BIG UMBRELLA FESTIVAL Returns to Lincoln Center Celebrating Neurodiverse Audiences and Artists

The Big Umbrella Festival will return to Lincoln Center this April—welcoming kids, teens, adults, and their families for three weekends of free and Choose-What-You-Pay programming, designed with and for neurodiverse audiences.

Now in its seventh iteration, this year features an expanded array of events from artists across the world, varying in age-range and genre, and welcomes the Big Umbrella Festival's first-ever Spanish language performance: Teatro La Plaza's Hamlet—a bold reimagining of Shakespeare's timeless work featuring a cast of actors with Down syndrome.  

Launched in 2018, the Big Umbrella Festival was the first large-scale performing arts festival of its kind, centering audiences with autism and other developmental disabilities by offering unique approaches to sensory-based and interactive artistic experiences—and sharing these learnings with the field worldwide.  

“Access to the arts for all is core to what drives our work here at Lincoln Center,” said Shanta Thake, Ehrenkranz Chief Artistic Officer of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “We are proud to continue expanding the Big Umbrella Festival, meeting neurodiverse audiences where they are and embracing a multitude of ways to engage with the arts. Our learnings from this important work continue, as we weave many of these engagement principles into our offerings year-round. We are grateful to continue this work with so many talented collaborators from around the world.”

Each edition of the festival has returned with expanded offerings for thousands of New Yorkers across in-person, virtual, and outdoor events and installations. 

Tickets for Choose-What-You-Pay events go on sale to the public today, Thursday February 6. Waitlists will be available for select sold-out performances. Learn more at LincolnCenter.org/BigUmbrella.

Highlights include:  

• The U.S. premiere of When the World Turns: an immersive and participatory collaboration from Polyglot Theatre (Australia) and Oily Cart (UK) inviting audiences to explore a wondrous landscape of foliage, light, sounds, and shadows (April 4-6 and 11-13)
• Esrawe + Cadena (Mexico) bring their captivating outdoor installation, Los Trompos, to Damrosch Park—inviting families to rest, play, and engage with eight colorful and larger-than-life spinning tops (April 4–6, 9–13, and 16–20)

• Virtual Crip Movement Lab, a workshop for all disabled people and their non-disabled accomplices, and an exciting evening of standup comedy, both presented in collaboration with the ReelAbilities Film Festival (April 3 and April 4)

• A melodious introduction into the world of chamber music and its instruments with CMS Kids: Moving Music—where audiences can experience how an ensemble works together through active listening, movement, and call-and-response activities (April 5)

• The U.S. Premiere of The Sticky Dance for Sensory Groovers, an interactive dance performance co-created by Rosie Heafford and Takeshi Matsumoto of Second Hand Dance (England), encouraging audiences to freely explore a colorful tapestry of sticky tape in this tactile, participatory experience (April 11-13)

• E.P.I.C. Players returns to campus to present a sample of their 2025 season, shining a light on neurodiverse talent through music, theater, and dance performances (April 12)
• The New York premiere of Hamlet by Teatro La Plaza (Peru), a joyful and enigmatic reimagining of Shakespeare's timeless work performed in Spanish (with English captions) by a cast of actors with Down syndrome (April 19)

• Indoor visual art stations led by Lincoln Center's education team and teaching artists (April 11–13)

• Outdoor creative activity stations inspired by the Los Trompos installation led by Lincoln Center's education team and teaching artists (April 4–6, 9–13, and 16–20)