NEW YORK CITY: The Public Theater has announced the lineup for its 14th annual Under the Radar Festival, to run Jan. 4-15, 2018. The festival will feature national and international works, with 26 shows (including productions, concerts, and work-in-progress showings) across five venues.
“In a time when the world seems completely out of control, people are asking, how did we get here and how do we find our way forward?” said UTR festival director Mark Russell in a statement. “Under the Radar 2018 unites a multitude of perspectives on this moment in our world, examining the past as we look towards the future.”
The festival will contain 12 full productions, staged at the Public and at various venues in Lower Manhattan. The full listing is below (all shows are presented at the Public unless otherwise noted):
Panorama (Dec. 29-Jan. 21, 2018): Italian theatre company Motus will team up with NYC’s La MaMa’s Great Jones Repertory Company to explore the concept of fluid identity and nomad identity. The work will be presented at La MaMa.
Re-Member Me (Jan. 4-14, 2018): UK drag performer Dickie Beau will lip-sync to audio recordings of performances of Hamlet.
After (Jan. 4-14, 2018): American artist Andrew Schneider will explore death using light and sound effects, and a rapid-fire flow of text. The piece is created with designers Alicia ayo-Ohs, Alessandra Calabi, and Bobby McElver.
Margarete (Jan. 4-15, 2018): Polish artist Janek Turkowski will use digital and 8mm projections to reconstruct the life of a woman he never met.
Unexploded Ordnances (UXO) (Jan. 4-21, 2018): US/UK company Split Britches will invite 12 audiences member into a conversation about the global issues of the day. The show will be presented at La MaMa.
How to Be a Rock Critic (Jan. 5-15, 2018): American artists Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen adapt the writings of music critic Lester Bangs for the stage.
The Gates: An Evening of Stories with Adam Gopnik (Jan. 5-14, 2018): New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik recounts his life story in a one-person show.
Thunderstorm 2.0 (Jan. 6-7, 2018): Chinese companies Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental and Wang Chong will present Cao Yu’s early 20th-century drama Thunderstorm, about two wronged women, but updated to the 1990s. It will be presented at New York University’s Skirball Center.
Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (Jan. 8-15, 2018): American artists Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon has adapted Octavia Butler’s post-apocalyptic novel Parable of the Sower into a genre-defying opera that utilizes two centuries of black music.
Antigonón, un Contingente Épico (Jan. 10-14): Teatro El Público of Cuba present a deconstruction of Antigone using Cuban historical figures.
Mugen Noh Othello (Jan. 11-14, 2018): Japanese company Satoshi Miyagi will present a Noh-inspired Othello that tells the story from the perspective of Othello’s wife Desdemona. It will be presented at the Japan Society.
The Hendrix Project (Jan. 11-14, 2018): American artist Roger Guenveur Smith, and California’s CalArts Center for New Performance, will reimagine Jimi Hendrix’s 1969 New Year’s Eve concert. It will be presented at BRIC House in Brooklyn.
Pursuit of Happiness (Jan. 12-14, 2018): American company Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Solvenia company EnKnapGroup will present a dance-theatre piece that deconstructs the American Dream. It will be presented at NYU Skirball.
Under the Radar will also present a series of concerts at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. Among the performers will be Erin Markey, Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes, and Martha Graham Cracker.
Over the past 14 years, the Under the Radar Festival has presented over 229 companies from 42 countries. It is presented by the Public Theater.
