Ars Nova Unveils Exciting 2023-2024 Season Featuring Two World Premieres and Flexible Ticket Pricing

Ars Nova has revealed details for its 2023–2024 Season, which doubles programming from past seasons and sustains its commitment to accessible ticket prices through What’s Ars Is Yours: Name Your Price tickets. This innovative program allows audiences to name their price, starting at $5, to performances all season long including Ars Nova’s two Off-Broadway productions.

Ars Nova’s first of two Off-Broadway premieres, (pray), a sacred offering by nicHi douglas, directed and choreographed by douglas, with music by S T A R R Busby and JJJJJerome Ellis, will run September 23–October 28, 2023 at its downtown satellite stage, Ars Nova @ Greenwich House. Through music, movement, and human connection, (pray) celebrates and reckons with the complexity of spiritual inheritance, summoning the curiosity, anger, confusion and bliss that transcends generations of Black women across the African diaspora. Channeling the joy and vitality of a Sunday Baptist Church service through a surreal and Afrofuturist lens, (pray) serves as an invitation to examine one's own spiritual practices and holds space to inspire human transformation through the liberation of the Black feminine divine. Name Your Price tickets to (pray) are available now and can be purchased at www.arsnovanyc.com/pray. (pray) was commissioned by Ars Nova and is a co-production with National Black Theatre.

In the Spring, Ars Nova will present the Off-Broadway world premiere of Travels, a sonic narrative collection by James Harrison Monaco, which will runMarch 15–April 13, 2024 at Ars Nova (511 W 54th St). Directed by Andrew Scoville, this cross-continental play-meets-electronic-music-set fuses synthesizers with storytelling to share accounts of modern-day travel  – from vacation to work trips, border-crossing, asylum-seeking and long-distance relationships. Over the span of a setlist sown with adventure, heartbreak and euphoria, audiences traverse the complex topography of language, borders, power and privilege one beat at a time.

Ars Nova’s 2023–2024 season also includes an expansion of programming at its original home at 511 W 54th Street. Over 50 events will showcase innovative, genre-bending new work and serve as a play space for visionary, adventurous artists of all stripes. New shows will premiere regularly on-stage and online, kicking off with commissioned artist Sammy Miller & The Congregation in concert Sept 6–8, and including the 17th annual All New Talent Festival, ANT Fest (June 2024), which will once again shine a spotlight on NYC’s wildest and wackiest live performances from fresh talent taking their first swings. Additional highlights include the return of Showgasm., Ars Nova’s monthly variety-show-meets-party, and the CAMP Bonfire series (May 2024). Name Your Price tickets to Sammy Miller & The Congregation’s concert series are available now and can be purchased at www.arsnovanyc.com/sammy-miller-and-the-congregation.

Further cementing the company’s highly collaborative approach to leadership, Ars Nova has revealed leadership staffing additions. Anna Morton has been named Associate Artistic Director, Artistic Development & Programs; and Andrew Neisler has been named Associate Artistic Director, Discovery & Programming. The pair will autonomously drive all artistic activity. Long standing General Manager Casey York has been named Managing Director and will join Producing Executive Director Renee Blinkwolt and Founding Artistic Director Jason Eagan as the executive leadership of the organization.
 

Founding Artistic Director Jason Eagan remarked, “We are ecstatic to have Anna Morton and Andrew Neisler leading our Artistic Team as we step into a jam-packed season of surprising new work, headlined by the extraordinary talents of nicHi douglas, S T A R R Busby, JJJJJerome Ellis, James Harrison Monaco and Andrew Scoville, who have been an integral part of Ars Nova’s community of artists for years now. Along with the many fresh faces we’ll meet on 54th Street, there are plenty of excuses to join in the Ars Nova fun this season!"

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” said Producing Executive Director Renee Blinkwolt. “Our community of innovative and forward-thinking artists, dedicated and visionary arts workers, and thoughtful and committed supporters has proven time and again that the future of our theater is bright when we work together and center humanity, access, and art.”

Ars Nova will continue its essential artist development programs, which include CAMP, where comedy meets theater-making; Play Group, geared towards providing resources to playwrights; Vision Residency, focused on artist-curators and more equitable and inclusive curatorial practices; and Makers Lab, a boundary-defying residency for genre-defying generative artists.

Ars Nova’s programming will continue to be available wherever you are on Ars Nova Supra, featuring a mix of broadcasts from Ars Nova live or on-demand and fresh, new work available to stream exclusively on Supra. Subscriptions are $15/month and you can cancel anytime. Learn more about Ars Nova Supra at www.arsnovanyc.com/supra.

Nova Ball, Ars Nova’s annual blowout bash for its community of artists, alumni, and supporters, will take place in February 2024. Full of surprises, this night of revelry raises crucial funds for Ars Nova’s Fair Pay Initiative, dedicated to a living-not-minimum wage for Ars Nova’s artists and arts workers. Details to be announced at a later date.

Ars Nova is generously supported by our community of individual donors. Coming on as a Super Nova for as little as $500 annually means unlocking free tickets, free drinks, and premium seating for all 50+ shows all season long. Learn more about supporting Ars Nova by visiting www.arsnovanyc.com/support.

Please visit www.arsnovanyc.com for more information about Ars Nova’s 2023–2024 season.

About the (pray) artists
 

nicHi douglas is a Brooklyn-based artist, educator, activist, and 2021 Princess Grace Award winner. you can refer to her/him/them/us using any pronoun said with Respect. nicHi's work can be characterized by a dogged interest in building community in the process of creating performance. as such, our work is multigenerational, developing theater with/for folx ages 2-82. we have developed original theater work at The Public Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, New Victory, Lincoln Center, Long Wharf, Pig Iron, Denver Center, and Berkeley Rep, among others. they have created interactive dance exhibits for the National Museum of African-American Music and the New York Hall of Science. nicHi’s mutual aid fund, nicHi’s SuSu, launched in 2020 and has raised over $18K for Black artists. nicHi is an Assistant Professor of Movement in the Experimental Theater Wing at Tisch School of the Arts. she has also guest lectured at Yale School of Drama. stage credits: Girl From the North Country (Public Theater, Associate Choreographer), SKiNFoLK: An American Show (NYT Critic’s Pick//The Bushwick Starr/National Black Theatre, Choreographer), Weightless (WP Theater, Choreographer), ...The Cotillion (The Movement Theatre Company/New Georges, Choreographer) | www.mynameisnichi.com

S T A R R Busby (they/she/he/we) is a Black experimental artist who sings, acts, composes, educates, and is committed to the liberation of all people. S T A R R leads a music project under their name which will release a debut album in 2024. She is the lead singer of dance band People’s Champs (www.peopleschamps.com). S T A R R  has also supported and collaborated with artists such as The Gorillaz, Esperanza Spalding, X Ambassadors, Kimbra, Alice Smith, and Quelle Chris. Selected credits: The Beautiful Lady (La Mama, Boris); On Sugarland (NYTW, co-composer); Octet (Signature Theatre, Paula) *Drama Desk Award Winner; Mikrokosmos, Sterischer Herbst (Graz), Nottingham Contemporary; The Girl with the Incredible Feeling, Spoleto Festival dei Due Mondi. Love, gratitude, and ashé to my blessed honorable ancestors, especially MME.

JJJJJerome Ellis is an animal, stutterer, and artist. He was raised by Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants in Tidewater, VA, where he prays, gardens, and resides among the egrets and asters. Through music, literature, performance, and video he researches relationships among blackness, disabled speech, divinity, nature, sound, and time. He dreams of building a sonic bath house!

About the Travels Artists

James Harrison Monaco tells stories with music. He considers this one of the oldest art forms in the world, and he’s always looking for new ways to do it. He’s obsessed with stories of travel, immigration, quiet violence, quiet grace, global loneliness, and time. He’s also a translator (Spanish and Italian), a music composer, and he writes fiction & non-fiction. His work has been presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center (where he’s a New Writer in Residence), MASS MoCA, The Bushwick Starr, The Momentary, and many others. He is one half of the music-storytelling duo Jerome & James. www.jamesharrisonmonaco.com

Andrew Scoville is a director specializing in immersive layouts, technological landscapes, and hybrid-genre theater-making. He recently directed Theater of the Mind, a large-scale multi-room theater/neuroscience experience by David Byrne and Mala Gaonkar at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. He is currently Associate Director to Alex Timbers on Byrne’s immersive musical Here Lies Love on Broadway. Previously he collaborated with James as the duo James & Jerome  on Piano Tales which has been performed in theaters across the country, brownstones, flower shops and restaurants.
 

About Additional Ars Nova Leadership

Anna Morton is a dramaturg and creative producer. She was previously the Literary Director at Roundabout Theatre Company, where she developed plays including Exception to the Rule by Dave Harris, You Will Get Sick by Noah Diaz and led the canon-redefining initiative The Refocus Project. Anna was also the Literary Manager at McCarter Theatre Center where she developed The Pianist by Emily Mann, The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess, and the short play collections The Migration Plays and The Princeton and Slavery Plays. She has contributed to Contemporary Theatre Review and the online magazine Page By Page and has served on the guest editorial board of Journal of American Drama and Theatre. As a dramaturg, Anna has collaborated with New York Theatre Workshop, Westport Country Playhouse, The COOP, and Fiasco Theater and artists including Nathan Alan Davis, Miranda Ferriss Jones, Lisa Peterson, and Denis O’Hare. She holds a B.A. in English and Theater from Bowdoin College.

Andrew Neisler is a Georgia-raised, New York-based theater artist, director, and producer. Directing credits include the hit mentalism show Mindplay at The Geffen Playhouse, the new immersive nightclub show Another Rose for Virgin Voyages, the critically acclaimed new musical Folk Wandering which he co-authored with Jaclyn Backhaus, NY Times’ Critics Pick Clown Bar, and Drama Desk nominated Charlatan at Ars Nova. Andrew is a co-Founder and Creative Director of the non-profit arts incubation company Fresh Ground Pepper where he has championed the creative process for over 14 years; and co-founded and produces special events through the production company The Unlikely Event. He is an alumnus of the Ars Nova Directors' Troupe, the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and The Civilians' R&D Group. And he was the 2014 Director-in-Residence at Ars Nova, where he is currently serving as the Associate Artistic Director. He holds a BFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Casey York (she/her) joined the Ars Nova team in 2014 after prior roles at Playwrights Horizons and training at New York Foundation for the Arts. Casey currently serves as the President of the Off-Broadway League and Vice President of the Association of Not For Profit Theater Companies (ANTC). She was a member of A.R.T./NY’s Body Autonomy Program’s Leadership Council and is an alum of Williams College where she has returned as an adjunct instructor of Theater Management. Casey lives in Brooklyn with her partner Kyle and their corgi-jindo rescue pup RuPaw.

About Ars Nova
 

Ars Nova exists to discover, develop, and launch singular theater, music and comedy artists in the early stages of their professional careers. Our dynamic slate of programs supports outside-the-box thinking and encourages innovative, genre-bending new work. Dubbed by The New York Times as a “fertile incubator of offbeat theater,” Ars Nova blurs genres and subverts the status quo. With our feverish bounty of programming, we are the stomping ground and launching pad for visionary, adventurous artists of all stripes. By providing a protective environment where risk-taking and collaboration are paramount, Ars Nova amplifies the voices of a new generation of diverse artists and audiences, pushing the boundaries of live entertainment by nurturing creative ideas into smart, surprising new work.

Ars Nova has been honored with an Obie Award and a Special Citation from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle for sustained quality and commitment to the development and production of new work. Notable past productions include: three-time Lortel Award-winner Oratorio for Living Things by Heather Christian, directed by Lee Sunday Evans; “Outstanding Musical” Lortel Award-winner and The New York Times’ “Best of 2018,” Rags Parkland Sings the Songs of the Future, created by Andrew R. Butler, directed by Jordan Fein; The Lucky Ones, created by The Bengsons and Sarah Gancher, directed by Anne Kauffman; “Outstanding Musical” Lortel Award-winner KPOP, created by Jason Kim, Max Vernon, Helen Park, and Woodshed Collective, directed by Teddy Bergman; “Best New American Theatre Work,” Obie Award-winner and “one of the best new plays in the last 25 years” (The New York Times), Underground Railroad Game by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard, directed by Taibi Magar ; The New York Times’ and New York Post’s “Best of 2015,” Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl, directed by Rachel Chavkin; the Tony Award-winning smash-hit Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 by Dave Malloy, directed by Rachel Chavkin; the world premiere of the 2009 season’s most-produced play boom by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, directed by Alex Timbers; the show that put Bridget Everett on the map, At Least It’s Pink by Everett, Michael Patrick King, and Kenny Mellman, directed by King; and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail’s first New York production, Freestyle Love Supreme by Anthony Veneziale and Miranda, directed by Thomas Kail (Broadway 2019).

Please visit arsnovanyc.com to learn more.