2023 Prelude Festival Features Columbia Theatre Artists

New York City’s Prelude Festival is celebrating its 20th year—and Columbia-trained theatre artists are at the helm. Running through the month of October, the festival will present a wide array of new works. Started by the The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY in 2003, Prelude Festival is an annually recurring performing arts festival which seeks to present short performances, readings, and screenings that represent New York City’s current artistic movements. The performances are as varied as the spaces in which they take place, and the work being presented can be viewed in theater spaces all across the city. 

Festival co-producer for Prelude’s vicennial is Dramaturgy alumna Tayler Everts ’23. Everts, both a playwright and dramaturg, is also a Martin E. Segal Center Next Generation Fellow. 

Premiering in the Festival’s second week, I Digress: The Intimate Insights of a Childhood Weirdo, is a “4 episode, transmedia, performance memoir.” Written by writer and performance artist, Sauda Aziza Jackson, the piece is directed by April Sweeney ’00. Sweeney currently serves as Professor of Theater at Colgate University and has a successful history of blending varying art forms in her work.

Curated and moderated by Jess Applebaum ’12 and Nic Benacerraf, Future Visions: Provocations for the Next Performance Ecosystem, is described as circus, puppetry, spoken word, and opera, amongst other things, and will start with “a series of brief manifestos delivered by artists and makers fueling the next chapter of this story, followed by a moderated conversation.” Applebaum is a Dramaturgy alumna and Resident Dramaturg at One Year Lease Theater Company.

Watch Me Walk by Anne Gridley ’06 is a 30-minute “exploration of mobility, disability, & bags.” Gridley, a two time Obie-award-winning artist and a founding member of New York avant-garde theatre group, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, is an actor, dramaturg, and visual artist who has worked with La MaMa, Soho Rep, and The Public Theater, among many others. 

In addition to performances of new work, the Prelude Festival will feature conversations with important New York theatre artists. As part of this endeavor, Nature Theater of Oklahoma co-founder, Pavol Liska ’05, will be in conversation with fellow co-founder, Kelly Cooper, to discuss their work, past and present. Liska is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and two OBIE awards with Cooper. Nature Theater of Oklahoma describes themselves as “committed to making the work they don’t know how to make,” and often creates works that dip into various mediums and performance styles. 

Last but not least is Fecund Error, presented by Robert M. Johanson ’05 and AshleyTata ’12, with their collaborator Jerry Lieblich. The performance is described as “a spoken word choral music-theater piece constructed according to a procedure of repeated mistranslations of an invented hieroglyphic alphabet.” 

Tata is a multimedia artist and Directing alumna who is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater & Performance and Artistic Producer of Theater & Performance at Bard College. She’s been described as “fervently inventive,” by The New York Times, and has had her work produced by Theatre for a New Audience and Ars Nova, among others.

Johanson is an Acting alumnus and multi-disciplinary artist. He has given masterclasses at Columbia as well as Rutgers and MIT and is a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma. 

The Prelude Festival runs from October 7 to 22, 2023. More information about performances, dates, and locations can be found here.