Catch the World Premiere of 'Work of Devotion,' Directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury '16, at Second Stage in February 2027
Can a story about a group of 8th century nuns living in rural Italy entertain and provoke contemporary audiences? Playwright Miranda Rose Hall, finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, thinks so—and Shayok Misha Chowdhury '16 is directing the world premiere of her original play, Work of Devotion, for Second Stage in February 2027, at the Pershing Square Signature Center.
Alex Strada '16 is the inaugural Public Artist in Residence with the NYC Department of Homeless Services and the Department of Cultural Affairs with her work, Public Address.
Our Cavafy, a selection of new translations of Constantine P. Cavafy—widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century—by Constantine Contogenis '98 was released on July 10, 2026 by Finishing Line Press.
Switzy, the third novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and The Guest, Emma Cline '13, has been longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize. A portrait of human mortality, Switzy follows a retired business executive with a degenerative neurological disease as he is shepherded by his assistant to visit friends and family before his medically assisted death in Zurich.
The new sci-fi thriller, The End of Oak Street, written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, produced by Bad Robot and Jackson Pictures, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, featured work from Directing alum Sushant Chaudhary '21, who joined the team as Assistant Editor to John Axelrad, ACE.
Adjunct Assistant Professor Diksha Basu '14, author of Windfall (Ballantine Books, 2018) and The Destination Wedding (Ballantine Books, 2020), has just announced that her next novel, The Affairs of Mala Sen, is forthcoming with Harper Via in 2027. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing India, the novel follows a young widow living with her mother-in-law in New Delhi whose world unravels after she discovers her late husband's secrets.
Since The Public's newly renovated Delacorte Theater reopened last summer, Columbia alums have featured prominently on stage and behind the scenes at one of New York City's most iconic summertime traditions: Shakespeare in the Park. In case you missed it, Saheem Ali '07 directed the park's first production of Romeo and Juliet in 20 years—and romance was in the air.
Suicide Cowboys by Greg T. Nanni '21 has been selected as one of four plays for the Playwrights Foundation's 47th Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) lineup out of a highly competitive pool of 601 applicants.
The public art installation by Visual Arts alum Daniel Rothbart '90, Serpentine Sibyls, is distinct from other outdoor works: it floats freely in the pond adjacent to the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art and in reflecting pools that flank the Glass House at Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden on Staten Island.
The trailer for the HBO original docuseries The Man Will Burn—which made its world premiere at Tribeca 2026—evokes suspense and, of course, intensity. Directed and executive produced, respectively, by documentarians and Undergraduate Film and Media Studies alums Vikram Gandhi (CC '00) and Emily Selinger (CC '12), the four-part series premiered on HBO MAX on July 9, 2026.
Tracking the dissolution of a marriage, a son's medical crisis, and the death of a father, The Going Is Forever is about holding on and letting go. Forthcoming from Milkweed Editions on September 15, 2026, the third collection of poetry by Adjunct Assistant Professor Elizabeth Metzger '15 has been deemed "oracular, crystalline, and utterly original" by Maggie Millner, the author of Couplets (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023).
Film alum Annie Ning '25 is a 2026 recipient of the highly prestigious Cary Grant Film Honor from the Princess Grace Foundation, which she was nominated for by Columbia University. Among the runners-up for the award was Undergraduate Film and Media Studies alum María del Mar Rosario (GS '15), who was nominated by 2018 Princess Grace Award winner Rafael Samanez and received a Film Honoraria from the foundation.
"Garbo's Queen Christina as Both Lesbian and Chinese," co-authored by Professor Jane Gaines and Film and Media Studies MA alum Yumo Yan '20, along with visiting scholar Junlei Yang, was recently published as part of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video's 50th anniversary special issue, vol.43, no.3, 2026, to commemorate Professor Gaines's seminal article on the enigmatic silent-era film star Greta Garbo and her titular role in Queen Christina (1933), published in the same journal in 1989.
In her new book, A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint, forthcoming from Scribner on October 13, 2026, Associate Professor of Writing Wendy S. Walters traverses art history, architecture, and consumer culture to examine the impact of white paint on our lived environment and in our collective imaginary. Beginning with a sudden unease caused by the white walls of her son's school, the book is anchored in Walters's immediate sensory experience, making her cultural interrogation one that recasts our choices and habits as individuals in a new light.
Can a story about a group of 8th century nuns living in rural Italy entertain and provoke contemporary audiences? Playwright Miranda Rose Hall, finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, thinks so—and Shayok Misha Chowdhury '16 is directing the world premiere of her original play, Work of Devotion, for Second Stage in February 2027, at the Pershing Square Signature Center.