022), directed by Luke Sheppard with a book by David West Read and featuring over two decades of pop songs written by Max Martin. It’s hard to believe that Martin wrote so many of the best-known hits for artists including Bon Jovi, The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Robyn, Kelly Clarkson, Kesha, Justin Timberlake, Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, The Weeknd, and more. The show bills itself as a feminist revision of Romeo and Juliet , in which Anne Hathaway, in a frame story, accuses Shakespeare of not giving his doomed heroine enough of a voice or agency and imagines a new ending in which Juliet doesn’t kill herself after awakening to find Romeo poisoned. Taking off from that premise, Juliet (still played, when I saw it years after it opened on the West End, by Olivier-winning Miriam-Teak Lee) goes on an adventure across Europe, along with her friends including the trans character May (now played by nonbinary actor Joe Foster). The show is raucously self-aware (a jukebox sat visibly near the center of Soutra Gilmour’s set and the spectacularly lit titles that descended from the flyspace at the opening, interval, and close resembled nothing more than a West End/Broadway marquee) and builds to Juliet’s rendition of Katy Perry’s “Roar,” which indeed stopped the show for at least a minute of applause after Lee’s performance of the song. The show has since transferred to Broadway, where Justin David Sullivan, the nonbinary actor who played May, declined to be considered for Tonys since the awards continue to require actors be nominated in binary gender categories for men and women. Thankfully, the production has fixed its original gaffe of casting a cis man as a trans character (Arun Blair-Mangat originated the role of May on the West End), but the supposed feminism continues to ring a bit hollow even as Anne, Juliet, and her friends sing about women’s empowerment. Perhaps this is because all of the authors and the director of the show were men: as noted in Hamilton (another musical created almost entirely by men that was intended to reimagine the past more inclusively), “who tells your story” matters and it’s too bad that the producers of & Juliet didn’t find a woman to write the book or direct. Just as much frothy fun, but with a lot less pretense, were two holiday shows I saw towards the end of my trip. Who’s Holiday! at the tiny Southwark Playhouse (19 December 2022) was a solo holiday drag show which was the final work to which I brought my students. Written in 2017 by Matthew Lombardo in the comic verse of Dr. Seuss, the play imagines Cindy Lou Who from How the Grinch Stole Christmas! all grown up, bleached blonde, hard drinking, foul mouthed in rhyme, having escaped a relationship with the Grinch, and planning a Christmas celebration despite constant cancellations from her friends. The play is thoroughly dirty and definitely not for the young children who might still read Dr. Seuss. But, as directed by Kirk Jameson, it is perfect for camp as performed by Miz Cracker, an American drag queen who gained fame on the television show Ru Paul’s Drag Race , and in the end Who’s Holiday! still celebrates the joy and spirit of Christmas every bit as much as its less transgressive source material. Who’s Holiday!. Photo: Mark Senior. My first West End panto was equally delightful, if far more spectacular. Jonathan Harvey’s Mother Goose , directed by Cal McCrystal at the Duke of York’s Theatre (20 December 2022), the same theatre where I had seen The Doctor a few weeks earlier, featured stand-up comedian John Bishop as Vic Goose and the legendary Sir Ian McKellen in drag as Mother Goose (the panto Dame), using wit and constant references to contemporary British politics to facing down holiday financial struggles from exorbitant energy bills. Their struggles are abated by the arrival of a goose (Anna-Jane Casey) who starts laying golden eggs and gives Mother Goose the chance to achieve her dreams of stardom. The songs, dances, and audience participation were all delightful—when one nearby audience member heard that Mother Goose was my first panto, she let me know she had been to hundreds and that this was among the very best she’d ever seen. Yet no one was enjoying themselves more than Sir Ian, obviously gleeful at the chance to ham it up in the sort of work he had adored in his youth. As he delivered key lines from Gandalf in Lord of the Rings or Portia’s “The quality of mercy” speech in the tenor of Mother Goose, his wry smile was infectious and had the audience grinning just as much as he was. On our feet at the end, we were all celebrating the holiday spirit together again, in the theatre. Mother Goose . Photo: Manuel Harlan. The holiday spirit that suffused Mother Goose and Who’s Holiday! in some ways ran through all these productions, even the darkest like Othello, Henry V, The Doctor , and A Streetcar Named Desire , since we were, once again, able to be in London’s excellent theatres together. COVID will remain part of our world for some time to come: many audience members remain masked, theatres have to cancel performances and hire more understudies (or even have the director go on for a role in a pinch!), and more. This is probably a good thing: it has led to conversations about how the arts can be safer and more equitable for everyone. I expect to return to London at the end of 2025 and I am excited to discover what will suffuse the city’s theatrical scene then, when it will have been half a decade since the height of the pandemic. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Dan Venning is an associate professor in the department of Theatre & Dance at Union College (Schenectady, NY), where he also teaches in the English department and the interdisciplinary programs in American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies. He has published numerous chapters in scholarly edited collections, book reviews, and performance reviews in a broad range of scholarly journals, including several overviews of theatre in London for European Stages . He is currently working on a book about Shakespearean performance and nation-building. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Report from London (December 2022) Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 “Regietheater:” two cases The Grec Festival 2023 The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Report from Germany Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 18, Fall, 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) By Kalina Stefanova Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF “Once upon a time there was a festival, and when its time came it went out into the world to seek its fortune” Liviu Timuş With all its natural givens, Piatra Neamt—a city of 80,000, ensconced in a beautiful valley surrounded by the lusciously green mountains of North-Eastern Romania, with a river running through it and a lake where flocks of swans nest all year round—could well be a thriving resort town and home of rich theatre institutions and events, like the Shaw Festival at the Niagara-on-the-Lake or the Shakespeare Festival of Canada at Stratford-on-Avon. Instead and, most surprisingly at first glance, Piatra Neamt is a home of a festival of an entirely opposite type: focused on poignant social and political issues of both national and international scale. It is the oldest international festival in Romania—an institution of a very rich and awesome biography which stands out even against the background of the festival-rich contemporary Romanian theatre scene. Let me just mention two of the other international festivals in the country: the one in Sibiu, which ranks already third in size and clout in Europe, after those in Edinburgh and Avignon, and the one in Craiova, specializing in Shakespeare, which has established itself as the must-see showcase for productions of the Bard’s oeuvre from all over the world—the first having turned 30 this year and the second to celebrate the same age in 2024. Romanians at the Gate of the World . Photo: Adrian Nita. Romanians at the Gate of the World . Photo: Adrian Nita. The Piatra Neamt Theatre Festival is run by and has its headquarters in the Youth Theatre—the only institutional theatre in the city. It belongs to the county of Neamts and is, thus, a theatre of a regional rank. At the same time, it is considered as “one of the most important Romanian cultural institutions,” as the leading Romanian critic Maria Zarnescu puts it. The theatre’s building is very special, both in terms of its architecture and of its location. Although built about half a century later than the impressive old houses in the city--in the 1930s and 1940s—it has something of their combination of shy grandeur and modesty. It is beautiful and quite big, and, while one goes up the slightly steep street leading to it, it looks even awesome. Yet, since it stands literally in the outskirts of the hill, where the main square is located, and only its upper floors are on the level of the square, once you are already in front of the theatre you have a feeling as if it holds its hat off in reverence to the beautiful old buildings above it. This exuding of humbleness, of full awareness of its place in the city landscape’s hierarchy, and of paying due respect, is further enhanced by the special glitter of the dark brown-to-black tiles of the roof, typical of the city’s roofs, as if after rain—a type of glitter celebrating nature and our modest place in it, so different from the lofty shine of the usual gilded facades of the old grand theatres. All this lack of ostentation makes the Piatra Neamt Youth Theatre’s building stand organically in sync with the general atmosphere of the city. The theatre started functioning as such only in 1959 but got its name nearly a decade later, in 1967, and soon afterwards, in 1969, the Festival had its inaugural edition. During its first seven editions (then as a biennale) it was and it wasn’t international – all at once! That is, in terms of participating productions there were no foreign ones in the selection, yet there were many invited foreign guests and the special milieu created for discussions about theatre on such an international scale substantially contributed to opening up the horizon of the Romanian theatre. So it was in effect only in 1992, when, being revived after a long pause, the Festival became de facto international and substantially grew up in size, formats and programs. The 2017 edition turned out to be a new turning point in the Festival’s development. And this was so not only because the edition was part of the celebrations of the Youth Theatre’s 50 th anniversary but also because the Festival acquired a number of very important upgrades of its profile. After-show discussions between the casts and the audience, a new workshop entitled “The Spectator as a Critic,” a photo exhibition Theatre of Youth Actors and Spectators , a jury consisting of high school students from Piatra Neamţ … And soon afterwards another novelty was added to the list: an award for overall contribution to the theatre art given to a female Romanian theatre-maker. Romanians at the Gate of the World . Photo: Adrian Nita. Romanians at the Gate of the World . Photo: Adrian Nita. Initiator of all these substantial quality changes was the new head of the Youth Theatre and the Festival, whose very appointment was in the first place a pioneering development. For, in their already considerably long history, the two institutions got for the first time a female theatre-maker at their helm! And a very special one at that: Gianina Carbunariu, the enfant terrible of contemporary Romanian theatre. Gianina Carbunariu. Photo: Dorin Constanda. Born in Piatra Neamt, but having left it to study theatre in the beginning of the millennium, Carbunariu actually came back there with an already large collection of firsts. She was the first female director to win the Romanian Association of Theatre Professionals UNITER Award for Best Show ( For Sale , Odeon Theatre Bucharest, 2014). She was short-listed by the Romanian media as one of the 100 most influential women in Romanian society today. She was the first Romanian female artist whose works were included in the official selection of the Avignon Festival. Most importantly, all that was so, since she was so brave as to dare to challenge the status quo by raising up on stage issues and problems long overdue to be solved—issues and problems having to do with hypocrisy and double standards on a national and international scale. And she was doing it in a very artistic way, not just as an activist’s statement. In brief, in 2017, Carbunariu was already an established artist with an international reputation—as a director, as a playwright, and as an author of her shows alike—because of her ground-breaking work that was literally changing the face of the theatre both in Romania and abroad! I myself saw a stunning show by Gianina Carbunariu ( 20/20 ) several years earlier, in the very beginning of that decade, in 2011, and immediately knew I had come across a unique talent and tried to follow her work from then on. “Her greatest achievement is the remarkable balance between ethics and aesthetics,” Maria Zarnescu has written … “The audience ‘manipulation’ is done by artistic ways, not political, and the emotion keeps its own sense. So it seems that Gianina Cărbunariu found the alchemical secret through which she discovered the philosophical stone of the 21 st- century theatre.” The very acute social edge, markedly accompanied by openness for a dialogue and for finding ways to solve problems together, rather than with the imperative approach bordering on dictate, so typical for many a theatre activist today, is maybe the most important feature with which Gianina Carbunariu has endowed the Festival. In the same vein, the urgent need for ceasing the enhancement of division lines between people and for finding ways to genuinely understand each other and genuinely be together is what permeates the motivation of the theme of this year’s edition of the Festival— Safety Zone — as beautifully expressed by Carbunariu, its curator. Here’s part of her introduction: “The Safety Zone is a space of solidarity, not of polarization.The Safety Zone has room for the sort of real dialogue that TV discussions and online interactions often only mimic.In the Safety Zone, the authentic living of collective experience raises a question mark over the noise of ready-made ideas, of wrong turns that risk becoming the norm.In the Safety Zone, we celebrate together inspiration, generosity, irony, vulnerability, difference, courage, empathy, aesthetic risk-taking, and exchange of ideas. We celebrate life and trust that humanity will win in its confrontation with the absurd or with injustice.” Indeed, diversity was one of the features of the program of the Festival’s 34 th edition. It consisted of three sections—national, international, and local—in the framework of which altogether 35 productions were presented. They were works of state, regional and independently-run theatres. There were performances of huge casts and solo ones, inside –on the stage of the Piatra Neamt Theatre and on its second, so-called, “Mobile Stage,” at the other end of the town—and outside, on squares. There was drama, dance, performance art, puppets… There were shows closer to the traditional type of theatre, others having nothing to do with it, and third ones—a majority—which dwelled in the in-between area. Naturally, the most populous was the Romanian part of the program which displayed theatre from all over the country, as well as three shows of the host theatre. In keeping with the tradition of the Festival, the international program had a special Focus: European women artists (under the title Something to Declare ), and the six shows comprising it were created by female theatre-makers from Belgium, Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, Kosovo, Slovenia, and Ukraine. Notably, the diversity of the program did not translate into many-ness—this so unfortunate feature of our time. Well distributed in the framework of two weeks—from September 8 th to the 21 st —all, that theatre did not, so to speak, spill over and infringe upon the tranquil air of the town. This, to me, is a real asset of the Festival, since, the biggest festivals aside, a city can have its spirit genuinely enriched by an event only when it is not overtaken and exhausted by it. Of course, the very fine flair for keeping the right measure in the curatorial process on the part of Carbunariu doesn’t come as a surprise. After all, being in the first place a socially conscious artist, she very well knows that theatre could easily become a claustrophobic place, when theatre-makers snobbishly sniff at reality outside theatre’s walls and forget that this art is here for the sake of that very reality. So Carbunariu has managed very finely to steer and contain the Festival so as to make it feel like an organic part of everyday life and, thus, bring joy and be of potential help in the most unobtrusive way. And not only in Piatra Neamt at that! Some of the Festival’s shows are presented in two other towns as well (Roman and Târgu Neamț) and in rural parts of the Neamț county too. As a matter of fact this comes as an extension of the Youth Theatre’s profile actually, since it travels throughout the county catering to a population of 400,000. And one more aspect of the Festival’s program struck me: its truly egalitarian spirit. No genres or types of shows were there just as an addition “to fill in the picture,” or just “for atmosphere,” like confetti – a role in which, for instance, street theatre tends to be often cast at many festivals. Actually, it is exactly with a street show that the Piatra Neamt Theatre Festival started for me (as I attended its last six days) and it remained as one of the most memorable theatre experiences there. The two parts of Romanians at the Gate of the World (of the Maska Theatre, Bucharest) took place on the main square (above the Youth Theatre), which was arranged as a meeting point between us, today’s people, and eminent personalities from the time of the belle époque and the interwar period who have made great contributions in the science and arts fields. Each of them was allotted a separate small podium (about eight altogether in each part) and, like in a museum, was arranged seemingly as a wax statue, clad in a gorgeous costume of the respective time, standing or sitting on a chair, with just a few objects connected with their life and achievements placed on a small table or next to it. The invisible curtain of the show goes up when recordings of short texts about these personalities start sounding from loudspeakers next to each “small stage.” Simultaneously with the recordings, the statues gradually begin coming to life, with stiff movements at first—after all, so many years have passed since they have left our world—but with eyes full of curiosity, as if at once listening to how they are being presented to us and enjoying their visit to our world. At some point, some of them talk together with the loudspeakers, when there are quotes by them, or just sit and touch their objects. Then, as their presentation comes to an end, they “freeze” back in their initial postures. All this gets repeated many times nearly simultaneously, while the viewers move from one “exhibit” of the makers of Romanian culture and science to another and try to catch up with all their stories. In the beginning, while one is concentrated on acquainting oneself with the details about all these people and their achievements, the experience feels like a guided tour in a museum. Then one comes to realize that it is exactly to concentrate that is challenging here, since the square is not at all large and all the stories from all the stages resound loudly and at once, thus nearly overlapping and overshadowing each other. It is exactly then when this mixture of street art and traditional type of theatre, in terms of acting, gets the shape of a powerful contemporary theatrical installation which transcends by far a mere exhibiting of a past spiritual glory. It appears to be more about a juxtaposition of our world and the world of these personalities on the territory of the spirit. And the power of this installation stems, I find, from the stark contrast between the minimalism accompanying these people of great deeds, on the one hand, and the chaos and cacophony of our everyday environment, with stepped-up decibels and fights for attention, which make maintaining normality even on a small scale feel like a big achievement. No matter how vain and eccentric all these celebrities might have been in their time, compared to the ubiquity of noise and many-ness today, and the resulting lack of clear focus in the figurative sense of the word, they radiate dignified modesty and simplicity, and make one feel humbled at least for a short while. Interestingly, the topical issue of many-ness kept on reappearing in different ways in some of the next productions I saw. Not so much as an issue on focus, though, but rather as a temptation they had not fully managed to resist or vice versa—something which, either way, emerged as a factor for their overall impact. Naturally, the large-scale, indoor productions were most prone to succumbing to this so common temptation today. For instance, in The Dream (Reactor de Creatie si Experiment, Cluj-Napoca) the effect of the impressively good music, the talent of the actors and the very important issues in focus were slightly undermined by the too frequent repetition of the main refrains—a repetition that inevitably led to diminishing of their meaning. Or, in the hilariously funny Artists’ Factory (Teatrul Municipal Bacovia) the stereotypes of in-theatre relations and the scenes which look like quotes (e.g. at least close to the musical Hamilton , or the notorious case of David Merrick announcing the death of the director of 42 nd Street ) at one point piled up to an extent of going slightly over the top and threatening to exhaust the comedy. Or, in Operation “Firecracker” (Teatrul Nottara, Bucharest), while the mouse tails of the Securitate agents were an excellent phantasmagoric type of an extension of the characters, the adding of more puppet elements (mouse heads of these characters and a gigantic head of their female master) did not really contribute to enhancing the clout of the show. These ostentatious puppet theatre guest-elements as well as the projections on screens didn’t feel as if they were growing organically out of the preceding action and only overburdened the otherwise very clearly cut and well-acted production. These shows made me feel they needed some small editing for the sake of keeping the right measure. Operation Firecracker . Photo: Andrei Gindac . The most impressive of the large-scale shows to me was Magyarosauris Dacus (of Teatrul Szigligeti, Ordea), the newest work of Gianina Carbunariu. It tells the defying-imagination life-story of a much larger-than-life and truly encyclopedic type of a person – a Hungarian baron whose discovery of dinosaur fossils was just one of the impossibly wide diapason of his ventures and adventures at the turn of the 20 th century and onwards. Carbunariu’s directorial choice of having different actors and actresses play him in his different ages, endeavors, and, in effect, faces comes as an organic extension of this many-faceted personality and makes the show feel like an unassuming visit of our time to the universe of his life and, at once, as an invitation to him to peek at our world. The use of painted wings and of painted figures dropping from the ceiling while, at the same time, live music is played on proscenium further helps the mixing of times and makes references to poignant topics of the baron’s world sound strikingly contemporary—like the Western stereotypes regarding the Balkans and especially Albania, the place of women, anti-Semitism, etc. This unexpected topicality of the story happening over a century ago, of course, brings in a sad overtone about the state of our world. But can we imagine Gianiana Carbunariu doing a show even about something having happened millennia ago without a reason other than exploring our world and pointing at its problems, of course with both laughter and sorrow?! After all, she didn’t hesitate to invite even extra-terrestrials (in Planet Mirror , Piatra Neamt Youth Theatre, 2021) to make us think about ourselves and what we do to our world. Magyarosauris Dacus . Photo: Theatrul Szigligeti . There is one detail even of her show, though, which is not entirely spared by the influence of the many-ness trend: some of the costumes, more concretely the contemporary clothes of the actors. Most probably they are chosen to be very tawdry and eclectic as sort of an extension of the main character’s singular colorfulness and many-sidedness. Yet they tend to distract the attention from the very acting of the actors clad in them and, at times, even from the story itself. Their effect is similar to that of an excessive number of trailers and photos which intersperse a very well related story in a digital magazine literally getting into the way of the reader to fully enjoy the beauty of the narrative and see the depicted personality in its wholeness. La Fracture . Photo: Pauline Vanden Neste. The show that unequivocally grabbed my heart was the one that employed the most austere stage means of expression: Fracture , a 50-minute one-woman show of Yasmine Yahiatene (Little Big Horn, Belgium), where the concept, text (much less than ten full pages) and interpretation, as well the live drawings (on the stage floor) and their simultaneous animation on a screen are all created by her. The very powerful impact of this show is, of course, not a result solely of its frugality. It comes, in the first place, from the very brave associative and contrasting montage the narrative is based on. It starts with footage from a football match with Zinadine Zidane, back in 1998, which Yasmine watches with her dad, and the Marseillaise proudly resounds, yet, oddly, the bloodiness of its text coming to the fore. Footage of her father and herself growing up follow on the screen—nearly all the time they are from parties, where he’s always with a cup in hand and invariably looks happy. And then, all of a sudden, in the projection her father cries and the story makes a rapid turn, as Yasmine says something as if out of the blue which does indeed have an effect of a bolt from the blue: when her father was eight, during the Algerian war, French soldiers entered their house in Algeria and told his mom to choose between her son and her brother--whom to save, the other one would be killed. The choice was to be done immediately. Yasmine relates this very calmly and it is in the same way that she very briefly describes the horror of the running away of a mother and a child through the desert and then up to Europe. The narrative then is back again to the area of the mundane, only now the father’s drinking is placed under question, as is the connection between it and colonialism, and two songs cut through the “normal” life in Europe, saying everything that is at the bottom both of the laughter in those previous parties and the tears that followed: “We’ll always be guilty of being Africa/ Mama, the moment has come, we’ve suffered too long.” I will not spell any more beans. Importantly, Yasmine doesn’t comment, doesn’t accuse or blame, she just lays out the outline of the story and doesn’t even get overtly emotional, leaving the emotions to the altogether three songs she has us listen to--the Marseillaise and the two songs of the second half of the show. These songs serve as sort of emotional pillars that hold the very brave construction of this show which feels like a suspension bridge over the chasm of failed humanity. There is something of the spirit of the ancient traveling storytellers in Yasmine’s way of relating the narrative. Only instead of a rebeck in hand, she has a camera, recordings and electronic means to set the houses in her drawings on the floor to flames and to make tears pour from her father’s face, drawn there and seen on the screen. Also she has the courage to mix cartoon-like drawing with tragedy--maybe in order to make it easier for us to understand, at long last. To understand both the past and the present of an, alas, still ongoing drama that so often turns out to be a tragedy. The eye-opening and heart-rending quality of this show reminded me of the remarkable works of the South African director Brett Bailey, especially of his Exhibit B series, the most powerful glimpse at colonialism I have ever witnessed the art of theatre to offer. Likewise, when Fracture finishes, one has a feeling one has lived through not only a family’s story but the plight of a whole continent. The Return of Karl May . Photo: Atdhe Mulla. For me, one of the most anticipated Festival shows was The Return of Karl May , a production of Qendra Multimedia, Kosovo, since I had never before seen theatre from there and also because of the implied by the title, always a sensitive topic of Western stereotypes of the Balkans, myself being from there. With all due respect to the creators of the show and their unquestionable talent, what struck me most were the striking similarities with the first shows of Oliver Frljic. I will never forget his Damned Be the Traitor of His Homeland (2010) , his international break-through work, because of the powerful impact of its direct, in-face contact with the audience, the walking-on-the-edge mixture of facts and fiction, and the no-beating-about-the-bush when it came to problems that were in urgent need to be stated out loud, no matter if that would mean trespassing into the territory of illustration or getting into a literally declarative spirit. I still present it to my students as one of the shows that started a new wave of great overtly political theatre around the beginning of the second decade of the new millennium. And I have no doubt that the team of the Kosovo company has not been directly influenced by Frljic, since they said at the after-show talk that they have actually only seen his theatre once. The thing is that now this type of theatre has for a while already been in competition with a foretold end with the placard-ness and fixation on statements of social media and the internet on the whole, and has, thus, rather exhausted its means of expression and, consequently, its power, precisely because it has become just a part of the incessant declarative talking on a global scale. So, leaving Piatra Neamt, I came to wonder if the overt social and political theatre is not in need of reinventing, or rather re-imagining of itself. Especially, given the mighty impact of the other type of social and political theatre that does not simply name, spell out loud, and shock us with, the ills of our time and world but, by transforming them into (parts of) stories, manages to make them feel genuinely ours and, thus, make us genuinely care. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Kalina Stefanova , PhD, is the author/editor of 15 books on theatre and criticism. Five of them are in English: one with Palgrave Macmillan (co-editor with Marvin Carlson) and three with Routledge, launched in New York, London and Gdansk, and included in indicative reading lists in universities world-wide, as well as one with St. Kliment Orchidski University Press, launched in Wroclaw. She is also the author of 2 fiction books (published in nine countries, one of them in three editions in China). She has edited a two-volume anthology of Eastern European drama in China (China Theatre Press), the first anthology of spoken Chinese drama in Bulgarian (Bulgarian Bestseller) and a two-volume presentation of Bulgarian theatre in English (Routledge). She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the New York University (1990/1992) and has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, Meiji University, Japan, the Shanghai Theatre Academy, China, among others. In 2016 she had the privilege to be appointed as Visiting Distinguished Professor of the Arts School of Wuhan University, as well as a Distinguished Researcher of the Chinese Arts Criticism Foundation of Wuhan University. She has delivered lectures and lead seminars world-wide. She served as Vice President of the International Association of Theatre Critics for two mandates (2001/2006) and as its Director Symposia (2006-2010). She was the dramaturge of the highly acclaimed production of Pentecost by David Edgar, directed by Mladen Kiselov, at the Stratford Festival of Canada, in 2007. Since 2001 she has regularly served as an independent evaluation expert of the European Commission for cultural and educational projects. She is on the editorial board of a number of theatre magazines world-wide, among which Theatre Arts of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (since 2015), European Stages of CUNY, USA, (since 2016), DramaArt, of the West-Universität Temeswar, Romania, (since 2016). She is on the board of the International Theatre Towns Alliance, affiliated with Yue Opera Town, China. Currently she’s a Full Professor of Theatre Criticism at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. Among her main interests is contributing to the creation of cultural bridges between cultures. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Report from London (December 2022) Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 “Regietheater:” two cases The Grec Festival 2023 The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Report from Germany Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

After The Time of COVID the New York theatre and performance landscape woke up in the daylight a new reality. Theatres are experiencing a collapse of the subscription system, a loss of audiences, the closure of spaces and festivals. Do we need a renaissance to get back to where we were before — or do we need a revolution? What was wrong before? What do we need now? What can we do? What must we do? A panel with playwright Anne Washburn, theatre artist David Levine, scholar Hillary Miller, Jayme Koszyn, founder of Koszyn & Company, and Rob Fields. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PANEL Re-Inventing Institutions and Re-Generation Anne Washburn, David Levine, Hillary Miller, Jayme Koszyn, and Rob Fields 7:30PM EST Thursday, October 12, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All After The Time of COVID the New York theatre and performance landscape woke up in the daylight a new reality. Theatres are experiencing a collapse of the subscription system, a loss of audiences, the closure of spaces and festivals. Do we need a renaissance to get back to where we were before — or do we need a revolution? What was wrong before? What do we need now? What can we do? What must we do? A panel with playwright Anne Washburn, theatre artist David Levine, scholar Hillary Miller, Jayme Koszyn, founder of Koszyn & Company, and Rob Fields. Content / Trigger Description: Anne Washburn is a playwright whose works include 10 out of 12, Antlia Pneumatica, Apparition, The Communist Dracula Pageant, A Devil At Noon, I Have Loved Strangers, The Internationalist, The Ladies, Little Bunny Foo Foo, Mr. Burns, Shipwreck, The Small, and transadaptations of Euripides' Orestes & Iphigenia in Aulis. Her work has premiered with 13P, Actors Theater of Louisville, the Almeida, American Repertory Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Folger, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Two River Theater Company, Vineyard Theater and Woolly Mammoth. David Levine is an OBIE and Guggenheim-award winning theater director and visual artist. His work has been covered by Frieze, Artforum, The New York Times, and his writing has appeared in n+1, Theater, and Parkett. He is Professor of the Practice of Performance, Theater and Media at Harvard University, and the author, with Shonni Enelow, of A Discourse on Method, published by 53rd State Press. His holographic film, Dissolution, will debut at the Museum of the Moving Image in late October. He is also the author of Re-Public, a 2005 manifesto for the artistic, fiscal, and operational overhaul of the Public Theater, commissioned by the journal Theater. Hillary Miller teaches twentieth and twenty-first century dramatic literature and performance in the English Department at Queens College (CUNY) where she serves as Assistant Director of the English M.A. program. She has published essays and reviews on numerous topics related to theatre post-World War II in the United States, including performance and urban space; racial, ethnic, and geographic inequalities in the arts; activist theatre traditions; and the politics of producing. She is the author of  Drop Dead: Performance in Crisis, 1970s New York (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and Playwrights on Television: Conversations with Dramatists (Routledge, 2020). She is currently researching a cultural history about the Greenwich Mews Theatre (1952-1973), one of the first professional theatres in New York to mount plays with integrated casts. She is an affiliate faculty member in the Theatre and Performance doctoral program at the Graduate Center (CUNY). Jayme Koszyn’s directing work has been nominated for Helen Hayes Awards and her controversial production of Romeo and Juliet was featured in the book Women Direct Shakespeare.During her career she directed over 50 productions at theaters including the Huntington and Woolley Mammoth. She taught directing and dramaturgy for many years at Boston University, Boston College, and Brooklyn College. Following a decade as dramaturge at the Huntington—working with August Wilson, Kenny Leon, Eric Simonson, and Mary Zimmerman, among many others—serving as President of Literary Managers and Dramaturges of the Americas, and publishing “The Dramaturg and the Irrational” in the text book Dramaturgy in American Theater, Jayme was recruited by Harvey Lichtenstein and Joseph V. Melillo to create BAM's first-ever Department of Education and Humanities, where she worked with John Barton to co-produce “Playing Shakespeare, USA” among presenting major artists for the first time at BAM, including Mary Zimmerman and Rennie Harris. After BAM, Jayme founded Koszyn & Company as a way to help NYC nonprofits after 9/11. In addition to writing, with John Rockwell and Philip Lopate, the Theater Library award-winning book BAM: The Complete Works, her articles on fundraising have appeared in Crain's and other non-profit periodicals; the Koszyn & Company’s lecture series, “The Moral Meaning of the Pandemic,” which took place in 2020-2021, drew the country’s top fundraisers and theater artists. Koszyn & Company has, since its founding, yielded nearly half a billion dollars for its over 135 clients in many sectors of the non profit world, most specifically in the arts and higher education, and Jayme was named Crain’s New York Notable Consultant four years in a row. In 2022, she was nominated for Crain’s New York’s Powerful Women. Jayme is a member of SDC, the directors’ and choreographers’ union. Rob Fields is a strategist who connects people, art, and ideas through marketing, cultural strategy, and art advising. He developed his approach to brand-building and marketing-informed leadership over a 30+ year career that includes leading cultural institutions, representing artists, producing events, doing PR, and working on account teams at several New York City marketing agencies and trade associations. He is the former director of the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. Prior to Sugar Hill, Rob was the president and executive director of Weeksville Heritage Center, and led that organization’s turnaround and secured its designation as the first new member of the NYC Cultural Institutions Group in over 20 years. From 2007-2017, Rob published Bold As Love, an online magazine that covered left-of-center music and culture. In 2011, he produced the NBI Festival, a TED-inspired celebration of the Black people and ideas that are driving culture forward. Over the course of his career, he’s been a marketer for big brands, cultural institutions, and indie artists; a cultural programmer; and has written about the connection between marketing, business, and contemporary culture for Forbes.com and the Huffington Post, among the several outlets where his work has been published. He can be reached at robfields.com or @robfields on X, IG and Threads. Photo credits: David Levine. Photo courtesy of the panelist. Hillary Miller. Photo courtesy of the panelist. Rob Fields. Photo courtesy of Bridgett M. Davis. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL presents Going Beige at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Going Beige LESLIE CUYJET + KAREN KANDEL 5:30-6:20 pm Friday, October 18, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall RSVP Performing artists Leslie Cuyjet and Karen Kandel sit down for the first time to speak about their experiences, forming the start of a collaboration of a potential project. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Photo: Maria Baranova Karen Kandel is a cultural worker, mentor, performer, writer, and a co-Artistic Director of NYC based theater company, Mabou Mines. Leslie Cuyjet is a performer, artist, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. More information at lesliecuyjet.com Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 18, Fall, 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage The Grec Festival 2023 By Anton Pujol Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF As it does every July, the Grec Festival arrived in Barcelona, but offering more shows than ever before. Over the course of just one month, across various venues around the city, the Grec Festival presented over 90 shows, encompassing all genres and catering to all audiences. The 47 th edition of the festival had a unique opening this year. In celebration of the 200 th anniversary of Passeig de Gràcia, the emblematic Modernist thoroughfare in the middle of the city, the Festival extended an invitation to the French group “Les Traceurs.” Under the direction of Rachid Ouramadne, the tightrope walker Nathan Paulin crossed Plaça Catalunya en route to the Generali building at the corner of Passeig de Gràcia and Gran Via, another major artery of the city. Nathan Paulin accomplished a remarkable feat by walking a 350-meter tightrope back and forth, suspended at a height of 70 meters. What made this performance even more captivating was that the spectators below could hear Paulin's thoughts being broadcasted. This unique addition allowed the audience to feel the nervousness and danger that the artist was experiencing in real-time. The spectacular opening served as a promising prelude to the successes that followed. Francesc Casadesús, the Festival's director, reported impressive statistics, with a 72% occupancy rate translating to over 130,000 spectators. Here is a recap of some of the highlights the Festival had to offer. The Australian cirque company, Gravity & Other Myths, had the honor of officially opening the Festival with their performance, The Pulse . Directed by Darcy Grant and featuring music by Ekrem Eli Phoenix, this Adelaide-based troupe collaborated with the Women's Chorus of the Orfeó Català. While the 24 acrobat-dancers constructed impressive human towers in various patterns, threw themselves into the air and onto the floor with mesmerizing fearlessness, and presented unforgettable tableaux, the 36-woman choir provided an eerie a cappella counterpoint to the company's death-defying acts. While The Pulse was undoubtedly a group effort, there were two standout moments that deserve special mention. On the musical side, Buia Reixach, the chorus conductor, delivered a solo performance, singing in perfect harmony with individual dancers' routines, creating an ideal fusion of music and movement. Another highlight was the solo by Dylan Phillips whose body contorted, tumbled, and bent to seemingly impossible degrees. With a runtime of just seventy minutes, the show also incorporated some clever and humorous moments. For instance, there was the 'human piano,' where the circus troupe arranged themselves in a semi-circle, and each emitted a grunt in various tones when one of the dancers stepped on their abdominals. Another noteworthy element was the exceptional lighting design by Geoff Cobham. It served as a unifying and indispensable component, introducing visual effects that enhanced the drama of the performance and seamlessly complemented the expansive open-space venue. The Pulse . Photo: Dancy Grant. Dance has always been at the heart of the Grec Festival, and this year was no exception, featuring several outstanding performances. Vessel is the culmination of a collaboration that began in 2015 between Belgo-French choreographer Damien Jalet and Japanese visual artist Kohei Nawa. The performance begins on a pitch-black stage, and slowly, light begins to filter in. At first, the audience cannot discern what lies on the stage. Gradually, a white platform, reminiscent of an ice cap or a lunar surface, emerges from the darkness, surrounded by water. This striking centerpiece is encircled by three dense, quarry-like sculptures that, upon closer examination, reveal themselves to be composed of human bodies. These performers then begin to untangle themselves, slowly moving onto the shallow black pool that forms the stage floor. Throughout the performance, the dancers maintain a unique posture, with their arms positioned over the back of their heads, concealing their faces from the view of the audience. The performance creates a striking and disorienting effect, intensified by the reflection in the water, which keeps the audience from fully grasping the unfolding events. At times, the contorted bodies take on an otherworldly quality, resembling aliens, monsters, or creatures not yet fully human. This ambiguity persists until the end when, standing on this island-like platform, they extract a thick, white, and pasty liquid from the floor, pouring it over themselves. This act raises further questions about the nature of these enigmatic beings. Numerous hypotheses abound regarding the meaning of it all, ranging from the beginning or ending of the world to the existence of a parallel reality. Yet, meaning remains elusive, for as their bodies transform, so does our comprehension of the performance. Vessel is a truly hypnotic and captivating display that swiftly became one of the Festival's highlights even in such a dance-heavy program. Vessel . Photo: Yoshikazu Inoue. The dance troupe, Mal Pelo, presented Double Infinite: The Bluebird Call at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. Since its inception in 1989, Mal Pelo has emerged as a significant presence among Catalan and Spanish dance companies, boasting a portfolio of over thirty productions. In this showcase, the company's leaders, María Muñoz and Pep Ramis, graced the stage alongside three talented musicians: Quiteria Muñoz (soprano), Joel Bardolet (violin), and Bruno Hurtado (cello). The performance is structured around two dance monologues followed by a final duet: first, Muñoz, then Ramis, and finally, the two together. The stage is framed by colossal screens displaying black-and-white images of snow-covered forests—a desolate landscape that mirrors the unfolding narrative on stage. Muñoz initiates her solo performance with a discussion of longing, seamlessly transitioning into dance. It is remarkable to witness choreography designed for mature bodies, where Muñoz and Ramis skillfully incorporate the passage of time into their movements, crafting an arc of yearning that is both exquisite and profoundly moving. The concluding segment, The Bluebird Call , incorporates a poem by Bukowski (“there's a bluebird in my heart that/wants to get out/but I'm too tough for him,/I say, stay in there, I'm not going/to let anybody see/you”). While the ending takes on a more playful tone, Muñoz and Ramis guide the audience through a beautiful journey of recollection—technically impressive and achingly beautiful. It feels less like an ending and more like the start of something new and captivating. Rocío Molina, one of the most revered dancers in Spain, is known for infusing flamenco with a contemporary twist, revolutionizing this millennia-old art form. Her show, titled Carnación , alludes to the process of adding color to flesh in painting to make it appear more authentic, a metaphorical journey that unfolds on stage. She begins the performance in a stunning, vibrant pink chiffon dress. Molina climbs onto the back of a chair and violently drops herself multiple times, foreshadowing her rejection of conventional paradigms imposed on young women, regardless of how hard they might try to conform. It is evident that her interpretation and execution of flamenco defy its traditional rigidity, which may not sit well with purists of the art form. Soon, this doll-like figure sheds not only her dress but also her physical body and even her soul, with the assistance of Niño de Elche, another prominent singer in the world of contemporary flamenco. To describe her performance as 'raw' would be an understatement, as her physical metamorphosis transcends anything witnessed on stage before. While at times she dances solo, her body is often entwined with her partner's and that of Maureen Choi, a violinist who gracefully traverses the scene. Pain becomes the shared theme in their entanglements—they struggle against one another, vying for space and presence, as if asserting dominance over the other is the only means of survival. Yet, they ultimately converge in a spatial union where their diverse bodies can coexist. Towards the finale, Molina binds her body with ropes, drawing from the Japanese tradition of Shibari, which has applications ranging from torture to bondage and sexual pleasure. Molina's flesh is tightly bound; her ponytail is even tied to her toe. Her breasts, limbs, and body teeter on the brink of physical exhaustion, all the while undergoing a transformation in color before our very eyes. It is a personal ecstasy and a distinctive triumph that she achieves. Rocío Molina and Niño de Elche in Carnación . Photo: Simone Fratini. La Veronal needs no introduction. Directed by the wunderkind Marcos Morau, this company stands among the most sought-after dance troupes worldwide. The world premiere of Firmamento was a standout event at the Festival, although it did not receive the same ecstatic critical acclaim as their previous works, Opening Night (2022) or Sonoma (2020). Morau explained that their new piece was crafted with younger audiences in mind, particularly adolescents whose worlds are on the brink of significant personal and societal changes. As always, the technical aspects were impeccable. Max Glanzel (scenic design), Bernat Jansà (lighting design), and Juan Cristóbal Saavedra (sound design and music) created three distinct settings for the performance. The first part unfolded in a music studio, followed by a segment featuring a cartoon on a cinema screen. Eventually, the cinema screen revealed a stage for the final act. Deliberately, it seemed, the audience was left in a state of partial comprehension. Was it a dream or a chaotically reconstructed memory? Morau artfully incorporated a wide array of intertextual references borrowed from various genres, spanning cinema to Japanese anime, puppets, toys, and fragments of multilingual texts and songs. This mosaic reflected the intricate workings of a young person's mind—a delightful clutter that everyone must sort through before moving forward, though this is merely conjecture. What truly shines, however, is the whimsical imagination of La Veronal and the unwavering commitment of its dancers to continually push the boundaries of what the arts can achieve. Circus is another staple at the Grec. This year, two shows quickly became the critics’ and audiences’ favorites: L’absolu (The Absolute) and Sono Io? (Is It Me?) Created and performed by Boris Gibé, L’absolu was the perfect combination of space and spectacle. The performance takes place inside a towering silo, standing at an impressive twelve meters in height and with a diameter of nine meters. Audience members ascend the cylindrical tower and arrange themselves along its wall in a spiral configuration, leaving the central space free for the performer. Gibé leads the audience on a vertiginous and exceedingly perilous journey through the four elements. As the performance commences in complete darkness, the rumble of a storm fills the air, and at the very top of the tower, faint glimpses of plastic and soon human appendages emerge. The womb-like structure ruptures, and Gibé descends, secured by a rope. Further into the performance, at the tower's base, he appears to be swallowed by quicksand, sets himself on fire, and in the final segment, he blindfolds himself and ascends the cylindrical tower with minimal protection until he ultimately vanishes. Gibé's daring feats sharply contrast with the highly poetic and existential essence of the performance. The numerous allusions to Greek mythology (including Narcissus, Prometheus, and Oedipus), the strenuous struggle to free himself from the elements, and his eventual triumph all serve to question the inherent fragility of humanity. The audience is continually engaged in a seemingly futile pursuit to find significance. Circus Ronaldo came back to the Grec after a six-year absence with Sono Io? Danny and Pepijn Ronaldo wrote and performed this autobiographical show about fathers and sons, the passing of time, and intergenerational conflicts. The performance begins with Danny, seated alone in a bathtub, playing recordings of his past successes on a tape recorder. The setting paints a clear picture that his triumphs are now a distant memory. His son arrives after what appears to be a prolonged separation, sparking a friendly competition between the two. It becomes evident that the father can no longer execute his usual tricks, but his son, unbeknownst to the elder Ronaldo, secretly assists him in completing them. Simultaneously, the son attempts to showcase his own new set of tricks, but his father persistently undermines him, reminding him of the traditional ways practiced by the Ronaldo family for seven generations. This playful banter and rivalry weave through a series of astonishing classic circus performances. As the back-and-forth continues, the son ultimately takes center stage, unveiling his unique brand of circus artistry to the astonishment of both his father and the captivated audience. The show's narrative simplicity, emotionally charged conclusion, and its profound love for a profession that seems to be fading away culminate in a perfect evening, leaving the audience thoroughly enthralled and appreciative. Danny and Pepijn Ronaldo in Sono Io? Photo: Festival Grec. María Goiricelaya gained national prominence through her daring staging and widely acclaimed production of García Lorca's Yerma in 2021, performed both in Basque and Spanish. In 2022, in collaboration with Ane Pikaza, she ventured into the realm of documentary theatre with La dramática errante (The Wandering Theatre Troupe) as part of the Altsasu project. This project was a part of “Cicatrizar: dramaturgias para nunca más” (“Healing Wounds: Dramaturgies for Never Again”), led by José Sanchís Sinisterra and Carlos José Reyes for Nuevo Teatro Fronterizo. The initiative aimed to present five plays from Spain and five from Colombia, addressing issues related to Historical Memory—a topic of great controversy in Spain. Goiricelaya's work dramatizes the events that unfolded in the small town of Altsasu on October 15, 2016. At approximately five in the morning, a bar brawl occurred between a group of young Basque separatists and two off-duty Guardia Civiles (members of the Civil Guard, Spain’s rural police force). The altercation resulted in one of the police officers sustaining a fractured ankle. Initially, local authorities regarded the case as a typical alcohol-fueled altercation, not attaching significant importance to it. However, a few days later, the prosecution, acting on direct orders from Madrid and under pressure from right-wing parties and associations, reclassified the case as an act of "terrorism." The prosecution initially sought a 62-year prison sentence for one of the accused and 50 years for the other seven. Ultimately, these young men received disproportionately harsh sentences, ranging from three to nine years in jail. Crucially, the prosecution disallowed the use of footage from the fight, early statements made by the participants, and other key evidence. Goiricelaya presents both perspectives as objectively as possible, incorporating footage, depositions, and media interviews from all sides. However, the inconsistent verdict and several questionable episodes of misconduct during the trial procedures lead the audience to sympathize with the accused. With only a cast of four actors, two men and two women, the director and adapter narrate the story based on all the available information about the case. The actors take on multiple roles, with the two male actors seamlessly switching between playing the accused and the police officers simply by donning or removing a jacket. Towards the conclusion, Goiricelaya interweaves the regional tradition of “Momotxorroak,” which occurs during Carnivals and had been banned for over forty years. In this tradition, townspeople dress up as animals and smear their bodies with animal blood. The Altsasu case bears a resemblance to another significant legal drama portrayed by Jordi Casanovas in Jauría (2019), where Spanish Justice ultimately emerges as a flawed, antiquated, and ideologically influenced institution. Carolina Bianchi, a Brazilian playwright and performer, along with her company Cara de Cavalo, brought a highly controversial show to the Grec Festival. Her production, titled A Noiva e o Boa Noite Cinderela (The Bride and The Goodnight Cinderella) , serves as the inaugural chapter of her trilogy Cadela Força (Strong Bitch) . The show is characterized by two markedly contrasting parts that present the topic of rape in an unconventional and deeply unsettling manner. In the first segment, Bianchi herself addresses the audience, issuing a warning about what we are about to witness. She reveals that she was a victim of rape after being drugged with a date rape substance known as 'the goodnight Cinderella.' On stage, she prepares the drug and consumes it, acknowledging that she may lose consciousness before completing the first part of the performance. She assures us that her company is prepared to step in at any moment. Bianchi proceeds to read from a stack of papers, delivering a text that could easily pass as an academic conference paper. Her discourse commences with quotes from the initial verses of Dante's Inferno , showcases paintings by Botticelli, and delves into the significance of performance artists such as Marina Abramović, Ana Mendieta, and, notably, Pippa Bacca (1974-2008), an Italian performance artist renowned for her project “Brides on Tour.” Bacca, perpetually adorned in a wedding dress, embarked on a hitchhiking journey from Milan to Jerusalem, consistently accepting rides regardless of the circumstances. Regrettably, Bacca's expedition ended tragically when she was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in a town in Turkey. Before she loses consciousness, Bianchi utilizes Bacca's narrative to delve into the entrenched issues of rape and femicide within Western society. As she collapses, completely unconscious, her company members carefully relocate her to the side of the stage. In the second part of the performance, the company members engage in suggestive dancing, sing songs inside a car that later crashes, and share horrifying stories about rape in Brazil. One such story involves a soccer star who murdered his pregnant lover, subsequently feeding her remains to his dogs. Shockingly, this soccer star was later reinstated in his club, as if the heinous act had never occurred. Bianchi also invokes Roberto Bolaño's renowned chapter in 2666 , which addresses the ongoing femicides in Santa Teresa (a stand-in for Ciudad Juárez). The audience finds itself immersed in Bianchi's personal hell, and while it becomes challenging to discern specific actions on stage, one is undeniably witnessing sheer horror. However, Bianchi refuses to grant us respite. Toward the end of the play, two of her company members place her at the center stage, undress her, and insert a small camera into her vagina. A giant screen suspended above her slumbering body then meticulously reveals the actual space where the rape occurred—the precise location where the trauma began, creating wounds that can never truly heal. The phrase “No act of catharsis overcomes the damage” appears repeatedly on various screens, highlighting an unfortunate truth. As the lengthy performance reaches its conclusion, the effects of the drug wane, and a member of her company assists her in waking up. Yet, she remains silent. The audience is left to contemplate whether it was necessary to present such a vivid account of her story and whether reliving her ordeal with each performance is healthy. This production undeniably leaves a profound impact on its audience, the kind of play that lingers in one's thoughts long after the curtain falls. Carolina Bianchi in A Noiva e o Boa Noite Cinderela . Photo: Christophe Raynaud de Lage. Experimental theatre held a significant place within the Grec Festival's diverse program. Often challenging conventional definitions, experimental theatre frequently thrives in festivals like these, where artists are invited to push the boundaries, blend genres, and challenge preconceived notions of what art and theatre should be. Works such as Riding on a Cloud by Rabih Mroué, One Night at the Golden Bar by Alberto Cortés, and Love to Death (Amor a la Muerte) by Lemi Ponifasio were prime examples of this trend, which the Grec sometimes categorizes as “Hybrid Scene.” Two of Spain's leading theatre companies also presented their new works. Una Illa by Agrupación Señor Serrano brought artificial intelligence (AI) to the forefront. Creators and directors Àlex Serrano and Pau Palacios embarked on an exploration of what a play generated by AI would look like. They allowed AI to generate text, music, images, and voices to shape the performance. The narrative commences simply enough, with a young woman engaging in a conversation with an AI device while practicing yoga. This seemingly mundane dialogue sets in motion a series of vivid yet lengthy scenes. The journey unfolds through a progression of pseudo-classical paintings, morphing lamps that transform into faces, and ultimately culminates with a group of young people dancing inside a large balloon until their escape. Upon reflection, after the extensive performance, it becomes apparent that the play created by AI, while visually captivating, falls short in terms of quality. Perhaps, in the end, this was the intended message all along—a commentary on the limitations of AI-generated art. Cabosanroque, an experimental group founded by Laia Torrents Carulla and Roger Aixut Sampietro, presented a trilogy of exhibits under the title of “A Trilogy of Expanded Theatre.” The works included are: No em va fer Joan Brossa (Joan Brossa Did Not Create Me), Dimonis (Demons) , and Flors i viatges (Flowers and Journeys) where they explore a particular aspect of Joan Brossa, Jacint Verdaguer, and Mercè Rodoreda; three influential artists in Catalan culture. Among the exhibits featured at the Grec Festival, only the one dedicated to Rodoreda was entirely new to the city; the other two had been previously presented in different editions. It is worth noting that the professional backgrounds of Torrents Carulla and Aixut lack any theatrical pedigree; one is an industrial engineer, and the other is an architect. However, their immersive installations are undeniably rooted in theatrical conventions, which they manipulate not merely to craft a dramaturgy or storyline but to evoke profound sensations. In each exhibit, designed for a limited audience of 15-20 people and featuring distinctive themes, viewers are invited to immerse themselves in the author's universe. In their Rodoreda exhibit, participants are seated on low stools, surrounded by screens and other enigmatic objects. On these screens, ten Ukrainian war refugee women read passages from Svetlana Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War (1983) and Last Witnesses (1985), while fragments from Rodoreda's literary works resonate in the background read by Mónica López. Beneath the screens, mounds of soil undulate, resembling the rhythmic breath of the earth, or perhaps concealing the bodies of soldiers whose harrowing stories the women recount. The exhibit holds more surprises in store, ultimately submerging the audience in a sea of laser lights and fog, leaving them with a profound sense of melancholy and sadness. One of the last plays to open was also one of the best offerings of the Festival. Alberto Conejero’s En mitad de tanto fuego (Amidst So Much Fire) premiered at the Sala Beckett. Conejero draws inspiration from the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles in Homer's Iliad , transforming it into a poignant and passionate monologue that brings the often-overlooked Patroclus to the forefront. In the program notes, the playwright emphasizes that his interpretation is neither an adaptation nor a reimagining of Homer's text. Instead, it represents a deeply personal and intimate exploration of a story that has captivated him since his youth. Conejero avoids the usual euphemisms surrounding the relationship between the two warriors and places Patroclus, portrayed by the almost-possessed Rubén de Eguía, squarely in the throes of an intense and genuine love for Achilles. Clad in jeans and a plain t-shirt, Patroclus emerges as a man profoundly devoted to his lover, even in the face of his impending demise. Conejero's poetic text serves as a beautiful ode to unabashed love, which Eguía delivers as though it were an integral part of his being. Eguía's tour de force performance and Conejero's compelling and heart-wrenching text find exquisite balance under the direction of Xavier Albertí. Albertí, who also collaborated on the lighting design with Toni Ubach, effectively utilizes the unconventional space of the upstairs theater at Sala Beckett, an expansive hall with undulating walls, and guides Conejero’s text as if it were an aria, with its peaks and valleys, modulating every phrase as if they were sublime notes on a pentagram. Eguía positions himself squarely in front of the audience, engaging us with gestures and emotions that span from rage and anger to inner fortitude and, occasionally, serenity. He embodies a man teetering on the edge, driven by the need to share his version and have his voice heard, however painful it might be, before Hector enters and kills him. Throughout the play, a clever lighting design casts Eguía's formidable shadow on the worn walls, creating the illusion of a dialogue transpiring on stage—a simple yet highly impactful device. As the monologue delves into the horrors of war, Patroclus does not merely recount his own war experiences; he transcends them to address the perpetual backdrop of warfare in human history. This backdrop always leaves behind countless innocent victims, silenced and unable to share their stories. However, thanks to the effective combination of Conejero's text, Albertí's meticulous direction, and Eguía's compelling performance, Patroclus emerges from the shadows of a secondary character. He takes center stage, becomes the focal point and he is finally able to articulate his side of the story. This extraordinary play is destined to be performed and celebrated for years to come. Ruben de Eguía as Patroclus in En mitad de tanto fuego . Photo: Sala Beckett. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Anton Pujol is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He graduated from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and he later earned a Ph.D. at the University of Kansas in Spanish Literature. He also holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, with a focus in economics and international finance. He has recently published articles in Translation Review , Catalan Review, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea and Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, among others. His translation of Don Mee Choi’s DMZ Colony (National Book Awards 2020 for Poetry) will be published by Raig Verd in 2022. Currently, he serves as dramaturg for the Mabou Mines company opera adaptation of Cunillé’s play Barcelona, mapa d’ombres directed and adapted by Mallory Catlett with a musical score by Mika Karlsson. European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Report from London (December 2022) Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 “Regietheater:” two cases The Grec Festival 2023 The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Report from Germany Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

No Visa Productions presents: Fire / Escape Written / Directed / Produced by Michal Gamily Co written by Lizi Sagie Composed and sound designed by John Sully Dramaturg: Begum Inal Performers: Marina Celander, Michal Gamily, Onni Johnson, Valois Mickens, John Sully, Jane Catherine Shaw, Marybeth Ward, George Drance Fire / Escape is a play about hummus, impossible love, and a donkey, using elements of a Greek tragedy such as: a chorus, and three goddesses of faith who are embroidering the narrative — literally and figuratively. It is a story about an emergency, a wakeup call, happening during a global emergency. The play tells the story of M, an actress and single mother, during the first few months of Covid as she is trying to adjust to the new reality in her beloved abandoned city. M starts making homemade hummus, and selling it from her fire escape. Simultaneously, she is trying to find a way to help "Him”, who has gotten stuck far away from his home, just as his health is declining. Her ongoing efforts to help reflect the nature of their troubled, unbalanced relationship throughout the years, and take M on a journey down memory lane, and self reckoning. Sirens are present throughout as a character song cycle to address the nostalgic quality of the story. There are stories within stories and repeating melodies, and rhythms, presented in different musical contexts. There are references throughout the story to classical film and plays. Fire / Escape is a play designated to be performed outdoors on a fire escape of a multi-story building. It was written based on the limitations, obstacles, and advantages of the specific structure. Fire / Escape is presented in association with Rod Rodgers Dance Company, and La MaMa ETC, with support from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Center. Fire / Escape is a part of the Segal Center's Prelude Festival 2023 PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Fire / Escape (Work In Progress) Michal Gamily/ No Visa Production Theater English, Arabic 60 minutes 5:30PM EST Saturday, October 21, 2023 La MaMa ETC 74a E 4th Street New York, NY 10003 United States Register for Free / Donate (Please note this is a work in progress / performed rehearsal) No Visa Productions presents: Fire / Escape Written / Directed / Produced by Michal Gamily Co written by Lizi Sagie Composed and sound designed by John Sully Dramaturg: Begum Inal Performers: Marina Celander, Michal Gamily, Onni Johnson, Valois Mickens, John Sully, Jane Catherine Shaw, Marybeth Ward, George Drance Fire / Escape is a play about hummus, impossible love, and a donkey, using elements of a Greek tragedy such as: a chorus, and three goddesses of faith who are embroidering the narrative — literally and figuratively. It is a story about an emergency, a wakeup call, happening during a global emergency. The play tells the story of M, an actress and single mother, during the first few months of Covid as she is trying to adjust to the new reality in her beloved abandoned city. M starts making homemade hummus, and selling it from her fire escape. Simultaneously, she is trying to find a way to help "Him”, who has gotten stuck far away from his home, just as his health is declining. Her ongoing efforts to help reflect the nature of their troubled, unbalanced relationship throughout the years, and take M on a journey down memory lane, and self reckoning. Sirens are present throughout as a character song cycle to address the nostalgic quality of the story. There are stories within stories and repeating melodies, and rhythms, presented in different musical contexts. There are references throughout the story to classical film and plays. Fire / Escape is a play designated to be performed outdoors on a fire escape of a multi-story building. It was written based on the limitations, obstacles, and advantages of the specific structure. Fire / Escape is presented in association with Rod Rodgers Dance Company, and La MaMa ETC, with support from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Center. Fire / Escape is a part of the Segal Center's Prelude Festival 2023 No Visa Production in association with Rod Rodgers Dance Company and La MaMa ETC. LMCC grant Content / Trigger Description: No Visa Productions presents: Fire / Escape Written / Directed / Produced by Michal Gamily Co written by Lizi Sagie Composed and sound designed by John Sully Dramaturg: Begum Inal Performers: Marina Celander, Michal Gamily, Onni Johnson, Valois Mickens, John Sully, Jane Catherine Shaw, Marybeth Ward, George Drance Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

The Exponential Festival is beginning its ninth-anniversary season with an intimate evening of artist-on-artist interviews to take place Tuesday, October 17th at 7pm at Brick Aux (628 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211). Founding Artistic Director Theresa Buchheister and Producing Director Nic Adams will introduce the hour-long event, which will feature interviews with David Greenspan, Marissa Joyce Stamps, Ben Holbrook, Lena Engelstein, SB Tennent, Cameron Stuart, Sleth Larson, and Tristan Allen! Join us for an evening of retrospection, artistic conundrums, and a dispatch from the heart of the enduring contemporary performance community. Streamed live on HowlRound (info coming soon) PRELUDE Festival 2023 PANEL Exponential Festival David Greenspan, Marissa Joyce Stamps, Ben Holbrook, SB Tennent, Cameron Stuart, Sleth Larson, Tristan Allen, Lena Engelstein Discussion English 60 minutes 7:00PM EST Tuesday, October 17, 2023 Brick Aux, 628 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All The Exponential Festival is beginning its ninth-anniversary season with an intimate evening of artist-on-artist interviews to take place Tuesday, October 17th at 7pm at Brick Aux (628 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211). Founding Artistic Director Theresa Buchheister and Producing Director Nic Adams will introduce the hour-long event, which will feature interviews with David Greenspan, Marissa Joyce Stamps, Ben Holbrook, Lena Engelstein, SB Tennent, Cameron Stuart, Sleth Larson, and Tristan Allen! Join us for an evening of retrospection, artistic conundrums, and a dispatch from the heart of the enduring contemporary performance community. Streamed live on HowlRound (info coming soon) Content / Trigger Description: Ben Holbrook is a Brooklyn-based (originally from NC) playwright and filmmaker whose works have been produced, developed, or commissioned by: Fundamental Theater Project, Ruddy Productions, The New York International Fringe Festival, The Memphis Fringe Festival, The Motor Company, Voices of the South (TN), Ugly Rhino(LA), Seoul Players (SK), Holiday House, Find the Light (LA), The Irish Arts Council, and Paper Lantern Theatre Company (NC). He’s been awarded the Edward Albee Foundation fellowship, the Drama League Rough Draft Residency (partnering with Sam Underwood), Fresh Ground Pepper’s Playground Playgroup Residency, The New Concepts Theatre Lab at UNC-Greensboro, Magic Time at Judson Church. He is the inaugural recipient of the Peter Shaffer Award for Excellence in Playwriting and a winner of the 47th Samuel French OOB Festival. Cameron Stuart is a writer, composer, and performer. He self-produces his performance art as No-Brow Theater Company, which was formerly known as Saints of an Unnamed Country. With several friends, Cameron opened and managed The Glove, a DIY performance space located in Bushwick. The Glove was a participating venue in the Exponential Festival, which Cameron co-produced from 2017–2022. His plays Police in the Wilderness (published by A Freedom Books) and Germany, 1933 were part of the Exponential Festival in 2017 and 2020, respectively. Other works by Cameron have been presented at diverse venues and institutions, including: MoMA's PS1, JACK, The Brick, Vital Joint, Silent Barn, Secret Project Robot, and Tomato Mouse, among others. Born in Florida, Cameron now lives in Queens, NY. David Greenspan will return to The Brick in February for the remounting of Joey Merlo’s solo play, On Set With Theda Bara - originally presented in The 2023 Exponential Festival. He has appeared in his own plays, performed solo renditions of dramatic and non-dramatic texts and worked with many contemporary playwrights. Honors include a RUTHIE and six OBIES. Lena Engelstein is a Brooklyn based choreographer and performer. Since 2021, she has co-created and performed a series of duets– the first with performance artist Magda San Millan; the second with dancer Jo Warren. She has collaborated with and performed in work by director Lisa Fagan since 2017, and is currently the assistant choreographer/performer in the interdisciplinary performance collective CHILD. Other performance credits include: Third Rail Company’s Then She Fell, Falcon Dance, Brendan Drake, and work by Barnett Cohen, Alexa West, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, and Chafin Seymour. As a movement director, Engelstein has worked with the bands Lou Tides and Pleaser, comedian Sophie Zucker, and dance artist Nora Alami. She has taught at SUNY Brockport, Bard College, The Field Center, and Colorado Mesa University. Lena holds a B.A. in Mathematics and a minor in Dance from Colorado College. Marissa Joyce Stamps is a Black, Haitian-American, NYC-based Afrosurreal artist + educator. She’s the recipient of the 2023 Princess Grace Playwriting Award, a member of Clubbed Thumb 2023-2024 Early-Career Writers’ Group, a Fall 2023 Mercury Store Lead Artist, a New Georges Affiliate Artist, and was named a Finalist for The National Black Theatre's 2023 I AM SOUL Playwrights Residency. Recent: …Twisted Juniper (2022 O’Neill Finalist), Being Up in Here… (Exponential Festival 2024; Princess Grace Award 2023; Brick Aux 2022), Blue Fire… (Exponential Festival 2022; Orchard Project 2021), Letiche… (Bushwick Starr SRS 2023), + deadbodydeadbodydeadbody (Ars Nova ANT Fest 2022). She’s collaborated with The Public, 24 Hour Plays, Fire This Time, Conch Shell Productions, Moxie Arts, The Anthropologists, Keen, BUFU, + more. Marissa serves as Literary Manager at The Workshop Theater. MFA Playwriting: Brooklyn College. Marissajoycestamps.com Sanaz Bita (SB) Tennent is an Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist & director of new works, musicals, and classics. Described as having a “deft directorial touch” (Culturebot), she has developed work with New York Theatre Workshop, Ars Nova, The Drama League, Clubbed Thumb, Civilians, BRIC Arts | Media, Mabou Mines, The TEAM, New Georges, Red House Center for Culture & Debate in Bulgaria, Prague Film & Theater Center, and others. Alumni of the Drama League Directors Project, NYTW 2050 Fellowship, Clubbed Thumb Fellowship, and Mabou Mines SUITE/Space Initiative. Artistic Director of the award-winning collective Built4Collapse with whom they devised NUCLEAR LOVE AFFAIR, which played to sold out houses in NYC, Prague, Rome and Krakow. @sbtennent A hardworking gemini with mischievous but kind eyes, Sleth (he/she) was sliced from the belly of a drowned Texas river horse sometime around June 1990. Sleth is a playwright, PowerPoint artist, projection designer and nightlife performer. She has enlightened audiences all across NYC including House of Yes, Three Dollar Bill, the Brick Theater, NYC Inferno, Club Cumming, Bartschland Follies and Play Now! Tristan Allen is a composer and puppeteer based in Brooklyn, NY. Tristan’s work employs the narrative power of instrumental music and puppetry to create an imaginary world. With a background in piano, bass, electronic music, and marionette theater, Tristan applies an experimental mode of storytelling to create rich works of wordless fantasy. Tristan’s ambitions to combine their music with puppetry is underway, beginning with a shadow puppet symphony named Tin Iso and the Dawn. Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

STANDING ON THE UNSEEN SPIRALS OF THE VORTEX embodies an intricate symphony of eras colliding. In the performance, human operators orchestrate an amalgamation of AI-generated content and analog instruments live onstage. Through the warmth of 16mm film projections, the audience witnesses AI-derived imagery of people who do not exist, engaging in acts that never happened. Under the hauntingly nostalgic hum of reel-to-reel tape players, voices that have been synthesized into existence, speak in familiar tones that are oddly reminiscent of many influential artists of the past and present. Through an equal embrace of bleeding-edge AI technology and outdated analog equipment, the performance partakes in a dialogue between the past, the present, and the specter of our future as creative beings, reminding us that even as technology advances, certain foundational truths persist across time. As the performers navigate this complex convergence in real-time, the stage becomes a canvas where eras seamlessly collide, inviting us to consider the legacy of the past, the potential of the future, and the unchanging core of creative expression that binds them together. STANDING ON THE UNSEEN SPIRALS OF THE VORTEX is a multidimensional experience that invites us to reflect on our own place within the ever-evolving landscape of art and technology. It is a meditation on the cyclical nature of creation, the ever-receding ephemerality of all trends, and the timeless truths that endure. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE STANDING ON THE UNSEEN SPIRALS OF THE VORTEX Temporary Distortion Theater, Discussion, Film, Multimedia, Music, Performance Art, Other English 20 mins 5:30PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All STANDING ON THE UNSEEN SPIRALS OF THE VORTEX embodies an intricate symphony of eras colliding. In the performance, human operators orchestrate an amalgamation of AI-generated content and analog instruments live onstage. Through the warmth of 16mm film projections, the audience witnesses AI-derived imagery of people who do not exist, engaging in acts that never happened. Under the hauntingly nostalgic hum of reel-to-reel tape players, voices that have been synthesized into existence, speak in familiar tones that are oddly reminiscent of many influential artists of the past and present. Through an equal embrace of bleeding-edge AI technology and outdated analog equipment, the performance partakes in a dialogue between the past, the present, and the specter of our future as creative beings, reminding us that even as technology advances, certain foundational truths persist across time. As the performers navigate this complex convergence in real-time, the stage becomes a canvas where eras seamlessly collide, inviting us to consider the legacy of the past, the potential of the future, and the unchanging core of creative expression that binds them together. STANDING ON THE UNSEEN SPIRALS OF THE VORTEX is a multidimensional experience that invites us to reflect on our own place within the ever-evolving landscape of art and technology. It is a meditation on the cyclical nature of creation, the ever-receding ephemerality of all trends, and the timeless truths that endure. This work is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature and is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Content / Trigger Description: Named one of the “Best New York Theater companies” by TimeOut NY Magazine, Temporary Distortion continually work across disciplines to create performances, installations, films, albums, and works for the stage that have been shown in over 25 cities in Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States. Their work occupies the gray space between the “black box” of the theatre and the “white cube” of the art gallery, where they explore the tensions and overlaps existing between the practices of theatre, cinema, music, and media art. The company has maintained its roots in the East Village as an invested stakeholder in the local arts community for over 20 years. https://www.temporarydistortion.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

European Stages serves as an inclusive English-language journal, providing a detailed perspective on the unfolding narrative of contemporary European theatre since 1969. Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back European Stages 18, Fall, 2023 Volume Visit Journal Homepage Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete By Ion M. Tomuș Published: November 26, 2023 Download Article as PDF The poetry recital in the Romanian performing arts landscape holds a special position which needs to be described in its general coordinates. First, before 1990 and the fall of the Iron Curtain, most poetry recitals given by Romanian actors were part of the job description of those with certain visibility. The poetry recital thus became, in most cases, a job obligation and part of the Communist party's propaganda. Of course, this situation meant that the relationship between the audience and those who recited poetry benefited from a special configuration, deeply marked by the social-cultural particularities of the period between 1947 and 1990. The patriotic poems that had to be recited by the Romanian actors were part of the communist propaganda and had nothing in common with real poetry. Socialist realism was expressed in the field of poetry in topics like outstanding crops, comrades who break new records in industrial production, or ones who work on the homeland’s great construction sites and compete with those around them. There was also the category of patriotic poetry in which the image of the supreme leader of the country and of the Communist party were praised. Moreover, during the last fifteen years of the Communist regime, there was a lot of insistence on the glorification of the presidential couple through poetry, a situation that now, almost 50 years later, seems completely ridiculous. Finally, the last major trend in the recitals of patriotic poetry before 1990 was represented by the reinterpretation of some of the great classical Romanian poets in a special key that served the purposes of propaganda. For example, in the work of Mihai Eminescu (the last great European romantic poet), the same propaganda identified certain elements that could be useful for its purposes, thus an important series of themes was diverted towards these ambitions. After 1990, Romanian society and the national artistic environment found themselves in a situation of total freedom of expression, and the transition was very sudden. The situation was similar in the whole of Eastern Europe and this new freedom was rather difficult for coping with not only for the artists but for the whole society. The world of theatre rightly tried to detach itself from the traumas during the Communist regime and establish a safe distance from the unfortunate clichés of the past, from the procedures and means of stage expression so well established during half a century of Communist propaganda. One of the genres that lost substantial ground, though, was exactly that of poetic recital. Most prominent Romanian actors avoided it because they wanted to evade the association with an outdated way of artistic expression which was for so long diverted from the true purpose of art - that of creating stimulating emotion. Of course, there were exceptions: those who understood the importance of poetry and emotion for the general audience. Several actors did not shy away from publicly reciting true poetry (as they did before 1990), insisting on artistic truth, emotion and value: Lucia Mureșan, Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, Ion Caramitru, Valeria Seciu, Ilinca Tomoroveanu, Traian Stănescu, Constantin Chiriac, Mircea Albulescu and others. Even more than others, Constantin Chiriac, from the very beginning of his career, understood the importance of “real” poetry in a society that responds to emotion and truth. Addressing the public through poetry and, thus, serving the community – this is the solid foundation on which he built his career as an actor. It is also crucial to note that he is the author of a doctoral thesis focused precisely on the act of interpreting and reciting poetry. His thesis has become a textbook for the poetry recital technique for students and professionals in the field of performing arts. Games, Words, Crickets... Photo: Dragos Dumitru. At Radu Stanca National Theatre in Sibiu, the theatrical autumn of 2022 was marked by the opening of Games, Words, Crickets… , directed by Silviu Purcărete: a performance of poetry by Constantin Chiriac, with the support of more than a dozen of the company’s actors who performed a series of stage exercises that derived from improvisations led by the director. The text of the performance was based on fragments from a diverse and surprising selection of Romanian and international poets: Carl Sandburg, Nazim Hikmet, Serghei Esenin, William Shakespeare, Paul Verlaine, Mihai Eminescu, Marin Sorescu, Radu Stanca, and others. Silviu Purcărete is a director who has made his audience expect to see in his shows a special dynamic involving usually a group of actors on stage who are driven by the energy and emotion instigated by improvisational exercises. Gulliver's Travels, Faust, Metamorphoses and The Scarlet Princess are just a few of the performances staged by him in Sibiu in which a group of actors acquires the consistency of a real character that is in direct relationship with the central performer (or performers). The performance of the group of actors is usually accompanied by music or is itself a music generator, the stage, thus, becoming a space where Silviu Purcărete creates a functional, extremely colorful, and diverse world—a universe that works according to its own special rules where this collective (but also individualized) character evolves and develops organically in their relationship with the main performer and the particularities of the space on stage and the universe in the script. This is also the general context for Games, Words, Crickets... : At the beginning on stage there are the main elements of a naive and picturesque winter universe. The snowmen melt, the carrot used as a nose falls off, the snowbanks also melt, the birds chirp. Then the white and cold nature transforms, and comes back to life, as a sign of a new beginning. It is with this sign that the show begins because we feel a state of expectation and impatience--an emotion like that in childhood at the reawakening of spring. Gradually the group of actors breaks away from the theme of the end of winter and of the new beginning, and start an exercise of balancing several dozen glasses on top of each other, in a scenic expression of fragility and transparency and, of course, of the joy of building a spectacular foundation marked by these coordinates. Constantin Chiriac, in his first moment on stage, makes use of Carl Sandburg (the story about the king and the shah from The People, Yes ) to start a captatio benevolentiae exercise, based on the textual formula specific to telling stories: “Once upon a time...” In this way, he establishes the dramatic convention, opens the story, and initiates the magic of emotion. The script never aims to tell a story, which is a rarity for Silviu Purcărete, a director who has adapted some of the most important stories from world literature and drama: One Thousand and One Nights, Gulliver's Travels, Pantagruel , etc. This time, more than ever before, he uses the text as a pretext and the main intention is to create emotion. The protagonist of the show, Constantin Chiriac, is configured as an ordinary character in a light-colored costume, who stands out in the chromatics and the special configuration of the stage, as implemented by Dragoș Buhagiar, the set designer. Of course, the commonality of the character reciting poems is an element sought out by the director and well assumed and carried out by the actor. Through this artistic approach, the poetic text is emphasized in all its nuances and labyrinthine, deep, extremely differing substrata, both for the performer and the audience. In addition, the stage direction of the performance is extremely attentive to the means of expression of the character who recites the poems: his banality is not pushed into an existentialist zone, as is the one in which, for example, Ionesco's famous Béranger works. On the contrary, Silviu Purcărete places his actor, Constantin Chiriac, in a detached area, where the great questions raised by the text have a welcomed ludic counterpoint, assumed both by the role itself and by the group of actors on stage, who develop and continue their improvisations in parallel with the poetry in the text. Performing arts professionals know very well the fundamental difficulties related to expressing poetic texts on stage. The enunciation that reaches the audience must be precisely distilled by the performer and a truly interdisciplinary approach to the text is needed. Philology, as a field that is tangential to dramaturgy, is particularly useful in this sense, because it may offer a helpful set of theoretical tools that may help in this whole endeavor. The technique of the poetry recital requires the development of an activity that is, to a great extent, similar to that of a detective: good knowledge of all the nuances of the text and the entire work of the poet (for the best possible selection of texts), and also identification of several cores of the poetic text that will later be used by the performer and passed on to the public. In addition to all this, it is essential to establish a possible dialogue in the text that is spoken on stage, which can then be verbalized and delivered with theatrical means. This is, for example, why conceptual poetry is so difficult to recite on stage. Through the main performer and the group of actors who carry out the improvisation exercises, Games, Words, Crickets establishes a dialogue that works in several ways, all of which are suffused with emotion. First of all, the dialogue between the protagonist and the audience should be mentioned. The foundation on which it is built is the poetry recited by Constantin Chiriac, which does not communicate a precise content of ideas or facts, as the audience is used to when going to the theatre, but focuses on the delivery of emotion from the poetic text. The “sender” (the protagonist) may use means that are sometimes theatrically exaggerated and dissolve the fourth wall of the stage. Theatrical convention and the routines of watching a theatrical performance may make the audience see a character in the protagonist. However, the director's stage reality proposes a concept that uses poetry to convey not ideas and facts, but emotion. The script is not made up of a chain of events that link together to build up dramatic tension and reach a climax, but of successive emotions, which are communicated by the protagonist to the audience through often playful means and the goal is the creation and the stage configuration of a whole universe, with its special rules, in which not only those on the stage but the entire audience take refuge. Furthermore, also regarding the decomposition of the poetic text and the identification of dialogue vectors, it is essential to detail one of the most important moments of the performance: two life-size marionettes, copies of the protagonist, appear on stage, manipulated by the actors. The marionettes become part of the mechanism that configures the dialogue: the performer is in a communicative relationship with these marionettes. Questions are answered; answers generate new questions; the poetic text, loaded with deep philosophical meanings, becomes more and more accessible to the general audience, without its universe of meanings being altered. Moreover, for one of Mihai Eminescu’s poems, approaching the possible dialogue with ludic means on a theatre stage implies a happy adaptation to the horizon of expectations of the contemporary spectator. The world is now fast, communication has changed enormously in the last decades, and identifying new nuances and levels in the process of delivering the poetic text to the public through a (re)configuration of the dialogue may be a useful and rewarding approach. Finally, the two marionettes convey extra theatricality and fit perfectly into the characteristics of Silviu Purcărete's theatrical universe: the apparent grotesqueness of the images is augmented by dialogue, emotion, and playfulness. The music of the show is composed by Vasile Şirli and is a complex of sounds that accompany the stage actions and the emotions transmitted by the protagonist to the audience. The sounds are created spontaneously, on stage, under the gaze of the spectators, and in a close relationship with the text, which emphasizes the playfulness mentioned earlier. Furthermore, when the protagonist and the improvisations of the group of actors are accompanied by recorded music, it joins the general tones of an open and bright space. The playfulness that marks the whole show is accentuated by the set design signed by Dragoș Buhagiar: the space is wide open, referring to the universality of poetry, the colors are bright, so that the lights can provide nuances and brilliance, or even texture to all the images. Games, Words, Crickets... Photo: Dragos Dumitru. The group of actors behind the protagonist (seventeen of them) behaves as a parallel mechanism which associates with the poetic text, enhances its potential, and completes it, or ironizes the actions on stage. Their costumes are also light-colored (shirts and shorts with suspenders)—a reference to a possible eternal childhood associated with playfulness. The games primarily belong to the group of actors. This suggests a character that stands out from the crowd or, on the contrary, a comic-grotesque uniformity caused by the masks they wear at a certain point. In Games, Words, Crickets... , the seventeen who accompany the protagonist on stage have the precise role of increasing the playfulness of the whole artistic endeavor. Finally, one last thing to be emphasized: in an artistic and social context marked by a troubled and complex reality, Silviu Purcărete turns to true poetry in order to create a sensitive and emotional show. He has been known as a creator of poetry on stage through the images and energies of his performances. In Games, Words, Crickets... we have the opportunity to see how he uses a selection from the world's great poetry to enhance his own stage emotion. Image Credits: Article References References About the author(s) Dr. Ion M. Tomuș is a Professor at “Lucian Blaga” University, Sibiu, the Department of Drama and Theatre Studies, where he teaches courses in History of Romanian Theatre, History of Worldwide Theatre, Text and Stage Image and Drama Theory. He is member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Field of Performing Arts (Cavas). In 2008 he received his PhD from the National University of Drama and Film, Bucharest, with a doctoral thesis entitled Realist and Naïve Picturesqueness in Vasile Alecsandri’s, I. L. Caragiale’s, and Eugene Ionesco’s Plays and Their Stage Adaptations. In 2013 he finished a postdoctoral study together with the Romanian Academy, focused on the topic of the modern international theatre festival, with case studies on the Edinburgh International Festival, Festival d’Avignon, and Sibiu International Theatre Festival. He has published studies, book reviews, theatre reviews, and essays in prestigious cultural magazines and academic journals in Romania and Europe. Since 2005, he has been co-editor of the annual Text Anthology published by Nemira Publishing House for each edition of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival. Since 2005, Mr. Tomuș is part of the staff at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (SITF is the third performing arts festival in the world, preceded by the ones in Edinburgh and Avignon). Ion M. Tomuș was Head of the Department of Drama and Theatre Studies, in “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu (2011-2019), and now he is the Chair of the PhD School in Theatre and Performing Arts at the same university Since October 2016, Ion M. Tomuș is advising PhD students in the field of Performing Arts at “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu. Email: ion.tomus@ulbsibiu.ro European Stages European Stages, born from the merger of Western European Stages and Slavic and East European Performance in 2013, is a premier English-language resource offering a comprehensive view of contemporary theatre across the European continent. With roots dating back to 1969, the journal has chronicled the dynamic evolution of Western and Eastern European theatrical spheres. It features in-depth analyses, interviews with leading artists, and detailed reports on major European theatre festivals, capturing the essence of a transformative era marked by influential directors, actors, and innovative changes in theatre design and technology. European Stages is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents Report from London (December 2022) Confessions, storytelling and worlds in which the impossible becomes possible. The 77th Avignon Festival, July 5-25, 2023 “Regietheater:” two cases The Grec Festival 2023 The Festival of the Youth Theatre of Piatra Neamt, Romania: A Festival for “Youth without Age” (notes on the occasion of the 34th edition) Report from Germany Poetry on Stage: Games, Words, Crickets..., Directed by Silviu Purcărete Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Leche Hervida is a Solo Performance created in 2023. The work involves meticulous detail around all objects floor to ceiling. The foam floor is first laid below the meticulously constructed lighting rig by the artist. All of the objects in the work are created by IV Castellanos. The wearables are deconstructed during the production of this performance. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Leche Hervida IV Castellanos Dance, Performance Art English. Spanish, Quechua 20mins 2:30PM EST Friday, October 13, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All Leche Hervida is a Solo Performance created in 2023. The work involves meticulous detail around all objects floor to ceiling. The foam floor is first laid below the meticulously constructed lighting rig by the artist. All of the objects in the work are created by IV Castellanos. The wearables are deconstructed during the production of this performance. Content / Trigger Description: The performance goes to complete darkness at one point. Abstract Performance Artist and Sculptor. I create solo, collaborative and group task vignette performances. The objects in my performances are all constructed/deconstructed by myself and/or the collaborator/s I am working with. In addition, I create stand alone sculptures not meant to be activated by performances. I am a Three Spirit Queer Trans* Bolivian-Indige / American. www.ivcastellanos.com Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

EXPOSURE: A group show of performance works exploring the body. PERFORMANCE BY: Ilan Bachrach Kristel Baldoz Blaze Ferrer Hannah Kallenbach Julia Mounsey Alexander Paris Matt Romein Alex Tatarsky Peter Mills Weiss Kristin Worrall At The Collapsable Hole 155 Bank Street New York, NY 10014 Seating extremely limited. Tickets are first come first served. The Collapsable Hole box office opens at 6pm. Please arrive early to secure your ticket and enjoy free refreshments. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Exposure Radiohole Theater, Performance Art English 90 minutes 7:00PM EST Saturday, October 7, 2023 The Collapsable Hole, Bank Street, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All EXPOSURE: A group show of performance works exploring the body. PERFORMANCE BY: Paris Alexander Kristel Baldoz Blaze Ferrer Hannah Kallenbach Dante Migone-Ojeda Julia Mounsey Matt Romein Alex Tatarsky Peter Mills Weiss Kristin Worrall HOSTED BY: Fantasy Grandma VISUAL ART BY: Robert Bunkin & Jenny Tango At The Collapsable Hole 155 Bank Street New York, NY 10014 Tickets are first come first served. The Collapsable Hole box office opens at 6pm. Please arrive early to secure your ticket and enjoy free refreshments. Radiohole is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Radiohole's work is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. Content / Trigger Description: Please email radiohole@gmail.com for information about content and access. https://www.radiohole.com/ https://thehole.site/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

This is a reading of an excerpt of the play, "Please Do Not Touch the Indians." This is a play about the history of what happened to all Indians. Two wooden Indians sit on a bench in front of a gift shop and have their picture taken by a tourist. Characters appear as images of a child lost and they share their tragic journey of historical wrongs. In the end, we see that what we have seen is what the 2 Indians see every day as they come there to remember their lost child. It is a simple tale of lost love for a child, of a lost people, joined by their memories. PRELUDE Festival 2023 PERFORMANCE Please Do Not Touch the Indians Eagle Project 60 minutes 3:00PM EST Wednesday, October 11, 2023 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, 5th Avenue, New York, NY, USA Free Entry, Open To All This is a reading of an excerpt of the play, "Please Do Not Touch the Indians." This is a play about the history of what happened to all Indians. Two wooden Indians sit on a bench in front of a gift shop and have their picture taken by a tourist. Characters appear as images of a child lost and they share their tragic journey of historical wrongs. In the end, we see that what we have seen is what the 2 Indians see every day as they come there to remember their lost child. It is a simple tale of lost love for a child, of a lost people, joined by their memories. Content / Trigger Description: Joseph A. Dandurand is a member of Kwantlen First Nation located on the Fraser River about 20 minutes east of Vancouver. He resides there with his 3 children Danessa, Marlysse, and Jace. Joseph is the Director of the Kwantlen Cultural Center. Joseph received a Diploma in Performing Arts from Algonquin College and studied Theatre and Direction at the University of Ottawa. He has been the Storyteller in Residence at the Vancouver Public Library. He has published 13 books of poetry and the latest are: I WANT by Leaf Press (2015) and HEAR AND FORETELL by BookLand Press (2015) The Rumour (2018) by BookLand Press in (2018) SH:LAM (the doctor) Mawenzi Press (2019) The Corrupted by Guernica Press (2020) his children’s play: Th’owixiya: the hungry Feast dish by Playwrights Press Canada (2019) his children’s books: The Sasquatch, the fire, and the cedar basket (2020) and The Magical Sturgeon (2022) published by Nightwood Press along with his poetry manuscript: The Punishment (2022) He also is very busy Storytelling at many events and Schools. Opalanietet is a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribal nation of New Jersey. He is currently a PhD student at The Graduate Center at the City of University of New York (CUNY), and the Founder and Artistic Director of Eagle Project, www.eagleprojectarts.org . Upon graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Opalanietet has performed in workshops and productions at such renown New York theatrical institutions as the Public Theater, Nuyorican Poets Café, New York City Opera, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In November of 2020, Opalanietet made history by giving the first-ever Lenape Land Acknowledgement at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. Founded by Opalanietet (Ryan Victor Pierce) in 2012, Eagle Project is the only Lenape-led performing arts company in New York City. Its mission is to explore the American identity through the performing arts and our Native American heritage, deciphering what exactly it means to be American while using the Native American experience as the primary means for which to conduct its investigation. Since its inception, Eagle Project has produced six full productions, numerous readings and workshops, and has collaborated with the Public Theater, Nuyorican Poets Café, Rattlestick Theater, and Ashtar Theater in Palestine. For more information, visit www.eagleprojectarts.org . https://www.eagleprojectarts.org/ Watch Recording Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2023 See What's on

Support The Segal Center If you'd like to support our work to bring visibility to the performing arts through our programs, please consider making a donation to The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. We are a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization and all gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. You can also get in touch with other types of support, collaborations and partnerships. Get In Touch Donate Online Visit the link below to donate online. Under the field titled 'Designation', choose 'Funds for The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center' Proceed to fill in your details. Any and all amounts are welcome. You will receive an email confirmation immediately. We will send across a tax receipt (including the amount and confirmation the designation) shortly. Proceed You will be redirected to The Graduate Center Foundation CUNY donation portal (external link) Donate via Cheque You can also donate with checks. Payable to: The Graduate Center Foundation, Inc. Memo: MESTC or Segal Center Mailing Address: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, Graduate Center CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016

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HONORING PAULA COURT presents Prelude 2024 Opening Ceremony at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Prelude 2024 Opening Ceremony HONORING PAULA COURT 4:00 - 4:50pm Wednesday, October 16, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall Lobby RSVP Prelude 2024 begins with an opening ceremony to honor photographer Paula Court with the 2024 Franky Award. Please join us in the Elebash lobby as we toast Paula's work and legacy and kick off the festival! Light refreshments will be served. Named in honor of MESTC Executive Director and Prelude founder Dr. Frank Hentschker, the Franky Award was created to recognize an artist who has made a long-term, extraordinary impact on contemporary theater and performance in New York City. Paula Court has been documenting theater, dance, and music in New York City since 1976. Over many decades, she has photographed the work of the Wooster Group, John Jesurun, Eric Bogosian, Jo Andres, Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Michael Smith, DANCENOISE, and Sarah Michelson. In a 2024 essay on Paula Court for Topical Cream , critic Stella Cilman astutely observed, “Court’s photos access a subterranean psychological space that transcends any particular aspect of a given scene—the single gesture of an actor or a particular architectural detail near them. Her purview emphasizes the gestalt, embracing all the coincidental, chaotic, and awkward natures of people and things as they happen to interact.” Her images can be seen in New York Noise: Art and Music from the New York Underground 1978-88 ; PERFORMA: NEW VISUAL ART PERFORMANCE ; and the forthcoming Broken Clothing: the Costumes of Suzanne Bocanegra. Currently Paula is faced with very serious health issues that require immediate and ongoing assistance. A group of friends have joined with Paula’s family to raise the funds needed to provide Paula with excellent in-home care and the specialized physical therapy she urgently needs. Their goal was to raise $50,000 to support her initial recovery for six months, and they achieved this goal. They continue to fundraise to help see Paula through to the end of 2024 as they work on other ways to generate income from her life's work. As they rightfully note: “Paula has donated endless hours capturing New York’s underground art, dance and music scene, while tirelessly advocating for artists and documenting ephemeral moments to provide us with a collective memory.” If you are able to donate, please do so here . Your contribution is tax deductible and will be directed toward Paula's healthcare costs minus the fees charged through this platform. If you would like to provide a check or wire, please contact Esa Nickle at esa@performa-arts.org . Performa is a 501c3 non-profit organization and is acting as a fiscal sponsor of the preservation fund. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

NEEDY LOVER | ASHIL LEE + PHOEBE BROOKS | PAUL LAZAR + JERRY LIEBLICH / THIRD EAR presents Plays in Process at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Plays in Process NEEDY LOVER | ASHIL LEE + PHOEBE BROOKS | PAUL LAZAR + JERRY LIEBLICH / THIRD EAR 1:30-3 pm Saturday, October 19, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that portable is a breeding ground for lobsters. ROOTING FOR YOU Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. Rooting for You! blurb: "It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization." THE BARBARIANS The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. LOBSTER Special Thanks: Meghan Finn, Johnny G. Lloyd, and The Tank; Erin Courtney, Zayd Dohrn, Thomas Bradshaw, and Northwestern University. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed or presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and a co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com. Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group, TAG, and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed) Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez. He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover and Mozart in the Jungle. Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido. In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

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 festival presents experimental, emerging, and established theatre artists and filmmakers from around the world to audiences and industry professionals. 2025 Festival See the full lineup of films at this year's festival below. A selection of films will be screened in-person at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (and a few at the Anthology Film Archives) whilst others will be available to watch online on this website until June 8th 2025. SEE IN-PERSON SCHEDULE Festival Lineup IN-PERSON Acting Sophie Fiennes; Cheek by Jowl; Lone Star; Amoeba Film IN-PERSON Grand Theft Hamlet Sam Crane & Pinny Grylls IN-PERSON Moi-même Mojo Lorwin/Lee Breuer IN-PERSON Radical Move ANIELA GABRYEL ONLINE + IN-PERSON Somber Tides Chantal Caron / Fleuve Espace Danse IN-PERSON This is Ballroom Juru and Vitã ONLINE + IN-PERSON Benjamim de Oliveira's Open Paths Catappum! Collective IN-PERSON His Head was a Sledgehammer Richard Foreman in Retrospect ONLINE + IN-PERSON PACI JULIETTE ROUDET IN-PERSON Reas Lola Arias IN-PERSON The Brink of Dreams Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir IN-PERSON Transindigenous Assembly Joulia Strauss IN-PERSON Bila Burba Duiren Wagua IN-PERSON JJ Pauline L. Boulba, Aminata Labor, Lucie Brux ONLINE + IN-PERSON Peak Hour in the House Blue Ka Wing ONLINE + IN-PERSON Resilience Juan David Padilla Vega IN-PERSON The Jacket Mathijs Poppe ONLINE + IN-PERSON Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread Jean-Baptiste Mathieu ONLINE + IN-PERSON Jesus and The Sea Ricarda Alvarenga IN-PERSON Pidikwe Caroline Monnet ONLINE + IN-PERSON Skywalk Above Prague Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves ONLINE + IN-PERSON Theater of War Oleh Halaidych In-Person Screenings at The Martin E. Segal Center (365 5th Ave, New York) and Anthology Film Archives (32 2nd Ave, New York) Google Maps Google Maps Thursday May 15 1:00 pm Resilience by Juan David Padilla Vega (Canada, 2024, 70’) U.S. PREMIERE 2:20 pm JJ by Pauline L. Boulba and Aminata Labor (France, 2024, 72’) 4:00 pm This is Ballroom by Vita and Juru (Brazil, 2024, 92’) 5:50 pm Transindigenous Assembly by Joulia Strauss (Greece, 2024, 86’) 7:25 pm Radical Move by Aniela Gabryel (Poland, 2023, 77’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE RSVP Day 1 Friday May 16 12:00 pm Bila Burba by Duiren Wagua (Panama, 2023, 70’) 1:20 pm Acting by Sophie Fiennes (UK, 2024, 145’) U.S. PREMIERE 3:55 pm The Jacket by Mathijs Poppe (Belgium, Netherlands, France, Lebanon, 2024, 71’) U.S. PREMIERE 5:15 pm Brink of Dreams by Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir (Egypt, France, Denmark, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 2024, 102’) Special section SPOTLIGHT ON BASINGA 7:10 pm Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread by Jean-Baptiste Mathieu (Germany, 2024, 52’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE 8:10 pm Skywalk above Prague by Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves (Czech Republic, 2020, 51’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE RSVP Day 2 Saturday May 17 11:00 am SHORT FILMS PROGRAM Benjamin de Oliveira’s Open Paths by Bruno Esperança (Brazil, 2024, 37’) U.S. PREMIERE Peak Hour in the House by Blue Ka Wing (Honk Kong, 2024, 7’) Paci by Juliette Roudet (France, 2024, 33’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Jesus and the Sea by Ricarda Alvarenga (Brazil, 2024, 3’) Somber Tides by Chantal Caron (Canada, 2024, 12’) N.Y. PREMIERE Theater of War by Oleh Halaidych (Ukraine, 2024, 40’) U.S. PREMIERE Pidikwe by Caroline Monnet (Canada, 2024, 10’) U.S. PREMIERE 1:25pm Grand Theft Hamlet by Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane (UK, 2024, 90’) RSVP Day 3 Sunday May 18 3:00 pm SPECIAL FESTIVAL PRESENTATION AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (32 Second Avenue New York, NY 10003) Reas by Lola Arias (Argentina, Germany, Switzerland, 2024, 82’) RSVP at AFA Wednesday May 21 to Wednesday May 28 HIS HEAD WAS A SLEDGEHAMMER: RICHARD FOREMAN IN RETROSPECT AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES Guest-programmed by Andrew Lampert. The retrospective is co-presented by New York University Special Collections, home to the Richard Foreman and Kate Manheim Papers, and The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance. For full schedule of the retrospective go to this LINK . 3:00 pm SPECIAL FESTIVAL PRESENTATION AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (32 Second Avenue New York, NY 10003) Moi-Même by Mojo Lorwin & Lee Breuer (France, US, 1968/2024, 65 min, 16mm-to-DCP) followed by Q&A with Mojo Lorwin and Kevin Mathewson, moderated by Frank Hentschker RSVP at AFA 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 2025 festival is co-curated by Frank Hentschker and Tomek Smolarski, and supported by Gaurav Singh Nijjer on digital design. 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 Tomek Smolarski Co-Curator Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer and curator with over 20 years of experience in production of international cultural events and extensive knowledge in cultural diplomacy. He has produced projects with leading U.S. institutions, including BAM, MoMA, Film at Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archives, Chicago Cultural Center and many others. Gaurav Singh Nijjer Web and Digital Producer Gaurav Singh Nijjer is a theatre-maker, creative technologist and designer whose artistic works explore technology and media in live performance. He is one half of the Indian performing arts collective Kaivalya Plays, and also works as a freelance artist and arts manager with collectives in India and abroad, currently as Digital and Web Producer at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Centre CUNY. He is a former German Chancellor Fellow and a Chevening scholar. He trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Apart from theatre, Gaurav also works as a freelance marketing, design and creative consultant for diverse organizations. 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. Producer, General Operations Manager Teresa Soraka Next Generation Fellow Nurit Chinn

LESLIE CUYJET, FRANCESCA D'UVA, MORIAH EVANS + KATIANA GONÇALES RANGEL presents Group Date: a conversation at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Group Date: a conversation LESLIE CUYJET, FRANCESCA D'UVA, MORIAH EVANS + KATIANA GONÇALES RANGEL 6-6:50 pm Thursday, October 17, 2024 Elebash Recital Hall RSVP Join us for a conversation between Prelude 2024 artists Leslie Cuyjet, Francesca D’Uva, Moriah Evans, and Katiana Gonçales Rangel. Prelude 2024 features artists working in different corners of the New York performance scene. These Group Date conversations present an opportunity to foster connections, new and otherwise, between the festival’s featured artists. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Leslie Cuyjet is a performer, artist, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. More information at lesliecuyjet.com Francesca D'Uva is an experimental comedian living in Brooklyn. Often employing her background in electronic music, she alternates between improvised storytelling and meticulously crafted mini-musicals that take the audience on a chaotic and strange journey inside her mind. She has performed all around New York City and at venues like MoMA PS1, MOCA and Ars Nova. Francesca was the 2022 Performance AIRspace Resident at Abrons Arts Center, culminating in her solo show, This Is My Favorite Song , which will have its Off-Broadway premiere at Playwrights Horizons in November. Moriah Evans positions choreography as an expansive social process. Drawing on somatic choreographic practices and feminist critiques of dance and visual culture, her works expand dance beyond the visible, to explore different ways of sensing both ourselves and our relationships to one another. In Evans’ practice, one work leads to the next, each project forming a chapter in her ongoing process to inspire transformation–both physical and psychosocially–through action. Evans creates site-specific performances, theater-based productions, gallery and museum-based participatory installations, symposiums, theoretical texts, and curatorial projects. Recent works include: Remains Persist (MOCA LA, CA, 2023; Performance Space New York, NY, 2022); Out of and Into: PLOT (Museion, Bolzano/Bozen, Italy, 2023); Rehearsals for Rehearsal (Public Art Fund, NY, 2022); RESTOS (Espacio Odeon, Bogota, Colombia, 2021); REPOSE (Beach Sessions, ΝY, 2021); Be My Muse (Pace Live, NY, 2021; Hirshhorn Museum, DC, 2018; FD-13 Minneapolis, 2017); Configure (The Kitchen, NY, 2018) and Figuring (SculptureCenter, NY, 2018). Evans has been honored with (among others): a 2023-2024 Hodder Fellowship, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2017 Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists. Evans initiated The Bureau for the Future of Choreography (2011-ongoing)—a collective investigating participatory performance. She was Editorial Director, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of Movement Research Performance Journa l (2013-2022); Tanzkongress Curatorial Advisor (2017-2019); Dance & Process Co-Curator (The Kitchen, 2016-2023). Evans has a BA in Art History & English, Wellesley College, and MA in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from UCSD. Katiana Gonçales Rangel is a performer, director and educator from Brazil based in NYC. They have been creating independent theater work since 1998. Their most recent work Ama The Diver (2023/2024), in collaboration with Jim Fletcher and the cellist Lori Goldston, was performed in NYC, Portland and Seattle. Katiana has been creating documentary theater work with immigrant New Yorkers since 2014 with Incoming Theater Division (ITD), a branch of the company New York City Players, and has been ITD director since 2020. In 2024, the group performed La Casa de Bernarda Alba in Spanish language directed by Richard Maxwell. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

[CANCELLED] HOLLAND ANDREWS + YUNIYA EDI KWON presents [CANCELLED] How does it feel to look at nothing (excerpt) at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 [CANCELLED] How does it feel to look at nothing (excerpt) [CANCELLED] HOLLAND ANDREWS + YUNIYA EDI KWON 4-4:50 pm Friday, October 18, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP Please note this event has been cancelled. An embodied affirmation of trans futures amidst the disintegrative reality of trans life, How does it feel to look at nothing is an experimental opera and pre-origin story of a Deity of Namelessness. Co-created, co-directed, and performed by Holland Andrews and yuniya edi kwon, the work is currently in development and will premiere in Fall 2026. For PRELUDE, Andrews and kwon perform excerpts from the work-in-progress. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Holland Andrews (b. 1988) is a vocalist, composer, music producer, and performer whose work focuses on the abstraction of operatic and extended-technique voice to build cathartic and dissonant soundscapes. Andrews arranges music for voice, clarinet, and electronics, frequently highlighting themes surrounding vulnerability and healing. Andrews harnesses these instruments’ innate qualities of power and elegance to serve as a cohesive vessel for these themes. As a vocalist, their influences stem from a dynamic range including contemporary opera, American experimentalism, musical theater, and jazz, while also cultivating their unique vocal style which integrates these influences with language disintegration, vocal distortion, and environmental ambiance. In 2024, Andrews was selected as one of 71 artists for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial Even Better Than The Real Thing . For the biennial, Andrews composed two sound installations for the museum, the 5-channel Air I Breathe: Radio for its main stairwell, Hyperacusis (Version One, Sleeping Bag) for its large freight elevator, as well as a new composition for live solo performance, titled Speaker . In addition to creating solo work, Andrews composes and performs for dance, theater, and film, and their work is toured nationally and internationally with artists such as Bill T. Jones, Dorothee Munyaneza, Will Rawls, Sonya Tayeh, Jenn Freeman, and poet Demian Dinéyazhi. Andrews has gained recognition from publications such as The Wire, The New York Times, Vogue, Le Monde, and BBC Radio. Holland Andrews is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Andrews is a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Awardee in Music/Sound (2023) and a United States Artists Fellow (2024). yuniya edi kwon (b. 1989) is a composer-performer, violinist, vocalist, and interdisciplinary performance maker based in Lenapehoking, or New York City. Her practice connects composition, improvisation, movement, and ceremony to explore transformation & transgression, ritual practice as a tool to queer space & lineage, and the use of mythology to connect, obscure, and reveal. As a composer and improviser, she is inspired by Korean folk timbres & inflections, textures & movement from natural environments, and American experimentalism as shaped by the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Her work as a performance and movement artist embodies an expressive release and reclamation of colonialism’s spiritual imprints, connecting to both Japanese Butoh and a lineage of queer trans practitioners of Korean shamanic ritual. In addition to an evolving, interdisciplinary solo practice, she performs and collaborates with artists of diverse disciplines, including The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Senga Nengudi, Du Yun, Tomeka Reid, International Contemporary Ensemble, Kenneth Tam, and Degenerate Art Ensemble. Her work has been presented by Dia Art Foundation, Performa Biennial, National Sawdust, Harlem Stage, Asia Society New York, Roulette Intermedium, New York Live Arts, Bang on a Can, and Civitella Ranieri Foundation, among others. She is a recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Robert Rauschenberg Award in Music/Sound, an Arts Fellow at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, a Johnson Fellow at Americans for the Arts, and a United States Artists Ford Fellow. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

Get In Touch For inquiries, feedback, or any other information, please don't hesitate to contact us: Telephone: 212-817-1860 Email: mestc@gc.cuny.edu Address: The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue, Room 5303New York, NY 10016-4309 Send Thank You for Contacting Us!

SKELETON ARCHITECTURE presents Skeleton Architecture at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Skeleton Architecture SKELETON ARCHITECTURE 6:30-7:20 pm Wednesday, October 16, 2024 The Segal Theatre RSVP Skeleton Architecture is a vessel of Black womyn and gender non-conforming artists rooted in the rigor and power of the collective. In practice, Skeleton Architecture engages in embodied research towards the vital building of our Black collective. The body, the practice, and the corporeal and cognitive legacies in the room will inspire a diverse range of group activities and offerings to the public wherein we seek to define our work together further. As Black improvisers, we are eager to share our ongoing "research with the body." Presenting at PRELUDE: Davalois Fearon, Jasmine Hearn, Marguerite Hemmings, Angie Pittman, Charmaine Warren, Marýa Wethers, and Tara Aisha Willis. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). The Skeleton Architecture collective was formed from the Danspace Project’s Platform 2016: Lost & Found in a singular, Bessie Award-winning evening called “the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds,” curated by guest curator Eva Yaa Asantewaa. The performance included: Maria Bauman, Sidra Bell, Davalois Fearon, Marjani Forté-Saunders, Melanie Greene, Kayla Hamilton, Jasmine Hearn, Marguerite Hemmings, Nia Love, Paloma McGregor, Sydnie L. Mosley, Rakiya Orange, Leslie Parker, Angie Pittman, Samantha Speis, Charmaine Warren, Marýa Wethers, Edisa Weeks, Ni’Ja Whitson, and Tara Aisha Willis. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on