Ten Years PRELUDE

Prelude is a perfect cultural embodiment of New York City.
Always evolving, always exciting,

too crowded, with too much to see in too little time.

-Vallejo Gantner
Prelude is like the book I most want to read each fall, with each page full of surprises,
cliffhangers and revelations that change my sense of whats possible in performance.

-Gideon Lester
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
TEN YEARS
Ten Years PRELUDE

Prelude is something that was cool ten years ago when it started, and is still cool now.
Somehow it just never went downhill.

-Young Jean Lee
PRELUDE
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
Ten Years PRELUDE

Copyright 2014 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
Front cover photo 2008 by Rachel Roberts
Back cover photo 2007 by Julien Jourdes
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical
methods, without permission in writting from the publisher and photographers.
Edited by
Frank Hentschker
Designed & Design Concept by
Yu Chien Liu
Printed in the United States of America

Second Edition, 2016
ISBN 978-0-9846160-9-1
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications
The Graduate Center / City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10016-4309
212-817-1860 | mestc@gc.cuny.edu
thesegalcenter.org
preludenyc.org
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hentschker, Frank, editor. | Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.
Title: Ten years Prelude / edited by Frank Hentschker ; designed & design
concept by Yu Chien Liu.
Description: First edition. | New York : Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
Publications, 2016. | ?2014. | Presents a history of the Prelude
Festival, held at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center,
City University of New York, from 2003 through 2013.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015050029 | ISBN 9780984616091 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Prelude (Festival)--History. | Drama festivals--New York
(State)--New York--History--21st century. | Theater--New York (State)--New
York--History--21st century.
Classification: LCC PN2277.N52 M38 2016 | DDC 792.09747/1--dc23 LC record available at https://urldefense.
proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lccn.loc.gov_2015050029&d=CwIF-g&c=8v77JlHZOYsReeOxyYXDU39VUU
zHxyfBUh7fw_ZfBDA&r=r51pc3LFxbZcR3qtPw6WmF7RDa6sXfkKHkowJh6CVI0&m=ijkeOewTOedbN5m7mmb
RBzx8uq-1zBTIVsjPR5NVcus&s=XiGYCVddYwlhJL_TKoAKn70KCiiPljc71vuTucztzMY&e=

Graduate Center / City University of New York
Frank Hentschker, Executive Director
Rebecca Sheahan , Managing Director
Marvin Carlson, Director of Publications
New York 2016
INTRODUCTION
PRELUDE Artists & Panelist 2003 - 2013
THE MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER
THE PRELUDE WAY

by Frank Hentschker, Founder
In Weimar Berlin, theatre maker Bertolt Brecht declared that New Times need New Forms of theatre. The
explorer Brecht created a pleasurable, open theatre for the children of the scientific age, a theatre that aimed
to educate and to entertain. Brechts work for the theatre reacted to the invention of the typewriter, the car,
the plane, film projection, the tank, the submarine, the phone, the growing divide between rich and poor, the
bitter fights between the left and the right, the threat of fascism, and total war in the first mechanical age.
In New York, at the Graduate Center CUNY, almost 100 years later, the research for new forms of theatre
and performance continues at The Segal Centers PRELUDE; this time for the children of the digital age. How
do New Yorks theatre artists react to the invention of the iPad, the ever-exploding internet, SKYPE, drones,
smart phones, smart watches, home robots, digital cable TV, YouTube, GPS, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and a
digitized military? How do writers, directors, and performers reflect on the ever-growing divide between rich
and poor, the bitter fights between the liberals and the conservatives, the threat of Climate Change, and the
War on Terror in the second mechanical, but first digital age?
At the PRELUDE theatre research lab, for three days each fall, we can observe these new aesthetic practices
growing, influenced and reacting to what Hegel calls the Weltzustandthe state of the world. Still in process,
in development, not finished, not polishedbut honestly, seriously, playfully asking the eternal questions of
what is real and what is not, what is new and what is old, where we come from, where we are, where we are
going, and what we can do to make change we want to happen.
An early version of this article was published in PERFORMANCE NEW YORK, A Journal of Performance and Art,
Volume 34, Number 1, January 2012 (PAJ 100), Bonnie Marranca, editor.
2003 Blue Heron Theatre Bravo Productions Clubbed Thumb Epic Repertory Theatre Hamm & Clov Stage Company Jean
Cocteau Repertory Theatre MCC Theater Metropolitan Playhouse National Asain American Theatre Company Salt & Pepper
Mime Company Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble The Geniuses Guild The Lark Theatre The Play Company The
Spartan Theatre Lisa Stevenson Jim Horton Daniel Talbot 2004 Ellen Stewart/La Mama ETC Abingdon Theatre Company
American Renaissance Theatre (ARTC) Banana Boat Productions Black Moon Theatre Company Boomerang Theatre Company
CAP 21 (Collaborative Arts Project 21) Ergo Theatre Company Freestyle Repertory Theatre Golden Fleece, Ltd. Hamm &
Clov Stage Company HERE Arts Center Jean Cocteau Repertory Juggernaut Theatre Company Marie-Louise Miller
Messenger Theatre Company Metropolitan Playhouse Mind The Gap Theatre NeoPack Pan Asian Repertory Theatre Sarah
Cameron Sunde Six Figures Theatre Company Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble Teatro I.A.T.I. International Theatre Arts
Institute The Actors Theatre Workshop, Inc. The Caribbean Cultural Theatre The Dream Theatre The Hypothetical Theatre
Company Thirteenth Night Theatre Company Xoregos Performing Company Young Playwrights, Inc 2005 David Cote/Time Out
New York Vallejo Gantner/P.S. 122 Eric Dyer/Radiohole Paul Lazar/Big Dance Theater John Jesurun Marianne Weems/The
Builders Association Big Dance Theater Caden Manson/Big Art Group Cynthia Hopkins Division 13 Productions Elevator
Repair Service Erin Courtney Jay Scheib John Jesurun Katie Pearl Lisa DAmour Mac Wellman Madelyn Kent Nature
Theater of Oklahoma Pavol Liska Richard Maxwell/NYC Players Sheila Callaghan The Builders Association The National
Theater of the United States of America Todd DAmour Young Jean Lee 2006 Andrew Dinwiddie Brooke OHarra Gregory
Mosher Jeffrey M. Jones Kristin Marting Maria Goyanes Mark Russell Randy Gener Risa Shoup Rob Handel Young Jean
Lee Brendan Connelly/The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf Brooke OHarra/The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf Carl Hancock Rux
Charles Mee, Jr Collapsable Giraffe Cynthia Hopkins Daniel Veronese Dean Moss Eric Novak Elyas Khan Ex.Pgirl
Federico Len Jason Grote Jay Scheib Jean Graham Jones Jennifer Morris Jenny Schwartz Joyce Cho Juan Souki Lola
Arias Mabou Mines Mallory Catlett /Juggernaut Theatre Co. Nick Flynn Rafael Spregelburd Ruth Margraff Sarah Provost
Shoshana Polanco Target Margin Theater TENT Thomas Bradshaw Will Eno Yana Ross 2007 Adam Bock Alex Timbers
Brook Stowe David Cote David Henry Hwang Eric Dyer James Scruggs Jason Grote Jim Nicola Kristin Marting Mac
Wellman Madeleine George Melanie Joseph Morgan Jenness Norman Frisch Richard Nelson Sarah Benson Thomas
Bradshaw 31 Down Adam Bock Andrew Schneider Annie-B Parson /Big Dance Theater Aya Ogawa/knife, Inc. Christina
Campanella Dan Safer/Witness Relocation David Levine/CiNE John Moran Josh Fox/International WOW Company Kameron
Steele/The South Wing Kristen Kosmas Laboratory Theater LightBox Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental Mark Schultz
Masataka Matsuda Mikuni Yanaihara Rachel Shukert/Bushwick Hotel Ranbir Sidhu Stephanie Fleischmann The Debate
Society The Play Company the TEAM Toshiki Okada Uchino Tadashi 2008 Andrew Schneider Banana Bag & Bodice Big Art
Group Big Dance Theater Bonnie Marranca Branden JacobsJenkins Caden Manson Cynthia Hedstrom David Cote Debra
Singer Eric Dyer Eric Grode Eric Ting George Hunka Jay Scheib Jennifer Wright Cook Joyce Cho Kim Whitener Kristin
Marting Langdon C. Crawford Mallory Catlett Marianne Weems Morgan von Prelle Pecelli Nello McDaniel NYC Players Paul
Lazar Progress Theater Przemyslaw Wojcieszek Richard Foreman Robert Elmes RoseLee Goldberg Sally Oswald Sophie
Haviland Susan Feldman Teresa Vasquez Vallejo Gantner Victor Weinstock Yehuda Duenyas Zannah Mass Alex Delinois/
NYC Players Andrew Schneider/EDP Bob Feldman/NYC Players Brian Mendes/NYC Players Christina Masciotti/NYC Players
Fluxconcert Ivan Talijancic/Wax Factory Jenny Schwartz Joyce Cho Krzysztof Bizio Lakpa Bhutia / NYC Players Lear
deBessonet Malgorzata SikorskaMiszczuk Marcy Arlin Michal Walczak Moving Theater Neal Medlyn Okwui Okpokwasili
Peter Von Salis/ Untitled Project Przemyslaw Wojcieszek Rafael Sanchez / NYC Players Raul Vincent Enriquez Richard
Maxwell / NYC Players Ruth Sergel/Untitled Project Sheila Callaghan Tal Yarden/ Second Life Street Theater Temporary
Distortion The Air Band The Builders Association The National Theater of The United States of America The Paper Industry
2009 Andrew Schneider Arwen Lowbridge Bonnie Marranca Esther Robinson Harriet Taub Helene Lesterlin Jeff Hnilicka
Jeremy James Pickard Jonah Bokaer Justin Krebs Kristin Marting Lisa Phillips Michael Johnson-Chase Phil Soltanoff / Mad
Dog Experimental Robert Zukerman Sheila Lewandowski Tairone Bastien Vallejo Gantner Wayne Ashley Yehuda Duenyas
Aaron Landsman Adrienne Truscott Andrew Dinwiddie Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Brian Rogers/The Chocolate Factory
Brendan Connelly/The Theatre of a TwoHeaded Calf Brooke OHarra / The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf Bruce High Quality
Foundation Christina Masciotti/NYC Players Dan Safer / Witness Relocation David Levine David Michalek Erin Courtney
Hwang Ji Woo Jay Scheib John Jesurun Judith Malina/The Living Theatre Kim Kwang Lim Kim Myung Hwa Kristen Kosmas
Marina Abramovic Object Collection Radiohole Steve Cuiffo William Cusick Wuturi Players 2010 Caridad Svich Carla
Peterson Christina deRoos Eric Dyer Kevin Cunningham Kevin Doyle Megan Sprenger Tanya Selvaratnam Young Jean Lee
Aaron Landsman Alec Duffy/Hoi Polloi Andrew Schneider Angels Aymar Dan Safer DJ Spooky Esteve Soler HERE Art
Center Hillary Spector Ishmael Houston-Jones Jim Findlay Joe Silovsky Joyce Cho Julie Atlas Muz Kimon Keramidas
Mallory Catlett Marta Buchaca Mashinka Firunts May Adrales Penny Arcade Reggie Watts Reid Farrington Robert Quillen
Camp Sergi Belbel Sylvan Oswald/Hoi Polloi The Field The TEAM Trajal Harrell 2011 Claudia La Rocco Jeffery M. Jones
Julia Robinson Pablo Helguera Richard Move Sibyl Kempson Big Dance Theater Daniel Fish David Levine/CiNE Doll Parts
Donelle Woolford Elevator Repair Service Jackie Sibblies Drury Jackson Pollock Bar Jake Hooker/The Plastic Arts Jay Scheib
Lumberob Mac Wellman Nina Beier Otso Huopaniemi Robert Fitterman Sibyl Kempson Steve Mellor Suzanne Bocanegra
& Paul Lazar Temporary Distortion Tina Satter/Half Straddle Will Holder Young Jean Lees Theater Company 2012 Aaron
Landsman Andy Horwitz Caden Manson Claire Bishop Lear deBessonet Marianne Weems Niegel Smith Tony Torn 600
Highwaymen Adam Feldman Alec Duffy/Hoi Polloi Amber Martin Anais Michel Andrew Ondrejcak Annie Dorsen Anne
Washburn Anonymous Ensemble Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Bridget Everett Caden Manson/Big Art Group Cole Escola
Corey Dargel Corina Copp Culturebot Daniel Fish Dave Malloy David Levine DJ Mendel Eliza Bent Erin Courtney/
Adhesive Theater Project Faye Driscoll Hannah Bos Heidi Schreck Jack Ferver Jay Scheib & Co. Jeff Larson Jenn Harris
Joe Ranono Joshua Conkel Juliana Francis Kelly Karinne Keithley Ken Rus Schmoll Kristine Haruna Lee Lance Horne
Leah Nanako Winkler/Everywhere Theater Group Lucas Hnath Lumberob Mac Wellman Maria Striar Miguel Gutierrez and
The Powerful People Molly Pope Myles Kane Nature Theater of Oklahoma Nellie Tinder Niegel Smith Phil Soltanoff Poor
Baby Bree Richard Foreman Sarah Benson Shara Worden Sibyl Kempson Tei Blow The Kioskers The Wooster Group
Tina Satter / Half Straddle Tony Torn William Burke Yackez Yelena Gluzman/Science Project Young Jean Lee 2013 Aaron
Landsman Abigail Browde Adam Horowitz Andy Horwitz Anne Washburn Annie Baker Annie Dorsen Branden
Jacobs-Jenkins Carla Peterson Clyde Valentine Gavin Kroeber Gelsey Bell Geoffrey Jackson Scott Helen Shaw Max
Posner Melanie Joseph Michael Silverstone Morgan von Prelle Pecelli Niegel Smith Risa Shoup Rob Marcato Shonni
Enelow Sibyl Kempson David Levine/CiNE Claire Bishop 600 Highwaymen Andrew Ondrejcak Andrew Schneider
ANIMALS Big Dance Theater Built for Collapse Caden Manson/Big Art Group Cesar Alvarez Chris Tyler Cynthia Hopkins
Daniel Fish Erin Markey Institute for Psychogeographic Adventure James Harrison Monaco Jay Scheib & Co. Jeffrey M. Jones
Jerome Ellis Jim Findlay Katherine Brook/Tele-Violet Katie Pearl/PearlDamour Kippy Winston Kristine Haruna Lee Lisa
DAmour/PearlDamour Mallory Catlett/Restless NYC Nature Theater of Oklahoma Neal Medlyn Niegel Smith Rebecca Patek
Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble Sarah Benson Taylor Mac The Assembly The United States Department of Arts & Culture
Todd Shalom Woodshed Collective
In New York, we have an army of skilled theatrical and performative explorers, educating and entertaining
the digital children of our age. They truly experiment with form and contentlike in a physics labwhatever
the results may be. And every fall, PRELUDE has been the very best showcase in the city, when it comes to
invention, creativity and new ideas. The list of PRELUDE artists and ensembles documented in this book
speak for themselves. And it has been a real honor for us to present their work.
New York performance as an entity has become an inspiring model on how to reflect best on Hegels
Weltzustand in the new millennium. Hundreds of theatre companies and performance artists present
hundreds of openings each month. The works are often not meant to last; they come and go, like pop
songs. Due to the financial and physical constraints of New York City, new works are produced fast,
presented earlya vehicle for the future, research for the next workwith emphasis on the journey and not
the arrival at the temple. It is the end of the masterpieces, as Artaud called for; in fact, it calls perhaps for
the end of dominating voices of the masters of theatre, might they be writers, directors, or critics. All is in
flux, in movement, breathless. Work we ultimately see at PS 122 or at BAM, HERE Arts Center or St. Anns
Warehouse, JACK or The Chocolate Factory in Queens or downtown cannot be more different from each
other, like blogs on the web. For every strong voice that emerges, other voices will sound that contradicts
or questions immediately. But these incompatible approaches help us to organize a new understanding of
everything, the Weltzustand, and to learn about the brave new world we all live in. We, the spectators or
participantsin art as in lifehave to navigate ourselves without the help of dominating voices of the masters.
We already know that everyone (like FOX News or a political candidate) who is trying to deliver one truth,
is deceiving us. Now we have learned that it is up to us, when in doubt, to create the meaning and to do the
right thing.
PRELUDE, for over 10 years now, has been a real force in New York theatre, providing a small space for
artistic exchange in the heart of the city, within the limits of an academic setting, but with unlimited creativity
and imagination. Over 1,000 New York theatre makers have participated and created a discourse where
artists interact with academics and audiences; where fellow artist can see what their colleagues are up to
and chat over a cup of coffee about fresh ideas. The PRELUDE artistspioneers in their fielddemonstrate
that theatre and performance matters in the City, and that New York experimental work is still at the forefront
of the form.
And if that would not be reason enough to celebrate, here is one more: The act of making art, being an
artist, living the life of a free artist in the highly restricted contemporary American society is a radical,
artistic provocation in itself. Surviving in New York, just being able to produce and present artwork over a
longer period of time is meaningful and highly respected by the audience and fellow artists. And should be
celebrated as we do, the PRELUDE way.
-Frank Hentschker
Executive Director, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The Graduate Center CUNY, New York
INTRODUCTION
THE TEN YEAR PRELUDE:

A FORWARD-LOOKING BACKWARD GLANCE
by Jeffrey M. Jones
Ten PRELUDES. Ten snapshots of a coming season. Ten glimpses into the near future of the only kind of
theatre that seeks the future. Now Ive been asked to examine the entrails and say what it all means
where we have been and where we are going, in 2,000 words or less. Reader, I may not be up to it.
Because, after all, how much really changes over the course of a decade?1
When PRELUDE began, for example, the sitting president was the son of a former president and the
grandson of a US Senator and Wall Street banker, while the mayor of New York was the 85th richest
person in the world. This year, by contrast, the sitting president is the son of Kenyan exchange student
and grandson of an unsuccessful furniture salesman, while Michael Bloomberg, having fiddled with the
rules to stay in office, is now the 13th richest person in the world. You could as easily say that everything
changes as that nothing ever does.
Which is equally true of PRELUDE. It is easy enough to find change: consider that when the Nature
Theater of Oklahoma2 first surfaced in PRELUDE.05, its extant body of work consisted of a 20-minute
dance piece at an obscure downtown performance series held in a former Kosher winery with a very
leaky roof. Or that Young Jean Lee, also in PRELUDE.05, had only presented her first full-length play the
year before, over two sweltering weeks at the Incubator summer series (and Incubator itself wouldnt
take over the St. Marks space for another five years). Or that, in 2005, Anne Washburn was the only
playwright to have been produced by 13P3 . Even PRELUDE itself was different in those early days; there
were no lines, seats were readily available, and a good part of the audience looked like retirees on a
budget, who after a lifetime of theatergoing had learned to sit equably through anything. 4
But it is just as true that the ten years of PRELUDE demonstrate constancy and continuity. Consider that
the nine ensembles5 in PRELUDE.05 were at least five years old, and some much older Elevator Repair
Service (1991), The Builders Association (1994), Division 13 Productions (1995), Big Art Group (1999),
New York City Players (1996), Radiohole (1998), Big Dance Theater (1999), NTUSA (2000). Ten years
on, all but one remain, still at the forefront, touring even bigger venues, acclaimed6 in family newspapers.
Not that this should be surprising, for ensembles are the closest thing we have to institutions7, and like all
institutions tend toward self-perpetuation (as long as human self-perpetuation is held in check. Nothing
threatens an ensemble like the pram in the hall).
1 It pains me to say that in writing this piece, I realized that the shorthand Ive always used to represent a decade two years with the same last number, e.g.,
1950-1960is actually 11 years. I now know the first decade of PRELUDE is 2004 2013, but it still looks funny and includes an initial season so different
from the rest that its like an inning of baseball that suddenly turned into nine holes of golf Im really only talking 9 years here, and not even that because I
havent seen 2013, so were down to 8 (2005-12), and counting.
What was surprising about PRELUDE.05 genuinely surprising, and almost inconceivable even ten
years earlier was the presence of nine experimental American playwrights, representing almost half
the programming. Throughout the 20th century, experimental American playwrights came if they came
at all as single spies: ONeill (dont laugh), Wilder (ditto), Kennedy, Baraka, Forns, Shepard, Albee
(sometimes), Foreman, Jenkin, Shawn, Wellman, Jesurun, Mee (surely Im forgetting someone).
Then, around the turn of the millennium, they show up at battalion strength:
Scott Adkins, Jess Barbagallo, Adam Bock, Thomas Bradshaw, William Burke, Sheila Callaghan,
Robert Quillen Camp, Barbara Cassidy, Alex Collier, Corina Copp, Erin Courtney, Lisa DAmour,
Jackie Sibblies Drury, Will Eno, Rob Erickson, Sara Farrington, Stephanie Fleischmann, Ben
Gassman, Madeleine George, Melissa James Gibson, Elana Greenfield, David Greenspan, Rinne
Groff, Jason Grote, W. David Hancock, Rob Handel, Trish Harnetiaux, Ann Marie Healy, Lucas
Hnath, John Jahnke, Julia Jarcho, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Karinne Keithley, Sibyl Kempson,
Madelyn Kent, Matt Korahais, Kristen Kosmas, Carson Kreitzer, Aaron Landsman, Young Jean
Lee, Casey Llewellyn, Kirk Lynn, Charlotte Meehan, Kevin Oakes, Andrew Ondrejcak, Sylvan
Oswald, Suzan-Lori Parks, Amber Reed, Kate E. Ryan, Tina Satter, Heidi Schreck, Jenny Schwartz,
Normandy Raven Sherwood, Mark Sitko, Peggy Stafford, Ariel Stess, Kelly Stuart, Lucy Thurber,
Alice Tuan, Ken Urban, Anne Washburn, Gary Winter8
Something fundamental had changed in the practice of experimental theatre9, and PRELUDE captured it.
To understand how playwrights have transformed the field, consider first how ensembles have
historically made work. While there are certainly actor-driven companies and those devoted mainly to
script interpretation, the default method has been assemblage, bricolage, collage: building pieces out of
smaller, discrete pieces of stuff10. Text was but one element and rarely expected to carry the burden
of structure, while the prevalence of cheap and reliable audio/video recording devices allowed a layering
strategy which sidestepped once and for all the pesky challenges of the traditional play form. Out the
window went plot, situation, character, psychology, dramatic arc, narrative through-line, pity and terror and
that damned third act.
Playwrights have never had that luxury. No matter how weird and woolly a play may be, it is first and
always a language structure written to be spoken, and for a play to work,11 people must be willing to
sit and listen to it. Which, without getting too technical on you, aint beanbag. All but the dreariest plays
work in the limited sense that you can and will follow12 them.
2 Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper had been making work under their own names since the mid 1990s, but adopted the name in 2005 at the insistence of Actors
Equity, based on some Equity rule only they understand. You cant make this stuff up.
3 (2003-2012, death by implosion)
4 If you dont know the word sitzfleisch, its now yours at no extra charge.
5 Any exact definition of ensemble gets pretty slippery. Absent the rare collective, the Platonic ensemble consists of a company of performers gathered
around one or two principal creators. This was as true of the Performance Group as it was of Byrd Hoffman and the Ridiculous. At the other extreme stands
the lone-polymath theatremaker who may nonetheless gather a company about him, or her. The Ontological-Hysteric comes to mind, as does SITI. But where
does the hydra-headed NTUSA fit, or the traveling sisterhood of Half Straddle? Is Richard Maxwell a playwright, a director, a producer? It all depends.
8 Most of these playwrights have not (yet) appeared in PRELUDE. Other than that, this list is entirely objective, comprehensive, inclusive, diverse and nonfattening.
9 This is actually all I am trying to say.
10 Im not sure if this is what is meant by devised theatre because I dont know what devised theatre means.
11 Plays we are told, must work. Suffering the curse of Adam; they are not allowed to play.
6 Or not.
7 That the repertory company, their closest equivalent in funded non-profit theatre, has been virtually extinct for decades tells you pretty much all you need to
know about the respective differences. There is also the matter of clerical staff. Once your clerical staff gets big enough, you have to put the temps on stage.
12 Even more to the point, you will also be able to anticipate them, which is the key to maintaining audience attention. Once you know the play form, you can
drop into any play at any point and almost immediately orient yourself in terms of time and action. Even if you dont know exactly how it will end, you can make a
very good guess as to when and how much more there is to come.
INTRODUCTION
THE TEN YEAR PRELUDE:

A FORWARD-LOOKING BACKWARD GLANCE
by Jeffrey M. Jones
(continued)
The conventional play form13 is durable precisely because it is the result of so many years of trial and
error, the sum total of the dramatic constructs that will reliably hold an audience for an hour or two,
independent of content. Many of the earlier experimental playwrights tried as hard as possible to get
away from the play form: one thinks of Mees collage experiments, Shawns monologs, Foremans
pointillist dreamscapes, Jesuruns manic talking heads and Wellmans nonsense plays. The new
generation, by contrast, generally take the play form as their starting point, then mess with it.
Some, in fact, have written what might pass for realistic plays save for the one telling detail which calls
the whole representational framework into question. Erin Courtneys Demon Baby tosses a malign
garden gnome into a group of young professionals in contemporary London; Madeleine Georges The
Zero Hour finds World War II Nazis on the 7 train; Julia May Jonas14 Evelyn steps straight out of celebrity
rehab into The Bacchae. Othersas with Will Enos Thom Paine (Based on Nothing) or Kristen Kosmas
There, There--work in the opposite direction, setting an ordinary three-dimensional (i.e., rounded,
moyen-sensuel) character against an erased, blurred or otherwise featureless landscape. Playwrights as
different as Lisa DAmour (Detroit) and Thomas Bradshaw (take your pick) start with realistic premises,
step on the gas, and let increasingly out-of-control passions drive the whole thing off a cliff. In Crime
or Emergency, Sibyl Kempson shifts between dramatic realities with each successive scene, while her
Secret Death of Puppets15 presents the story on audiotape, as a kind of radio drama, as the author runs
around the stage, shifting the empty chairs that represent the characters.Still others play even more
complicated games with structure: the linguistic traceries and arabesques of Jenny Schwartzs Gods Ear;
the loop-the-loop and threaded mazes of Jason Grotes 1001; Erin Courtneys A Map of Virtue, based on
the ring composition theories of Mary Douglas. Madelyn Kents Peninsula and Kempsons Ich KrbisGeist
are more or less normal plays written in fractured English. Rob Ericksons Off the Hozzle is autobiographic
monolog fed through a loop machine while Andrew Ondrecjaks Feast channel-surfs through a linguistic
Jabberwocky. Richard Maxwells People Without History and Young Jean Lees The Appeal trash the
most basic conventions of the history play (including but not limited to, historical accuracy). Jackie
Sibblies Drury (We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as
Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-191516) and Lucas Hnath
(A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney), each in their own way,
have even written recursive history plays, in which actual characters comment on the very play which
theyre performing.
And if it is also striking how little impact 40 years of the American avant-garde has had on seasonal
subscription theatres, it may be significant that plays as quietly radical as The Designated Mourner
and Mr. Burns have been produced within the last few months at The Public Theatre and Playwrights
Horizons.
Ive left out a lot, of coursecompletely skipped over solo performers like Andrew Schneider and Cynthia
Hopkins and Carl Hancock Rux and Joe Silovsky (but how could one classify them?), along with the
choreographers, dancers, composers, musicians, media artists, even (yikes!) critics. Many PRELUDES
featured mini-festivals of work from other countries I never even saw, extensive panel discussions I
had to miss, and media showcases I didnt hang around for. I hear the parties were pretty good, too. For
that matter, how is it even possible to speak of PRELUDE without mentioning the indefatigable Frank
Hentschker, who seems throughout to be in two places at once?
But Im out of space. Over my word count. As to what the next decade of PRELUDE may bring?
Well, first of all, thats totally
-Jeffrey M. Jones
Playwright and essayist, New York, 2013
It seems safe to say the American theatre has never experienced a decade of such feverish invention.
Is it too early to gauge the impact of the resurgent playwright? Probably; yet I find it striking that many of
the newer groups (Hoi Polloi, Half Straddle, The TEAM, 600 HIGHWAYMEN) have also moved toward a
more text-centric approach, while other companies (ERS: Gatz; Daniel Fish: A Supposedly Fun Thing)
are literally staging books and some go even further, into a kind of documentary theatre (ERSs Arguendo,
OK Theatres massive Life And Times17. But the long-term impact of playwriting may be the final bridging
of the gap between the experimental and the institutional theatres. Plays, after all, are portable; they are
designed to be repeatable.
13 Play (n): a story in dialog about characters going about their business, whom youre meant to care about.
14 a/k/a/ Nellie Tinder
15 For the sake of example, I am limiting myself to playwrights who have been part of PRELUDE, and trying not to repeat myself. But the fact is most of these
writers have pursued several of these strategies in different plays: thus Washburn has also written several history plays and another piece which also shifts
dramatic narrative with each scene; Lees also written a church service and a cabaret act; etc. etc.
(Above) Dream of the Red Chamber, directed by Jim Findlay at PRELUDE 13.
16 In terms of long, weird titles, this rivals the German bestseller, Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice.
17 This piece is the closest thing to a hit show in contemporary experimental theatre, though Gatz and Were Gonna Die come close. As on Broadway, with
a hit show, mass appeal counts more than critical acclaim. One of the most interesting trends in contemporary experimental theatre is radically lowering the
barrier to entry. LeCompte, Foreman and Wilson were all to some degree deliberately difficult, aggressively odd, unashamedly arty. The newer stuff is typically
obvious on the surface, and often downright goofy. This may be the wave of the future
11
THE ARTISTS & CURATORS
PR E LU D E
is ...
MARIANNE WEEMS
PRELUDE is a critical part of the organism.
(Def: a form of life composed of mutually interdependent parts that maintain various
vital processes.)
(Above) The Universe is a Small Hat, directed by Cesar Alvarez and Sarah Benson at PRELUDE 13.
13
YOUNG JEAN LEE

PRELUDE is something that was cool ten
years ago when it started,
and is still cool now.
Somehow it just never went downhill.
PAVOL LISKA
PRELUDE is the big bang of New York theater,
where you can see the very origins of work.
AARON LANDSMAN
PRELUDE is where the conversation
starts, veers, arranges itself and gets deep.
(Above) Seagull (Thinking of you), directed by Tina Satter/Half Straddle at PRELUDE 11.
(Opposite) Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, directed by Young Jean Lee at PRELUDE 05.
15
GIDEON LESTER
PRELUDE is like the book I most want to read each fall,
with each page full of surprises, cliff-hangers and revelations
that change my sense of whats possible in performance.
(Clockwise from above R) Benjamin Forster in Liz One, directed by John Jesurun at PRELUDE
09; Jack Ferver in All of a Sudden, by Jack Ferver in collaboration with Joshua Lubin-Levy at
PRELUDE 12; Donelle Woolford in Dicks Joke, directed by Donelle Woolford at PRELUDE 11;
Black-Eyed Susan in Liz One, directed by John Jesurun at PRELUDE 09.
VALLEJO GANTNER
PRELUDE is a perfect cultural embodiment of New York City.
Always evolving, always exciting,
too crowded, with too much to see in too little time.
(R) Water (Or the Secret Life of Objects), written by Sheila

Callaghan at PRELUDE 08.
17
(Above) Lucy Kaminsky in Pink Melon Joy, directed by Katherine Brook at PRELUDE 13.
MAC WELLMAN
PRELUDE is the one indispensable theater festival
in New York City - it is adventurous, intelligent and utterly free of
the corporate mediocrity that typifies most of the mainstream.
PRELUDE I hope is here to stay as there is nothing like it!
(Above) Ryosuke Yamada and Yuki Kawahisa in Americana Kamikaze, directed by Kenneth Collins, Temporary Distortion at
PRELUDE 08.
BRIAN ROGERS
PRELUDE continues to be absolutely indispensable.
As an artist, a presenter, and everything in between
-so much of how I understand and relate to the work of
theater artists has its roots here.
19
JASON GROTE
PRELUDE is like a friendship caught on fire.
(Above) Water (Or the Secret Life of Objects), written by Sheila Callaghan at PRELUDE 08.
(Below) Comme Toujours Here I Stand, by Big Dance Theater at PRELUDE 08.
KRISTEN KOSMAS
PRELUDE is hands-down my favorite
American theater festival celebration intellectual convention slash
extended family reunion
that I secretly wish could go on all year long every year from now to
eternity.
21
JOSEPH V. MELILLO
PRELUDE is a valuable resource for discourse on the pursuit
of art, culture and ideas
within the 21st century here in New York City.
(Above) This Place is a Desert, directed by Jay Scheib at PRELUDE 05.

(Opposite) Jeff Biehl in Water (Or the Secret Life of Objects), written by Sheila Callaghan at PRELUDE 08.
JACKIE SIBBLIES DRURY

PRELUDE is an opportunity to peer into the future
and see work that will have a profound effect
on you next year.
23
THE ARTISTS
ANNE CATTANEO
Over this last decade I have looked to

the PRELUDE Festival for new ideas,
for information about new writers and
theaters, and as an important bridge to the international theater
community. Its range of programming and guest artists provides
an important service, enriching the New York theater.
DAN SAFER
1. PRELUDE exists at this wonderful

intersection of academic conference and
mosh pit. Inside the walls of a reputable
institution, we are encouraged to make a
mess and push the boundaries, and it is
acknowledged that THAT IS IMPORTANT,
and a discourse is created around
those messes and potentialities, and I
as a maker of things and events have
realized things about what I do and what
other people do that I would not have
recognized otherwise, and that is an
incredible service and experience.
2. PRELUDE is a place to recognize, oh, this is the community I

am in, these are my contemporaries, and that is deeply, deeply
valuable.
3. The first time we did PRELUDE, we collaborated with Japanese
writer/ director/ choreographer Mikuni Yanaihara, and she
admired my Crocs and said they were cool. Nobody has done that
since then.
(From top) Comme Toujours Here I Stand, by Big Dance Theater at PRELUDE 08; Drunkfish
Oceanrant, co-production by Kristine Haruna Lee & Built for Collapse at Preluse13; Spotlight Japan
Auto-Da-Fe by Matasaka Matsuda and Josh Fox/Internaonal WOW Copmany at PRELUDE 07.
25
RUTH WIKLER-LUKER Every fall, PRELUDE erupts like a volcano

inside the otherwise calm mountain of the
CUNY Graduate Center. The Festivals hot
lava of artists, experiments, experiences, and
participants disrupts the buildings monastic
tranquility, its studious lence, its bureaucratic
hum. Iconoclasts arrive in droves to infuse
the buildings lovely neutrality with actionbased questions about how and how far to prod, push, and transform
theatrical form. This frenetic energy of performance science bonds
the diverse streams of PRELUDE people together, and they leave this
unlikely place feeling refreshed, reconnected, and inspired.
The university is not unchanged either: theres always a lot of cleanup
to do after PRELUDE (from floor-sweeping to fence-mending) but
PRELUDE teaches its institution what can happen when it flings its
heavy, ornate doors wide, wide open.
JAY SCHEIB PRELUDE is by an extraordinary
margin my favorite favorite

convening of artists anywhere.
A catalyst for emerging work,
for nascent endeavours, and
for experiments are in that
moment still experiments, still
unsettled and still unsettling
the PRELUDE festival has established an
environment for an ongoing revolution in the
New York City theater scene. Scholars, critics,
producers, artists actually find themselves in
dialogue one with the other. This is beyond
important. And my gratitude is similarly beyond.
Beyond measure.
(L) A dance in progress, by Big Dance Theater

at PRELUDE 05.
27
MALLORY CATLETT
I first did something in PRELUDE in 2004,

I think. It was early work on a piece that at
the time was called The Littlewood Project.
By 2006 it was called OH WHAT WAR and
PRELUDE asked us back. There are things
I make that take a long time and PRELUDE
always seems to be there for me with
them - Red Fly Blue Bottle (Latitude 14),
Beowulf (BB&B), City Council Meeting
(Aaron Landsman & Jim Findlay) and now
this year with This Was The End (Restless
NYC). I also curated a series of 4 new
translations of Catalan plays for PRELUDE.
I had been bugging Frank for years about
this, and he gave me the opportunity and
sent me to Barcelona. PRELUDE has been a kind of landing strip
for me - where you can touch down for a couple days, show some
piece of a work, talk to your friends, see something surprising you
didnt know was out there, have a few drinks and some new ideas,
start a few fights, then get back up in the air, back to work. What
Frank started 10 years ago is a real joy for me. Its great to be
asked, but just going and seeing other peoples work is also great.
The many memorable things - Collapsable Giraffe in the lobby,
Andrew Dinwiddies Swaggart, Shatner expounding on art thanks
to Phil Soltonoff and Joe Deibes, getting hit in the face with an
empty box in Jay Scheibs World of Wires, Sybil Kempsons made
up language, clinging to the words of Jonathan Foster Wallace as
an actress in headphones approached the end of a diving board
because of Daniel Fish, sitting in the dark with Trajal Harrell, Reggie
Watts turning a panel discussion into an actual conversation, and
Kristen Kosmas breathtaking This From Cloudland. To name just
a few. And the things I missed, that were going on in the next room.
To Frank and all the many curators/producers over the years, many
of whom are friends - Andy, Geoffrey, Morgan, Helen, Caleb, Claire,
Ruth, Bertie - what a mark you have made. Thank you.
ERIN COURTNEY
I remember this intense feeling of being

part of a community of experimental
trouble makers who were all gathering
in the hallways and theaters and lobby
of the Grad Center. Everyone wanted
to see everything and everyone was
excited. Sarah Benson and I were working
on a piece called Quiver and Twitch
that featured a young boy puppet, built
and performed by the singular Kevin
Augustine. This was the 2005 PRELUDE
and Young Jean Lee presented Songs
of the Dragon Flying to Heaven which
begins with a video of a close-up of
Young Jeans face as she is being
slapped, hard across the cheek, multiple times. The moment
of impact of the slap is edited out, but the recoil after each slap
remains. I was sitting in the third row with Scott Adkins, and we
knew that Young Jean had made this video and we were both
feeling very worried about watching it. I felt upset by the idea of
her being physically hurt as performance. Songs of the Dragon
is about many things, but one of the things it deals with is self
hatred. Using her own body as the gateway into this painful
and beautiful work of theater was absolutely disarming and
yet essential for this particular piece of art. This was violence
that provoked, yes, but it also provided a space for deeper
contemplation. Even as I am writing this, I am thinking What?
What? That cannot be correct; how can I be saying that violence
can invoke contemplation? Eight years later, a multitude of
PRELUDE performances, panels, videos, and dance parties have
inspired me to make better work, introduced me to new artists,
taught me about process and challenged me as an audience
member, but that first slap in the face remains for me a unique
theatrical wake up call to pursue the limits of my own discomfort
and to face what I fear.
(L and opposite) A Fiery Flying

Roll, or Dick, Dick, Dick by
Radiohole at PRELUDE 05.
29
BONNIE MARRANCA Over the last decade the Martin E. Segal
(Above) Comme Toujours Here I Stand, by Big Dance Theater at PRELUDE 08.
ANNIE-B PARSON
We in the theater need our seasonal rituals

just like all tribes, and PRELUDE has become
just that for me. Each Fall, for a decade,
I participate in, and cherish our autumnal
harvest festival called PRELUDE. The
operating principle of Prelude is works still
in process and in framing it as such, the
audience is both forgiving of the chaff and
desirous of the wheat. Therefore, since its
inception, I have shown unfinished work,
presenting something with an implied sign,
warning: wet paint.
Under the passionate, curious eyes of Frank Hentschker, we show

what we have been doing in rehearsal to the people he gathers, the
congregants of our strange church, perfect for our needs at that
moment. We dont know what we have when we present it, and yet
we leave in a different phase of the work, pushing towards some
final version. Its always nerve- wracking as hell, one of the required
indignities of our business: to show what we have not completed.
Curation is not shoppingit isnt- picking this and not picking that. It is
a rendering of many materials into a community of work. Frank and
his curators, including Helen Shaw and Caleb Hammons, through their
good juju and true understanding of the inner workings of the clocks
of new material, have nurtured audiences to smartly observe work
in gestational form. These talented curators cluster and shape an
event, coaxing the bevy of works to behave in a context of the hand
made where failure is a given, a familiar old friend, part of the show.
Theatre Centers PRELUDE program has

been a highlight of the start of each theatre
season. Its guests read like a Whos Who of
downtown theatre, with an ever-expanding
field of vision. PRELUDE brings together
companies, writers, directors, presenters,
critics, and curators for afternoons or
evenings of intelligent conversation
about new work and important current topics, such as the growing
intersection of theatre and performance art, and the focus on process.
There are also previews of productions and plays for the upcoming
season, with presentations by artists of their work and artistic process.
On occasion there are spotlights on the work of countries abroad, such
as Poland and Korea, underlining the Segal Centers global outreach.
What is exceptionally valuable is the cross-generational, cross-media
camaraderie that occurs among artists, and in which the public is
invited to share at the many events offered. Under the far-sighted
programming of its executive director, Frank Hentschker, PRELUDE
has evolved as a lively center of serious engagement with the broad
spectrum of performance and writing offered by the most innovative
thinkers working today in theatre in New York.
(Below) Joseph Beuys in NYC, by Jackson Pollock Bar at PRELUDE 11.
Without that old friend, nothing would ever get righted. We see it in
others work too, and it reminds us that we, the lot of us, are cynics,
questioning everything, and we have to do it in front of each other.
There is no other way. Process is the grammar of PRELUDE. Everyone
there knows it. And amid the autumnal cornucopia of small successes
and larger failures, we say together:
Amen.
31
DAVID COTE
SIBYL KEMPSON
Ten years on: looking back at PRELUDE
See you at the Lude, dude.
As theater editor and chief drama critic for a weekly magazine (and
its online version), I write brief reviews and occasional news items for
general audience. My readers are a mix of theater artists, fans, tourists,
academics and savvy culture vultures. Its a restless, motley audience
with diverse needs. One things for sure: my writing is not aimed at
avant-garde specialists. I cant issue windy manifestoes or theoretical
proclamations without alienating my baseor simply irritating it.
Moreover, Im deeply invested in the evaluative and interpretative
dimension of criticism. My reviews are not above saying whether I like
or dislike; whether its worthy or a waste of time. And yes, we use a
star-rating system. Pretentious bloggers and snobby dramaturgsas
disgusted by the media as they are ignorant of its workingseagerly
point out that Im no Herbert Blau or Richard Gilman. Very true. What
I can be, though, is a conduit between a larger audience and rarefied
contemporary practices. I can try to translate the jargon of academia
into vibrant, persuasive language to help a spectator appreciate
an event. In New York alone, the experimental-theater world has
undergone profound changes in the decade since PRELUDE began
convening panels and presenting works in progress. Among the various
phenomena Ive noticed through PRELUDE (some of which date back to
1960s and 70s): relational aesthetics as play; postdramatic staging;
opera-theater hybrids; digital and mixed-media dramaturgy; historical
meta-(mis)representation; and the fascinating range of textual
strategies in new plays that range from found text to Internet-age
poetics.
Over the years the structure and thinking behind PRELUDE has slowly
Thats where the great value of PRELUDE comes in. Year after year, it
offers a panoramic view of the creative processes of young (and not-soyoung) artists and theorists. It demonstrates the variety and ferment of
the theatrical avant-garde, constantly evolving and reacting. As a critic
and commentator, PRELUDE goads me to ask myself: How do I write
about this work?
(Below and oppsite)This Place is a Desert, directed by Jay Scheib at PRELUDE 05.
dawned on me, and its influence and importance. Its where all the thinkers
are. But theres no snobbery about it. And there is no place setting for
competition. Its a charting out and a confirmation of the ways in which
we are cooperating. When you go, you cant help but care about whats
happening there. Everyone who goes is participating. Every time I go I get
butterflies and also a (rising?) feeling in my chest. Its a chance to check in
with the exaltation part of being human, and it helps put the daily grind-type
artist concerns in their proper perspective for the progressing year.
Its been 10 YEARS?????
My first time Ill never forget. It was while I was still deliriously crazing my
way through the CUNY Brooklyn College MFA program, so that would have
been sometime between 2004 and 2007. Sarah Benson was curating
at that time. I remember showing up at the very dignified CUNY Graduate
Center and basically camping out for the entire festival, just attending one
event after another and feeling completely invigorated the whole time, my
brain and heart singing together in harmony. There was so much to talk
about and everyone was really talking and discussing everything we were
seeing. So many ideas at work and so much freshness and in this beautiful
setting - not in a dark basement or a late night black box on the outskirts and yet with such a blessed lack of marketing or hype-hype.
I couldnt believe how much was going on and how much I loved everything
that I saw, all the performances, all the writing, how much it seemed to apply
to me and how much it meant to me to see that work being presented in
such a legitimate setting. It was an affirmation of the community we have
here, and continues to be every year. Not the kind of community that is
fostered but a real gathering of tribes that reminds me in a very concrete,
palpable way that we are all working something together, even if we are in
separate processes and applying for the same grants.
In the years since I started my yearly migration to the Lude, Ive been
honored to be asked to sit on a panel or two and have also seen some
of my own work performed there. Which is a thrill. But its really just as
wonderful to get to go as an audience member and partake. When youve
got something happening at the Lude, you dont get to see as much of
other stuff. Either way, I want to grow old at and with the PRELUDE Festival.
Heres to ten more of another ten years!
33
ELIZA BENT
2007-2009
The author sits at work and receives a press release about the PRELUDE
festival. It looks cool and she pours over the program. The artists whose
names she recognizes she loves. The artists shes unfamiliar with, well,
shed better get to know. She attends and is enraptured.
2010
The author sits at work. She is now technically a playwright, in addition to
being a sometimes-actor. She receives the PRELUDE press release and
is deeply envious of everyone involved. She looks in the mirror to see if
shes turned green. She has not, but vows to work harder and to one day
be a real artist.
2012
The author sits at work and gets a cryptic email asking what she is
working on.
She mentions a show about wizards, which gets scheduled for PRELUDE.
She is ecstatic. But also terrified. Her collaborator is doing another show
and the piece, which requires an audience, is rehearsed in a frenzy at her
apt. This isnt what being a real artist was supposed to be, she thinks.
Black Wizard / Blue Wizard is part of Songspiel. Its another madhouse,
but no Styrofoam. A line stretches out the door to the lobby. The author is
filled with excitement and fear. She returns to her improvisational roots,
chatting casuallyand in costumewith the people in line. She hears her
cue and enters the theatre. It is deliriously fun.
2011
The author learns shell be performing in PRELUDE with Half Straddle.
She is ecstatic! She arrives late to work and listens to a voicemail.
Hi Eliza, Frank Hentscher from the Segal Center! Call me back about
interviewing someone for one of our programs. Also, will we see you at
PRELUDE? Hope so, ciao!
The author returns Franks call.
FH: Hallo?
EB: Hi Frank, its Eliza Bent from American Theatre magazine.
They discuss the interview, which has nothing to do with PRELUDE.
FH: Ah very good. So, will I see you at PRELUDE?
EB: Yeah! Thats me on the poster.
FH: What? Who are you?
EB: Im Eliza Bent. Im performing in Seagull? Im on the poster
FH: Ah that is you!?
EB: Yeah.
FH: Youre a cover girl! Who are you? Which one?
EB: Im wearing the red lipstick.
FH: Ah. Ha ha! You look different. So you will do Seagull at the Segal
Center. Ha ha!
EB: Ha ha!
At the performance, there are Styrofoam benches in the gallery space,
and its a mad house. The author rolls along on a skate board observing
the huge windows on the street where onlookers who couldnt squeeze
in watch. Its super fun. Shes relieved she doesnt fall off the skateboard.
At the after party, Frank lifts up Becca Blackwell on the dance floor. It is
Epic.
(Above, from L) Beowulf A Thousand Years of Baggage, by Banana Bag & Bodice at PRELUDE 08; Spotlight Japan
The Blue Bird by Mikuni Yanaihara and Dan Safer/Witness Relocation at PRELUDE 07.
35
TOM SELLAR
New York City in the 21st Century is not Greenwich Village, 1963.
It is not SoHo in the 1970s, or Loisada in the 1980s. There is no
single neighborhood calling to seekers of aesthetic, political, or
sexual revelation. There is no center, no haven, no focal point to the
performance worldperhaps understandably, given the diversities
embedded within it today.
This is what I simultaneously revere and mourn in our theater
community, spread as it is across disparate parts of a dense city,
separated by rivers and train lines and by less conspicuous barriers of
society, real estate, and outmoded disciplinary thinking. Keeping up with
progressive thinkers and theater-makers in this town means putting
on a good pair of sneakers and criss-crossing the boroughs to locate
and join the innovators in their hideouts, in garages and community
centers, makeshift studios, in corners claimed in schools and parks, in
living rooms and parking lots and on rooftops. And, of course, in actual
theaters and galleries and art houses. Everyone finds their own thread
of readings, workshops, performances, openings, partiesand the
weave can be rich and beautiful.
What we often lack in this continuously expanding metropolitan
constellation, however, is any sense of a public to address. Or the
feeling of belonging to a cohesive common cause. For the past decade,
PRELUDE has offered a glimpse of both. For a few days each year, the
map is condensed and this far-flung geography is reduced to a human
scale.
For me, PRELUDE is an improbable convergence and a foreshadowing.
We convene at the citys centermost point, in the shadow of the Empire
States great capitalist spire, to share a building and a headspace. We
reflect on the season about to set off, a big-bang of the calendar and
of the mind which will soon send us reeling and keep us in continuous
movement across the urban sprawl, through the maze in search of
the next piece of the whole. For now, though, we come together for an
experience of communitytemporary and provisional, but palpableto
sustain another year of living apart.
(Above, from top) World of Wires, directed by Jay Scheib at PRELUDE 11; Red Fly/Blue Bottle, by Christina Campanella and
Stephanie Fleischmann at PRELUDE 07.
37
THE CURATORS
HELEN SHAW
At the end of PRELUDE.12, my co-curator Caleb and I were a little worried
that we had broken CUNY. We had stuffed over 50 performances into a
festival that usually had two dozen; at one point during one of the raucous
Gershwin cabarets, Bridget Everett had picked Frank Hentschker up
bodily and borne him away for some unspeakable serenade. And yet we
had also seen Frank wrestle an actor nearly to the death during a Sibyl
Kempson piece (so we knew he was resilient) and everywhere we turned
we saw happy, fascinated, still-game faces. In my two years at PRELUDE,
it dawned on me that this was exactly the magic of a festival dedicated to
the snippet, the trailer, the sneak-peek, the process. Give us our theatrical
overload in bite-size snippets and we can eat and eat while never feeling
full.
(Above) Seagull (Thinking of you), directed by Tina Satter/

Half Straddle at PRELUDE 11; (L) Aoi!, an adaptation of Yukio
Mishimas The Lady Aoi, directed by Kameron Steele/The South
Wing at PRELUDE 07.
(Opposite) Spotlight Japan Auto-Da-Fe, by Matasaka Matsuda
and Josh Fox/International WOW Company at PRELUDE 07.
In the years I was coming to PRELUDE as a critic and theatergoer, I always

left feeling inspired. But after seeing it from the insideseeing the insane
commitment from Frank and the Segal and CUNY, seeing the ego-less
delight artists find in one anothers creations, I have found inspiration on
a completely different level. My private (now public) hope is that PRELUDE
is recreated elsewhere, that other campuses and theaters realize how a
festival so blissfully free from commercial and critical concerns serves its
art-making community.
39
ANDY HORWITZ
ON PRELUDE
My first PRELUDE Festival experience was in 2005 and it is still one of my
favorites.
Nature Theater of Oklahoma showed a draft of Poetics; Jay Scheib,
Richard Maxwell, Mac Wellman and NTUSA all gave us glimpses into
their process. I saw what is still my favorite incarnation of Young Jean
Lees Songs Of The Dragons Flying To Heaven: a staged reading in the
Elebash.
I couldnt articulate it at the time, but I came to believe that there are
several factors at work that make PRELUDE so special. First is that
the festival is all works-in-progress, so theres no pressure to perform.
Second is that it is the only time all year where everyone can get together
in an environment that is both social and focused on the work, where the
whole community is free from the pressures of the marketplace, to just
do the thing we love make and watch and talk about theater. And then
drink.
When Frank Hentschker offered Geoffrey Jackson Scott and me the
opportunity to follow Sarah Benson as co-curators of PRELUDE, I was
honored. Since launching Culturebot.org in December 2003 I had
inhabited this peculiar, precarious liminal space between administrator,
producer, critic, scholar, and sometime artist. PRELUDE was where it all
came together for me in both theory and practice. PRELUDE was where
I started to think of curating and criticism as creative practices unto
themselves, and it was my first canvas. I have always been of the opinion
that you look for the artists and collaborators who interest you, who pique
your imagination with their perspective and questions, put them together
and see what you can learn from the unexpected juxtapositions. PRELUDE
was the first time I got to really experiment with that, and I think it was
successful.
Every year I come back to PRELUDE excited to see what the new curators
have done, who the new artists are and what new ideas, aesthetics and
interrogations are on everyones minds. And every year I come back
to see Frank and marvel at the work hes doing, tirelessly, year in and
year out. One of Franks unique talents is his ability to create a space
where academics, artists and audiences come together in curious and
mutually respectful conversation. The programming at the Segal Center is
evidence of that, but the PRELUDE Festival is Franks enduring gift to our
community. And having been a PRELUDE curator has continued to be one
of my most treasured gifts.
(R) Schmoetics (A Poetics Talk by Tina Satter),

by Tina Satter/Half Straddle at PRELUDE 12;
(Below) War Lesbian, directed by Kristine
Haruna Lee at PRELUDE 12.
In 2007 I was lucky to have Geoffrey as a co-curator as we stumbled

through that first year. It turned out well, but it was a steep learning
curve! In 2008 Frank, Geoffrey and I started to come up with ideas like
bringing Morgan on as festival dramaturg - that pushed the festival to the
next level conceptually but required more resources. We were fortunate
to find a great group of collaborators including Rebecca Sheahan, Allison
Lyman and Kimon Keramides who were willing to dedicate immeasurable
amounts of time and energy to the project.
41
GEOFFREY JACKSON SCOTT

PRELUDE Piece...
The Beginning.
My relationship with PRELUDE began sometime around 05 or 06
as a member of the audience. The festival was my orientation to
the contemporary performance scene in NYC. Id recently moved out
from Chicago to take a fellowship in literary management at New York
Theatre Workshop (NYTW). In that role, my everyday was all about new
plays and playwrights.
PRELUDE was something different entirely. Night after night my sense
of what was possible for theatre grew. And this is coming from a guy
whose training was pretty traditional, you know? Like a real well-made
play kind of mindset. PRELUDE exploded that and I was --and am-forever grateful for that push into new directions.
The Middle.
When Frank invited me to curate the festival alongside Andy, it was
a pretty crazy ask. Here I was, this guy whose mind had only recently
been blown, being offered an opportunity to paint a picture of the field
on what was to me a MAJOR canvas. That first year at bat--2007--Im
gonna skip over that. I was still finding my sea legs and figuring out
what I might have to add to a pretty robust conversation. Basically, that
first year, I was winging it. But by 2008, with a strong assist from Andy
and, later, Morgan, I learned where Id personally gone wrong in 2007.
At that time I thought PRELUDE was about making statements when it
was really about asking questions--it wanted to be a dialogue and not a
monologue.
The questions in 2008 were about the particular performance ecology
of NY and also the distance between the performing arts and the
visual. We juxtaposed the work of theatre artists / theatre art against
the work of visual artists / visual art to see what there was to seeto explore the differences / similarities / traditions and to ask why
things like difference even mattered and to whom. For me personally,
it was a year of questioning my place in the field and coming to an
understanding that as much as I cared about the art, I cared as much--if
not more--about the audience. So, yeah, in 2008, the audience and the
audience experience, the sense that art of any stripe is an utterance--a
speech act in search of a receiver--came to the fore. Its also the year
that Helen Shaw called me a performance studies egghead in print.
At the time, I had no f-ing clue what that meant.
The End.
Frank believed strongly in term limits--a feeling I inherited from him. Be
warned Artistic Directors!--so to be invited back in 2009 was a gift cuz I was
set to wrap after year two in 2008. At the start, Frank was like, Who have
you always wanted to curate into PRELUDE? And, without hesitation, I
replied, Marina Abramovic. Thats pretty much how we ended up on a path
to get Marina and Klaus into the festival. She brought along her documentary
crew and so cameras were EVERYWHERE! We were experimenting with
livestreaming things that year too--and may have started this the year before
when we also dabbled in Second Life--and I remember the film crew knocked
my camera to the ground effectively killing the livestream and pissing off folks
who were watching from wherever. It was so crazy!
The whole festival as a platform grew like mad that year too. Some of the
things I was interested in working against--the festival as a commercialnecessarily came back, but on the whole it was a great, great way to go
out. Anybody remember that panel discussion helmed by Claire Bishop and
featuring David Levine, Aaron Landsman, Bruce HIgh Quality Foundation and
Marina? Remember when Marina whispered something to David - about
needing to get to dinner, I think - and just got up and walked off the stage and
out of the room? Haha. Yeah, 2009 was a great year.
Though my formal relationship with PRELUDE ended in 2009, the effects of my
time with the festival continue on. I continue on in that mode of research and
discovery and the asking of questions that first sparked in PRELUDE.08. And
I continue on thinking from the audience position in my current role as Director,
New Play Development at Victory Gardens in Chicago. That gig is all about
public programming--developing the public conversation around the work--and
sussing out the institution plays within the context of the city, the nation, the
world. In a very real sense, bridging the worlds of art and public life--which is
part of what we were up to in those years--burns on in me even today.
So, PRELUDE? Yeah, that shit was crazy. Where to next?
(opposite) Dream of the Red Chamber, directed by Jim Findlay at PRELUDE 13.
43
TEN YEARS
of
PR E LUDE
2003-2013
(Above) Americana Kamikaze, directed by Kenneth Collins/ Temporary Distortion at PRELUDE

08.
45

PRELUDE 03
(From top) Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper, Nature Theater of Oklahoma; Chautauqua, by the National
Theater of the United States of America at PRELUDE 08.
47
PRELUDE 03
CURATORS NOTE
A New York first---the magnificent pre-season celebration of some of
the best theatre that New York City has to offer, the PRELUDE weekend
will provide a forum that exemplifies the diverse work being produced by
members of New Yorks distinctive non-profit Off-Broadway community.
The Graduate Center will host 16 member companies of the Alliance of
Resident Theatres / New York, providing New York students, faculty and
teachers, theatre professionals, and theatre-goers a first look at the
eclectic work being developed for the upcoming 2003-04 season and
beyond.
Inspired by Washington, D.Cs Kennedy Center program Journey from
Page to Stage, the PRELUDE to Off-Broadway weekend will include
readings of new plays, sample rehearsals and process workshop, as
well as a series of panel discussions. Many of the presentations will be
followed by discussion. Audience members will have a rare chance to see
plays in the early stages of development, and artistic directors will have a
chance to talk about their developmental process in front of the audience
and colleagues.
DISCUSSIONS
Illuminating 30 Years of Not for Profit Off Broadway Theatre
Moderator: Lisa Stevenson (Alliance of Resident Theatres/ New York)
Fringe and Mainstream: Closer Than You Think?

Moderator: Jim Horton (Castillo Theatre)
A Dialogue Between Off And Off-Off Broadway Artistic Directors And A

Group Of Emerging Theatre Artists
Moderator: Daniel Talbot (Rising Phoenix Rep.)
(Below) Leah Nanako Winkler in Work Hard Play Harder: a manifesto by a next generation theatre maker, directed by Leah
Nanako Winkler/Everywhere Theatre Group at PRELUDE 12.
This QR code will take you directly to the

PRELUDE digital archive of that year.
49

PRELUDE 04
DISCUSSIONS
Illuminating the History of Not-for-Profit Off Broadway Theatre
Moderator: Ellen Stewart (La MaMa E.T.C.)
How to Know Where to Go:

Alternative Strategies for New York Theatre Companies to Get Their Work Noticed
New York Theatre Companies and International Theatre
(Above) Oh What War, directed by Mallory Catlett/Juggernaut Theatre Co. at PRELUDE 06.
51

PRELUDE 05
(Above) Dead City, by Sheila Callaghan/

New Georges; (L) Stanley, by Lisa DAmour;
(Below) Songs of the Dragons Flying to
Heaven, directed by Young Jean Lee. All at
PRELUDE 05.
53
PRELUDE 05
CURATORS NOTE
PRELUDE 05 is a mini-festival celebrating and discussing the very best
of new and unconventional theatre being created NYC-based theatre
artists and companies. The event features 20 short performances,
readings, open rehearsals, and talkbacks with a focus on works in
progress for the upcoming 2005-06 season and beyond. PRELUDE 05
gives audiences the rare chance to see the work of NYCs most exciting
theatre in one place and to experience the developmental process of
contemporary NYC theatre artists.
Curated by Sarah Benson and Frank Hentschker
DISCUSSIONS
NYC Theatre Within a Global Context
Moderator: David Cote (Time Out New York)
Participants: Eric Dyer (Radiohole), Vallejo Gantner (PS122), John Jesurn,

Paul Lazar (Big Dance Theater),

and Marianne Weems (The Builders Association)
(R) Sarah Benson, curator of PRELUDE 05; (Below) Peninsula, directed

by Madelyn Kent at PRELUDE 05.
55
PRELUDE 05
(Above) Songs of the Dragons

Flying to Heaven, directed by
Young Jean Lee at PRELUDE
05
(L & below) Todd DAmour in
Stanley, by Lisa DAmour. All at
PRELUDE 05.
(Above) Songs of the Dragons Flying to

Heaven, directed by Young Jean Lee; (R)
Susie Sokol in a monologue, directed
by John Collins/Elevator Repair Service;
(Below) Black-Eyed Susan and Jason
Lee in The Woman Who Loved too
Much, directed by John Jesurun. All at
PRELUDE 05.
57

PRELUDE 06
(L) Adventures of Charcoal Boy, by Eric Novak/Sarah Provost/Elyas

Khan; (Below)10 Plates, by Ex.PGirl and CUNY doctoral students in
theatre. Both at PRELUDE 06.
59
PRELUDE 06
CURATORS NOTE
PRELUDE 06 brings together some of New Yorks most distinctive
contemporary theatre artists and companies to participate in the fourth
annual festival and symposium featuring performances, readings, studio
presentations and open rehearsals with a focus on work in progress for
the 2007-07 season and beyond. PRELUDE 06 gives audience the rare
chance to see the upcoming work of New Yorks most exciting theatre
in one place and to experience the developmental process of the citys
best contemporary theatre artists and companies. All performances and
presentations will be followed by informal talk-backs with the artists.
Curated by Sarah Benson and Frank Hentschker
DISCUSSIONS
Theatre and the City:
Focusing How the City Reflects and Refracts New York Theatre
Moderators: Young Jean Lee (playwright) and Rangy Gener (The American Theatre)
Participants: Gregory Mosher(Columbia University), Kristin Marting (HERE Art Center)

Mark Russel (Producer, UNDER THE RADAR), Maria Goyanes,

and Rob Handel (13 Playwrights)
(Below) Pieces of David Greenspans adaptation of Aristotles Poetics and TMTs adaptation of The Symposium, by Target
Margin Theater at PRELUDE 06.
61
PRELUDE 06
(Above) from L) The Whole Story and Nothing Butt, by Collapsable Giraffe at
PRELUDE 06; Gone, a work in progress, by Charles Mee, Jr. at PRELUDE 06.
(Below) Marian Seldes in a reading of several scenes of a new untitled play by Will
Eno; Both at PRELUDE 06.
(L, from top) The Grand Kindness by Amber
Reed, presented by Joyce Cho; Panel NYC
Critics/Bloggers with David Cote, Steve Luber
and others; Both at PRELUDE 06.
(R) Gone, a work in progress, by Charles

Mee, Jr. at PRELUDE 06.
63

PRELUDE 07
(Above) A vidoe/talk on the subject of the practice of

choreography by Annie-B Parson/Big Dance Theatre
at PRELUDE 07. (R)The Americas Trilogy by Lucidity
Suitcase Intercontinental at PRELUDE 07.
(Below)Red Fly/Blue Bottle by Christina Campanella
and Stephanie Fleischmann at PRELUDE 07.
65
PRELUDE 07
CURATORS NOTE
PRELUDE 07 is a mini-festival celebrating and discussing the very best
of new and unconventional theatre being created by NYC-based theatre
artists and companies. The event features over 20 short performances,
readings, open rehearsals, and talkbacks with a focus on works in
progress for the upcoming 2007-08 season and beyond. PRELUDE 07
gives audiences the rare chance to see the work of NYCs most exciting
theatre in one place and to experience the developmental process of
contemporary NYC theatre artists.
Curated by Andy Horwitz, Geoffrey Jackson Scott and Frank Hentschker
Associate Producer, Meg Araneo; Production Assistant, Ruth Eglsaer
DISCUSSIONS
Uptown / Downtown
Moderator: David Cote
Participants: Sarah Benson, Adam Bock, Jim Nicola, and Alex Timbers
Playwright vs. Text

Moderator: Brook Stowe
Participants: Madeleine George, Richard Nelson, Eric Dyer, and Mac Wellman
Downtown/Race
Moderator: Jason Grote
Participants: James Scruggs, Thomas Bradshaw, David Henry Hwang, and Melanie Joseph
New Dramaturgy/New York

Participants: Morgan Jenness, Kristin Marting, and Norman Frisch
(L) Uchino Tadashi, co-curator of Spotlight Japan and Toshiki

Okada in post performance discussion at PRELUDE 07.
(Below) A Spotlight Japan post performance discussion with
Frank Hentschker, Uchino Tadashi, co-curator, playwrights
Toshiki Okada, Mikuni Yanaihara and Masataka Matsuda
and others at PRELUDE 07.
(Opposite) The Worshipped: Or Wreck of the Dictators, by
Rachel Shukert/Bushwick Hotel at PRELUDE 07.
67
PRELUDE 07
(Above, from L to R, from top to buttom) A video/talk on the subject of the practice of choreography by Annie-B Parson/
Big Dance Theatre at PRELUDE 07; Kameron Steele; Josh Fox; Kate Loewald, artistic director of the Play Company; Jason
Grote; Melanie Joseph; David Henry Hwang; James Scruggs in the Panel: Downtoen/Race at PRELUDE 07.
(Below, from top)Segal staff at PRELUDE 07; I Used To Be Curious (Loud) by 31 Down at PRELUDE 07.
(Above) Sherru Zahad And Her Arabian Knights, directed by Yvan Greenberg/Laboratory Theater at PRELUDE 07.
(Below) Spotlight Japan The Blue Bird by Mikuni Yanaihara and Dan Safer/Witness Relocation at PRELUDE 07.
69

PRELUDE 08
(Above, from top) Andrew Schneider in CHN01, directed by Andrew Schneider; Adam Lerman, Megan Tusing and
Ilan Bachrach in Sine Wave Goodbye, directed by Jamie Peterson/The Paper Industry; Chautauqua by The National
Theater of the United States of America; All at PRELUDE 08.
71
PRELUDE 08
DISCUSSIONS
Between White Cubes and Black Boxes: Performance, Place & Context
Moderator: Andy Horwitz and Geoffrey Jackson Scott (PRELUDE Curators)
Participants: Raul Vincent Enriquez (Artist),

Bonnie Marranca (co-founder/Editor, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art),

Paul Lazar (Co-Artistic Director, Big Dance Theater),

Debra Singer (Executive Director and Chief Curator, The Kitchen),

RoseLee Goldberg (founder Performa, author)
Producing Meaning: New Media, Technology, & the Role of Dramaturgy

Moderator: Peter Von Salis (Dramaturg)
Participants: Marianne Weems (Artistic Director, The Builders Association),

Jay Scheib (Director), Victor Weinstock (Director/Dramaturg),

Morgan von Prelle Pecelli (Artistic and Development Director for Emerging

Artists, 3LD Art & Technology Center)

Mallory Catlett, Director/Dramaturg
Surreal Estate: Artists, Urban Development & the Future of New York
Moderator: Jennifer Wright Cook (Executive Director, The Field)
Participants: Yehuda Duenyas (Founding Member of NTUSA),
Robert Elmes (Founder of Galapagos)

Zannah Mass (Cultural Affairs Director, Two Trees Management),

Teresa Vasquez (Non-Profit Dest, NYC Economic Development Corporation)
Building Work in Multiple Sites: Financing Artistic Work on the Road

Moderator: David Cote (Theater Editor, Time Out New York)
Participants: Eric Dyer (Founding Member of Radiohole),

Susan Feldman (Artistic Director, St. Anns Warehouse),

Cynthia Hedstrom (Producer/Director of Special Projects, The Wooster Group),

Caden Manson (Artistic Director, Big Art Group),

Kim Whitener (Producing Director, HERE Arts Center)
realist (little r) Theater:

Constructing & Reconstructing Time in Contemporary Performance Practice
Moderator: Morgan von Prelle Pecelli

(Artistic and Development Director for Emerging Artists, 3LD Art & Technology
Center)
Participants: Eric Dyer (Founding Member of Radiohole),

Richard Foreman (Director/Designer/Playwright),

Vallejo Gantner (Artistic Director of Performance Space 122),

Nello McDaniel (Principal Director, ARTS Action Research),

Jay Scheib (Director)
(Above) Panel The New Theatre with George Hunka and others at PRELUDE 08.
CURATORS NOTE
Thank you for joining us at this years festival and helping us celebrate
our 5th Anniversary. As you may have noticed, weve got a new look and
were doing things a little differently. Approaching this years festival,
we gave a lot of thought to what we wanted it to be, how we could serve
the community, and what issues we wanted to address as curators.
Throughout our discussions we kept returning to this idea of context and
place: specifically how does live performance in a theater differ from live
performance in a museum? How does context affect our perception and
valuation of the work? How do we reinforce the idea that theater is - or
can be - Art?
Realizing the scope of the task that lay ahead, we engaged a dramaturg
- Morgan von Prelle Pecelli - to guide and support our investigations. We
explored the ideas behind contemporary museum practice, the histories
of experimental theater, performance art, live art and the artists creating
work between the black box and the white cube.
Living as we do in a hybrid, multidisciplinary, platform-agnostic,
ondemand world, we decided that the question of context was so
important that we would overlay the entire festival with this idea: one
might even look at PRELUDE 08 as a 4-day, interactive, durational
performance. From opening panel to final conversation, PRELUDE 08
will explore the spaces in and between the black box and the white
cube. The program is arranged in a series of themed exhibitions or
galleries starting with the form most removed from traditional theater
- Second Life - and culminating in an exhibit of some of todays finest
wordsmiths. The schedule is staggered to allow people to move more
freely from showing to showing. Rather than following each showing with
a discussion, we have structured the exhibitions to culminate in group
conversations.
We hope you will move through this exhibition carefully and in its entirety,
engage with the artists and the work on display, join the conversations,
meet the people and, most of all, enjoy the show.
PRELUDE 08 Curators: Andy Horwitz, Geoffrey Jackson Scott and Frank
Hentschker.
(Above) Adam Lerman, Megan Tusing, Ilan Bachrach, and Brian Smolin in Sine Wave Goodbye, directed by Jamie
Peterson/The Paper Industry
73
PRELUDE 08
(Opposite, L) Untitled Film Project, by Richard Foreman/The Bridge Project at PRELUDE 08 (R) Andy Horwitz
and Geoffrey Jackson Scott, curators of PRELUDE 08.
(Below) Brian Rogers and Claudia La Rocco in A Burrito Truck, by Raul Vincent Enriquez at PRELUDE 08.
75
PRELUDE 08
(Clockwise from far above R) BLIND.NESS, directed by Ivan Talijancic/Wax Factory; Neighbors, written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins;
BLIND.NESS, directed by Ivan Talijancic/Wax Factory; Ryan Kelly in T.T.I.D (Le Theatre Est Mort!), by Moving Theater; Ryan Kelly in
T.T.I.D (Le Theatre Est Mort!), by Moving Theater; FLAUXCONCERT 20080925-27, by FLAUXCONCERT; Neal Medlyns The Passion
of Kanye West, by Neal Medlyn; All at PRELUDE 08.
(From top) Farris Craddock, Neal Medlyn, and Carmine Covelli in Neal Medlyns The Passion of Kanye West, by Neal Medlyn; ASTRS,
by Joyce Cho; Ben Beckley, Ryosuke Yamada, and Lorraine Mattox in Americana Kamikaze, directed by Kenneth Collins, Temporary
Distortion; All at PRELUDE 08.
77
PRELUDE 08
(From L to R, from top to bottom) Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins; Geoffrey Jackson Scott, curator of PRELUDE 08;
Andy Horwitz, curator of PRELUDE 08; Caden Manson; Marianne Weems; Kristin Marting; Jay Scheib; Okwui
Okpokwasili; Vallejo Gantner; Big Dance Theater in Artists in Conversation: Compositional Performance;
Panel Discussion at PRELUDE 08; Big Art Group in Artists in Conversation: Media Performance; Geschichtlos,
a work in progress, by Richard Maxwell/NYC Players at PRELUDE 08.
(Opposite, above two) Chautauqua by The National Theater of the United States of America; (Bottom)
Untitled Film Project, by Richard Foreman/The Bridge Project at PRELUDE 08.
79

PRELUDE 09
(Above, L) Map of Virtue, by Erin Courtney (Above, R) Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, directed by
Jay Scheib; Both at PRELUDE 09.
(Above) WHA!? Whatever Heaven Allows by Radiohole at PRELUDE 09.
81
PRELUDE 09
DISCUSSIONS
Artists In Conversation: Digital
Moderator: Andy Horwitz (founder CULTUREBOT.ORG; PRELUDE 09 Co-Curator)
Artists: Steve Cuiffo, John Jesurun, William Cusick and David Michalek
Artists In Conversation: Hybrid

Moderator: Morgan von Prelle Pecelli

(Director of Development, PS122; PRELUDE 09 Co-Curator)
Artists: Adrienne Truscott (Choreographer), Dan Safer (Director, Witness Relocation),
Brian Rogers (Co-Founder The Chocolate Factory ),
Phil Soltanoff (Director, Mad Dog Experimental)

CURATORS NOTE
Thank you for joining us for PRELUDE 09: Ecologies, Economies and
Engagement. As we approached this years festival, we kept talking
about the characteristics of the current moment. Right now as you read
this, someone is saying more in 140 characters than we have said in
207. Someone is using the iPhone they just bought to upload footage
they just shot to a blog they just created. We are undergoing a profound
and transformative renegotiation of experience and engagement - all
around us, all the time. As we looked at the work of PRELUDE artists this
year the question we came back to was, how does this work reflect or
predict the new world into which we are hurtling at breakneck speed?
Artists In Conversation: Political

Moderator: Claire Bishop (Art Historian & Critic)
Artists: Marina Abramovic, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Aaron Landsman,
David Levine, and Andrew Dinwiddie
Artists In Conversation: Bricolage

Moderator: Sarah Benson(Artistic Director, Soho Rep.)
Artists: Jay Scheib, Brooke OHarra, Kara Feely, Judith Malina, and Eric Dyer

Artists In Conversation: Poetics

Moderator: Geoffrey Jackson Scott

(Literary Associate, New York Theatre Workshop; PRELUDE 09 Co-Curator)
Artists: Erin Courtney, Kristen Kosmas, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Christina Masciotti,
Symposium: Citizenship
Moderator: Arwen Lowbridge (PRELUDE 09 Associate Producer)
Participants: Robert Zukerman (Theater Program Director, NYSCA),

Justin Krebs (Artistic Director, The Tank),

Sheila Lewandowski (Co-Founder & Executive Director, The Chocolate Factory)
Symposium: Production
Moderator: Hlne Lesterlin (EMPAC)
Participants: Vallejo Gantner (Artistic Director, PS122),

Kristin Marting (Artistic Director HERE),

Jeff Hnilicka (Co-Founder, FEAST)

Symposium: Green
Moderator: Lisa Phillips
Participants: Harriet Taub (Executive Director, Materials for The Arts),

Jonah Bokaer (Choreographer and Founder Chez Bushwick/Center for

Performance Research),

Jeremy James Pickard (Co-Founder Superhero Clubhouse),

Michael Johnson-Chase (Green Jobs Program Director, SolarOne)
National Arts Journalism Summit

Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California
Seeking to build upon the porous and participatory structure of last

years festival, we have left the format largely unchanged. Artists
and companies have again been curated into tracks. Whereas last
year we were focusing on disciplinary boundaries, this year artists
are grouped around loci of content, form and practice: Digital, Poetic,
Political, Bricolage, and Hybrid. Also making a return this year are the
Artists in Conversation, which unite the dynamic artists of each track in
conversation with each other at the close of each day. We invite you to
join us for this unique opportunity to hear the artists informally discuss
how they create their work.
Our symposia investigations this year Citizenship, Production, and
Green will be opportunities to move outside the work. Through each
we hope to foster dialogues about the changing relationship of art and
culture, new ways of engaging our political muscles, new modes in
producing, and new strategies in greener creation. Rounding out the bill
this year is our annual international collaboration, this year featuring
Spotlight Korea, and a live streaming of the National Arts Journalism
Project summit on Cultural Coverage in the 21st Century.
In an attempt to augment the festivals transparency and engagement,
we are inviting those on twitter to participate in the various symposia and
dialogues via the hashtag #preludenyc. Use it to ask questions of the
artists, make suggestions, and get more information about the various
goings on. The goal is to offer a wide swath of experiences and chances
for you to interact with the artists and with each other.
We hope you will look with one eye towards the imagined future and the
other on the rapidly receding past.
PRELUDE 09 Curators:
Andy Horwitz, Geoffrey Jackson Scott,
Morgan von Prelle Pecelli and Frank Hentschker.
83
PRELUDE 09
(Below) Selective Memory,

directed by Brian Rogers/
The Chocolate Factory at
PRELUDE 09.
(L) Opening Panel: The

PRELUDE 6x6 with (from
left) Esther Robinson,
Andrew Schneider,
Yehuda Duenyas, and
Bonnie Marranca at
PRELUDE 09
85
PRELUDE 09
(Above, from top) Neal Medlyn and Adrienne Truscott in Bermuda ($$), directed by Adrienne Truscott; Benjamin Forster and
Black-Eyed Susan in Liz One, directed by John Jesurun; Both at PRELUDE 09
(Opposite, from L to R, top to bottom) Yehuda Duenyas; Bonnie Marranca; Tairone Bastien; Andrew Schneider; Esther
Robinson; Wayne Ashley; Sheila Lewandowski; Justin Krebs; Jeff Hnilicka; Kristin Marting; ;Hlne Lesterlin; Robert
Zuckerman; David Levine; Brooke OHarra; Kara Feely; Andrew Dinwiddie; Matthew Maher; William Cusick; Dan Safer in Panel
at PRELUDE 09. Symposium: Green with Lisa Phillips and others at PRELUDE 09.
87
PRELUDE 09
(Above from top) Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, directed by Jay Scheib; LA Party,
directed by Phil Soltanoff/Mad Dog Experimental; Jay Scheib in the talkback after
Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, directed by Jay Scheib; All at PRELUDE 09.
(L, from top) Andy Horwitz, curator of PRELUDE 09; Morgan von Prelle Pecelli,
curator of PRELUDE 09; Geoffrey Jackson Scott, curator of PRELUDE 09; Phil
Soltanoff; Eric Dyer; Eric Dyer and Jay Scheib in Artists in Conversation: Bricolage.
(Clockwise from top)

Marina Abramovic in Artist
in Discussion; Marina
Abramovic in Artist in
Discussion; Art History with
Benefits, by The Bruce high
Quality Foundation; Gun
Sale, by Object Collection;
Judith Malina in Artists in
Conversation: Bricolage; All
at PRELUDE 09.
89

PRELUDE 10
(R) Liz Sargent in Botanica, directed by Jim Findlay;

(Below) Zoetrope, by HOI POLLOI & Sylvan Oswald. Both
at PRELUDE 10.
91
PRELUDE 10
ROUND TABLES
Communication: Where Exchange Becomes Communitas
Participants: Robert Quillen Camp, Rachel Chavkin (the TEAM), Alec Duffy (Hoi Polloi),

Trajal Harrell, Karinne Keithly (Joyce Cho),

S. Oswald (Hoi Polloi and Play a Journal of Plays)
Joined by: SMallory Catlett (SPOTLIGHT: CATALONIA Curator), Caridad Svich (Playwright),

Christina deRoos (Chez Bushwick), Kevin Doyle (Sponsored by Nobody)
Provocation: Attempts To Activate Overstimulated City Dwellers

Participants: Penny Arcade, Jennifer Wright Cook (The Field), Jim Findlay,

Ishmael Houston-Jones, Aaron Landsman, Kristin Marting (HERE),

Julie Atlas Muz, Jon Stancato (Stolen Chair)
Joined by: Young Jean Lee
Simulation: Living The Simulacra

Participants: RKimon Keramidas, Reid Farrington, Andrew Schneider, Reggie Watts
Joined by: Kevin Cunningham (3LD Art & Technology Center),

Tanya Selvaratnam (performer/producer ),

Megan Sprenger (Dance Theatre Workshop and mvworks),

Carla Peterson (Dance Theatre Workshop), Eric Dyer (Radiohole)
CURATORS NOTE
PRELUDE 10 asks a blunt question that straddles funding, audience
and disciplinary tensions pervasive in our contemporary performance
sector: Why Does Live Matter? What is its purpose? How do we
measure its value to individuals, to communities, and to that collector of
the dead - History? Three themes over three days drive our investigation:
Communication, Provocation, and Simulation.
Since live art is as much about the audience as it is about the artist,
we start each day with participation. Our afternoon Activity Sessions
challenge you to question yourself and the world beyond, formulate
answers, experience new tools, and create your own artworks with the
curated artists leading the sessions.
The evening Performances return audience members to the
contemporary habit of distanced observation. But dont get too
comfortable: these artists provoke us to consider how live performance
can regain its relevance to society, unsettle perception and habits, and
engage organically in the digital age.
To conclude each day, we push you to the edge of voyeurism by closing
you out of the conversation entirely. During the nightly Round Tables
you will witness the artists from each days sessions discuss and debate
the practical & philosophical ramifications of each days theme, joined by
selected peers.
Looping back around and returning us to that first participatory moment
of the day, each night we journey to the local watering-hole to continue
the discussion and remind ourselves of the world beyond our white
cubes and black boxes.
(Above)The Cleaning Lady Has Something to Say (Part 1), directed by Julie Atlas Muz; (Below) Mission Drift, directed by
Rachel Chavkin/The Team. Both at PRELUDE 10.
Finally, we know it would be impossible to remain relevant in the lives of

our audiences if we ignored our daily engagement with the socializing
forces of virtual technology. To facilitate your virtual participation, we
have also included QR codes in this program that you can scan with
your digital device after downloading a QR Scanner application. The QR
codes will take you directly to web content relevant to the related artists
or projects and open up new avenues for creativity and participation,
including our Facebook page and Live Writers Wiki.
We hope you join us in the flesh and in the virtual for all three days.
The PRELUDE.10 Team
Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, Frank Hentschker, Arwen Lowbridge,
and Mashinka Firunts
93
PRELUDE 10
(Below) Mission Drift, directed by Rachel Chavkin/The Team at PRELUDE 10.
95
PRELUDE 10
(L) Round Table: Communication: where exchange

becomes communitas with Alec Duffy and others;
(Below) Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, curator of
PRELUDE 10

becomes communitas with Morgan von Prelle Pecelli
and others; (Below) Robert Quillen Camp in That
Black Gravity, written by Robert Quillen Camp at
PRELUDE 10.
(Above) Liz Sargent; (R) Liz Sargent and Chet

Mazur; (Below) Chet Mazur inBotanica, directed by
Jim Findlay at PRELUDE 10.

becomes communitas with Alec Duffy and others;
(Below) Ryan Eggensperger in That Black Gravity,
written by Robert Quillen Camp at PRELUDE 10.
97

PRELUDE 11
(Above) Gus Solomons, Jr. in Complete Works (2009/2011),

by Nina Beier at PRELUDE 11.
(Above and below) World of Wires, directed by Jay

Scheib at PRELUDE 11.
99
PRELUDE 11
DISCUSSIONS
Repurposing
Moderator: Claire Bishop
Participants: Rob Fitterman (poet), Richard Move (choreographer/performer)

Julia Robinson (art historian)
Text As Texture
Moderator: Helen Shaw
Participants: Otso Huopaniemi, Jeff Jones, Sibyl Kempson, and Mac Wellman
We Present A Presentation
Moderator: Rob Marcato
Participants: Pablo Helguera, Jake Hooker, and Claudia La Rocco
CURATORS NOTE
Hello and welcome to PRELUDE.11!
In its short life, the PRELUDE festival has taken on a number of roles
collection point for exciting New York work, sampler-platter of the coming
season, and site for academic and artistic interaction. This is the eighth
edition of PRELUDE, and it marks a departure from previous years by
focusing on live performance from an interdisciplinary perspective. For
the first time, we are using the James Gallery at the Graduate Center as
well as the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center as venues for the festival, so
that we can juxtapose and compare two types of performance space
the white cube and the black box.
The dialogue is not simply between experimental theatrical production
and visual art performance, however. Also included in this years
PRELUDE are representatives of new tendencies in poetry and
contemporary dance. In our months of planning, weve discovered
cultural and pragmatic differences that divide these related disciplines,
but weve also been happy to uncover the extent to which different
mediums frequently address similar issues. We have identified three
main areas around which these common themes converge: Repurposing,
Text as Texture, and We Present a Presentation.
The performances are scheduled to alternate between the James Gallery
and the Martin Segal Theatre Center. In the evenings, there will be a bar
in the James Gallery, illuminated by David Levines YES (2011).
Each day begins with a panel discussion featuring the performers and
experts, and where time allows, performances will be followed by a
discussion with the artists. But our job isnt done until audience and
performers are all in a room debating what they have seen so we look
forward to seeing you here over the next three days and over a glass of
wine at our closing party, at the Gershwin Hotel, on Friday October 14th!
(Above) Love.abz, directed by Otso Huopaniemi at PRELUDE 11;

(Row below and opposite) Rob Erickson in Mangle Me Slowmo, by Lumberob at PRELUDE 11.
The PRELUDE Team

Claire Bishop, Frank Hentschker, Rob Marcato, Helen Shaw
101
PRELUDE 11
(Above) Panel: Text as Texture with (from left) Helen Shaw, Jeffrey M. Jones, Otso Huopaniemi,
Sibyl Kempson, and Mac Wellman at PRELUDE 11
(Above, from left) Helen Shaw,Claire Bishop, and Rob Marcato. curators of PRELUDE 11.
(Above, L) Pablo Helguera and Jake Hooker in Panel We Present a Presentation. (R) Robert
Fitterman in Robs, by Robert Fitterman; both at PRELUDE 11.
Otso Huopaniemi
Mac Wellman
Sibyl Kempson
Jeffrey M. Jones
103
PRELUDE 11
(Above) THISISITISTHISIT (Shit Shit Shit): A Map of the Known World, directed by Jake Hooker/The Plastic Arts at PRELUDE 11.
(Above) Audience in James Gallery, CUNY at PRELUDE 11.
(Above, from top) Yes (2011), by David Levine;

Talkback after Half Straddles Seagull (Thinking of
You) with Caleb Hammons; Joseph Beuys in NYC,
by Jackson Pollock Bar; Paul Lazar in When A Priest
Marries A Witch, by Suzanne Bocanegra & Paul
Lazar; All at PRELUDE 11.
(Above, from top)THISISITISTHISIT (Shit Shit Shit): A Map

of the Known World, directed by Jake Hooker/The Plastic
Arts; Seagull (Thinking of You), directed by Tina Satter/
Half Straddle; both at PRELUDE 11.
(Above) World of Wires, directed by Jay Scheib at PRELUDE 11.
105

PRELUDE 12
(Above) Dave Malloy, Mikeah Ernest Jennings, Eliza Bent and Nikki Calonge in Black Wizard /
Blue Wizard, by Eliza Bent & Dave Malloy at PRELUDE 12.
(Above)Jack Ferver in All of a Sudden, by Jack Ferver in collaboration with Joshua Lubin-Levy at
PRELUDE 12.
107
PRELUDE 12
DISCUSSIONS
Imitation Of Participation
Moderator: Caleb Hammons
Participants: Claire Bishop (scholar), Lear deBessonet (artist),

Andy Horwitz (artist / writer), Aaron Landsman (artist), Niegel Smith (artist)
The Future Of The Cinema Is The Stage

Moderators: Julie Talen (scholar) and Helen Shaw
Participants: Caden Manson (Artist), Tony Torn (Artist), Marianne Weems (Artist) & others
CURATORS NOTE
Hello and welcome to PRELUDE.12, the ninth annual PRELUDE Festival at the
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center!
Thank you so much for joining us. We hope we have furnished you with a feast of
provoking, ravishing, bizarre, complicated and blithely entertaining workenough
to delight the most voracious performance-lover. As always, PRELUDE offers
its banquet in appetizer portions: snippets, readings and works-in-progress, all
tempting morsels that we think will pique your appetite for the seasons to come.
This year, as we looked for works by artists we think define (and rewrite the
definition of) the New York scene, we were struck by an oxymoron. There
was a strong presence of absence. Many of our most treasured creators,
pressed by funding exigencies and a dependence on touring, must work far
from home, leaving a hole at the center of any New York season. Emerging
makers are creating in spite of an absence of space, time, money and a major
premiere. There are other disappearances too, as theater and dance artists
increasingly create work deliberately void of live components. These are not new
circumstances or strategies, yet any true survey of the current experimental New
York moment must make some mention of these intentional and unintentional
lacunae.
Throughout the festival we will be investigating these absences and their
residual/ reactionary presences, how they are changing our notions of live
performance, the practice thereof and the participation therein. We have asked
a slew of artists to create and perform manifestos for 2012, so that we can hear
how others fully affirm arts presence in the modern wilderness. We will explore
the influence of cinema on the avant-garde stage and the current uses of film
and video within what we still call live practice. We will look at the links between
participation, authenticity and imitation. We will try to understand the continuing
role music plays in the art of live performancethe way it joyfully reaffirms ritual
connections at some cellular level.
(Above, L) Andrew Champlin in The Problem with Dancing, by Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People; (R) Spoken Karaoke, a
participatory event, directed by Annie Dorsen at PRELUDE 12.
(Below) Raise Your Voice in Medieval Counterpoint, directed by Julia May Jonas/Nellie Tinder at PRELUDE 12.
Performances are scheduled to alternate between the Graduate Centers

Elebash Recital Hall and the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, but look for us
elsewhere as well. Niegel Smith has created a walk just for PRELUDEa spiritual
journey through the streets around CUNYand our partner, the Gershwin Hotel,
will also host our two loudest offerings: Adam Feldman curates an Avant-Cabaret
Spectacular on the night of October 3rd, while our performance-heavy closing
night party will feature a DJ set from the singular Lumberob.
None of this will be complete, though, without your participation. We hope that
youll engage with our Critical Partners writing on Culturebot (culturebot.org)
and Contemporary Performance (contemporaryperformance.org), and that
youll continue the analysis, in a slightly less academic vein, over beers at the
Gershwin. Whichever your chosen venue, we hope you feel as we do that the
programming can only ever be half the conversation; we rely on you to turn it into
a dialogue.
The PRELUDE Team:
Caleb Hammons & Helen Shaw, and Frank Hentschker
109
PRELUDE 12
(Below) Audience at the Segal Theater, CUNY at PRELUDE 12.

(Opposite) Eliza Bent and Nikki Calonge in Black Wizard / Blue Wizard, by Eliza Bent & Dave Malloy
111
PRELUDE 12
(Above L) Jay Scheib in Jay Scheib: Untitled Ecologies, by Jay Scheib &
Co. (Bottom L) Tony Torn and Richard Foreman in Untitled, by Richard
Foreman (R) A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the
Death of Walt Disney, by Lucas Hnath, directed by Sarah Benson; All at
PRELUDE 12.
(R) Marty Brown in Furry, by

William Burke at PRELUDE 12.
(L) Andrew Champlin in The

Problem with Dancing, by
Miguel Gutierrez and the
Powerful People (R) Leah
Nanako Winkler in Work Hard
Play Harder: a manifesto by a
next generation theatre maker,
directed by Leah Nanako
Winkler/Everywhere Theatre
Group at PRELUDE 12.
(From top) Helen Shaw and

Caleb Hammons, curators
of PRELUDE 12; Audience
at the Segal Theater, CUNY;
Furry, by William Burke at
PRELUDE 12.
113
PRELUDE 12
(Above) Tony Torn and Julie Atlas Muz in Ubu Sings

Ubu, directed by Tony Torn at PRELUDE 12.
(Above)The House of Von Macrame, by Joshua Conkel
at PRELUDE 12.
(Above) Helen Shaw and Caleb Hammons, curators of

PRELUDE 12
(R) Audience at the Gershwin Hotel at PRELUDE 12.

(Below) Avant-Cabaret Spectacular at the Gershwin
Hotel at PRELUDE 12.
(Above) Frank Hentschker in River of Gruel, Pile of Pigs: The Requisite Gesture[s] of Narrow Approach, directed by Sibyl
Kempson
115

PRELUDE 13
(Top) The Universe is a Small Hat, by Csar Alvarez and Sarah Benson; (Bottom L) Elijah Green, directed by Andrew
Ondrejcak (Bottom R) Andrew Schneider in YOUARENOWHERE, by Andrew Schneider; All at PRELUDE 13.
117
PRELUDE 13
DISCUSSIONS
CURATORS NOTE
The Brooklyn Commune Project

Collaborating Artists: Gelsey Bell, Abigail Browde, Annie Dorsen, Shonni Enelow, Andy Horwitz,

Carla Peterson, Risa Shoup, Michael Silverstone, Clyde Valentine, and more
Performing New York City:

How Theater and Performance Can Survive the Next Decade
Moderator: David Levine
Participants: Sarah Benson, Claire Bishop, Caleb Hammons, Frank Hentschker, Andy Horwitz,

Rob Marcato, Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, Geoffrey Jackson Scott, and Helen Shaw.
The Willing Participant

Moderator: Gavin Kroeber
Participants: Adam Horowitz, Melanie Joseph, Aaron Landsman, Todd Shalom, and Niegel Smith
Re: (No Subject)

Moderator: Caleb Hammons
Participants: Annie Baker, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sibyl Kempson, Max Posner,

and Anne Washburn
(Below )#HASHTAG: A Performance Art Performance, by Chris Tyler at PRELUDE 13
Hello and welcome to PRELUDE.13, the tenth annual PRELUDE Festival at the
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.
A prelude, according to Webster, is an introductory performance, action, or
event preceding and preparing for the principal or a more important matter. It is
intrinsic, then, that the direction in which to plan and experience a prelude is with
sights set forward. Each October for the past ten years, PRELUDE has introduced
New York artists and audiences to the season ahead. This season, as a slight
departure, we approached the occasion of PRELUDE.13 as a critical juncture; a
moment to consider what came before, chart the evolutions that brought us into
the now, and to launch inquiries into where we can go from here. The next ten
years are our more important matter.
What started a decade ago as a way to facilitate exchange between current
scholarly and artistic practices rooted in New York City no longer binds these
proceedings by the roles we play and the spaces in which we play them. The
PRELUDE of today is a collective laboratory of local artistic process, celebrating
and inquiring into the unique creative forces that live and thrive in this city.
PRELUDE.13, subtitled FORWARD, is a place to discover and engage in what
voices, ideas, and debates are colliding to shape the near and distant future of
contemporary theatre and performance in NYC. In celebration of the Festivals
first decade, PRELUDE.13 also recognizes and reflects on the community of
artists, audience, scholars, and other participants who have contributed to a
decade of discourse.
Events are scheduled to alternate between the Graduate Centers Martin E. Segal
Theatre and the Elebash Recital Hall, but be attentive to unexpected encounters
in unusual sites. If the zeitgeist does in fact point us to the core of the present
disposition, a new elocution will emerge in the next decade surrounding social,
site-based, and participatory practices in the theatrical realm. As a (willing)
participant in this years events, you may find yourself in hallways with strangers,
processed for access to an alien spacecraft, exploring the geography of your own
psyche, asked to sleep during the performance, or even (finally!) in Brooklyn (for
the closing night party transportation provided).
Whether you have arrived at PRELUDE as an artist, spectator, scholar, or any
combination thereof, over the next three days you are part of a communitas.
Onstage, online, on-screen, on the page, on the streets, or with a drink in hand
at our closing night Tenth Anniversary Celebration, we implore you to observe,
engage, commune, and critique with us. Our aim this week is for collision with
both the work and the people around us. Our duty thereafter is to carry this spirit,
our experiments, and our inquiries FORWARD.
Thank you for participating in this milestone PRELUDE year!
- The PRELUDE Team,
Caleb Hammons & Frank Hentschker
119
PRELUDE 13
(Above) The People L.E.S by The Big Art Group at PRELUDE 13
(Above) Taylor Mac in 24-Decade Concert Series of the History of Popular Music: The
1850s (An Open Rehearsal), by Taylor Mac at PRELUDE 13
121
PRELUDE 13
(L) Alan Smithee Directed This Play by Big

Dance Theatre at PRELUDE 13;
(Middle L) Taylor Mac and pianist in
24-Decade Concert Series of the History
of Popular Music: The 1850s (An Open
Rehearsal), by Taylor Mac (Middle R)
Jerome Ellis in Aaron/Marie, by Jerome
Ellis and James Harrison Monaco at
PRELUDE 13.
(Bottom L) Paul Zimet in This Was
the End, by Mallory Catlett/Restless
NYC (Bottom R) Andrew Schneider in
YOUARENOWHERE, by Andrew Schneider
(Above) PRELUDE 13 Opening Panel How Theater and Performance can Survive the Next
Decade with (from left) Frank Hentschker, Sarah Benson, Caleb Hammons, Claire Bishop, Andy
Horwitz, Rob Marcato, Helen Shaw, and Geoffrey Jackson Scott.
(Below)The Universe is a Small

Hat by Csar Alvarez and Sarah
Benson; (R) Radoslaw Konopka,
Liza Wade Green and Andrew
Goldberg in Experiment #2
(PRELUDE), by The Institute for
Psychogeographic Adventure
(IPA) at PRELUDE 13.
123
PRELUDE 13
(R) Sarah Benson, Caleb Hammons, and

Claire Bishop
(Below) Panel The Willing Participant
with Gavin Kroeber and others at
PRELUDE 13.
(Above)That Poor Dream, by the Assembly at PRELUDE 13.
(Above) Cynthia Hopkins in A Living Documentary, by Cynthia Hopkins at PRELUDE 13.
(Below) The Universe is a Small Hat by Csar Alvarez and Sarah Benson at PRELUDE 13
(Above) Audience in the Corridor; all at PRELUDE 13.
125
THE PRELUDE TEAMS
THE PRELUDE TEAMS
2009
Curators
Andy Horwitz
Geoffrey Jackson Scott
Frank Hentschker
2005
Curators
Frank Hentschker
Sarah Benson
MESTC, Director of Administration
Jan Stenzel
Stage Managers
Monica Moore
Sarah Bishop-Stone
Intern
Amanda Wright
Morgan von Prelle Pecelli
Producer
Allison Lyman
Producer/Marketing
Rebecca Sheahan
Associate Producer
Arwen Lowbridge
Graphic Designer
George Bixby
Web Designer
Kimon Keramidas
2010
2006
Curators
Curator/Dramaturg
Curators
Frank Hentschker
Frank Hentschker
Sarah Benson
MESTC, Director of Administration
Jan Stenzel
Associate Producer
Amanda Wright
Stage Manager
Ryan Parow
Poster Designer
Alex Irklievsky
Postcard Designer
Brendan Dugan
2007
Curators
Producer
Arwen Lowbridge
Dramaturg
Mashinka Firunts
Spotlight Curator
Mallory Catlett
Graphic Designer
George Bixby
Web Designer
Kimon Keramidas
Co-technical Directors
Brad Krumholz
Brendan Regimbal
Andy Horwitz
Frank Hentschker
Associate Producers
Stage Managers
Sarah Hughes
Ruth Wikler-Luker
On-site Coordinator
Melissa F. Moschitto
Curators
Ruth Eglsaer
Phyllis B. Dooney
Production Manager
Helen Shaw
Frank Hentschker
2008
Andy Horwitz
Producer
Caleb Hammons
Marketing & publibity
Rayya El Zein
Anais Michel
Ruth Wikler-Luker
Frank Hentschker
Producers
Technical Directors
Allison Lyman
Art Director
Tim Fodness
Brad Krumholz
Rebecca Sheahan
Dramaturg
Claire Bishop
Rob Marcato
Clifton K. Cahall
Curators
(Above) Sipiwe Moyo in Pink

Melon Joy by Katherine Brook/
Tele-Violet at PRELUDE 13.
2011
Meg Araneo
Graphic Designer
Brendan Regimbal

George Bixby
Production Coordinator
Lisa McGinn
Stage Managers
Rachel Parks
Greg Redlawsk
(Above) Rob Erickson in

Mangle Me Slowmo, by
Lumberob at PRELUDE
11.
127
THE PRELUDE TEAMS

2012
Curators
2014
Caleb Hammons
Curators
Chlo Bass
Helen Shaw
Jackie Sibblies Drury
Frank Hentschker
Sarah Rose Leonard
Producer
Rachel Silverman
PRELUDE Director of Administration
Rebecca Sheahan
Producer
Sarah Stites
Company Manager
Lauren DiGiulio
Associate Producer
Mary Spadoni
Technical Directors
Tim Fodness
Executic Director, the Segal Center
Frank Hentschker
Brad Krumholz
Managing Director, the Segal Center
Rebecca Sheahan
Brendan Regimbal
Segal Center Associate, the Segal Center
Brad Burgess
Design Coordinator
Sarah Rose Leonard
Design Coordinator
Michael LoCicero
Lisa McGinn
Graphic Designers
Kaitlin Meyers
Stage Managers
Greg Redlawsk
Company Manager/Outreach
Allison Lyman
Yu Chien Liu
Mary Spadoni
Web Designer
Alex Weiss-Hills
Ruth Wikler-Luker
Party Producers/ Social Media Managers
Shelley Carter
Caleb Hammons
Technical Directors
Emilyn Kowaleski
2013
Curators
Frank Hentschker
Peter Mills-Weiss
Carl Wipple
Producer
Rachel Silverman
PRELUDE Director of Administration
Rebecca Sheahan
Stage Managers
Alt. Space Production Coordinator
Sarah Bishop-Stone
Company Manager
Yu Chien Liu
Lindsey Turteltaub
Volunteer Coordinator
Sam French
Production Assistants
Brad Burgess
Producers Assistant
Joy Arab
Greg Redlawsk
Blake Bishton
Lisa Szolovits
Company Manager
Shelley Carter
Sound Technician
Michael Costagliola
Web Developer
Kimon Keramidas
Party Producer
Sarah Rose Leonard
Technical Directors
Peter Mills-Weiss
Eric Marlin
Front of House Staff
Camille Gaume
Matt Romein
Stage Managers
Greg Redlawsk
Mary Spadoni
Design Coordinator
Sarah Stites
(Above) Audience in James Gallery, CUNY at PRELUDE 13.
129
CREDITS
PHOTO CREDITS
PRELUDE Photographers
2005
Tasja Keetman
www.tasjakeetman.com
2006
Julieta Cervantes
www.julietacervantes.com
2007
Julien Jourdes
www.jourdes.com
2008
Rachel Roberts
www.rachelrobertsphoto.com
2009
Justin Bernhaut
www.bernhaut.com
2010
Justin Bernhaut
www.bernhaut.com
John DesRoches
www.johndesrochesphotography.com
2011
Irina Rozovsky
www.irinar.com
2012
Julieta Cervantes
2013
Julieta Cervantes
headers
Drawings by Michael Arthur, 2008
[pg.7,8, 25,39,124, 128]
pg.29
Tasja Keetman, 2005
pg.30
Rachel Roberts, 2008
pg.31
Irina Rozovsky, 2011
pg.32
Tasja Keetman, 2005
pg.33
Tasja Keetman, 2005
pg.35
R: Julien Jourdes, 2007

L: Rachel Roberts, 2008
pg.36

Julien Jourdes, 2007
pg.38
R: Irina Rozovsky, 2011

L: Julien Jourdes, 2007
Pg.39
pg.41
Julieta Cervantes, 2012

pg.43
pg.11
pg.44
pg.12
pg.46
NTOK: Courtesy of the artist
pg.14
pg. 15
Justin Bernhaut, 2009
pg.49
pg.16
Top L: Justin Bernhaut, 2009
pg.51
pg.52-57
Tasja Keetman, 2005
pg.55
Sarah Benson: Frank Hentschker
pg.58-63

Julien Jourdes. 2007
R: Justin Bernhaut, 2009

Bottom L: Irina Rozovsky, 2011
R: Julieta Cervantes, 2012
pg.17
pg.64-69
pg.18
pg.70-79
pg.19
pg.80-89
pg.20
pg.90-97
pg.21
pg.99-105
pg.22
pg.106-115
pg.23
pg.102
Claire Bishop: Courtesy of the artist
pg.24
pg.116-125
pg.126
pg.127
pg.26-27
Tasja Keetman, 2005
pg.129
pg.28
Tasja Keetman, 2005
pg.130
131

Ten Years PRELUDE

Încărcat de

Informații document

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Ten Years PRELUDE

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Prelude is a perfect cultural embodiment of New York City.

Always evolving, always exciting,

Martin E. Segal Theatre Center