Interview: UNDER THE RADAR's Co-Director Meiyin Wang Chats About the Upcoming Festival and What Makes It So Special

The 12th annual UNDER THE RADAR Festival is getting ready to kick off in January. This popular and highly-anticipated program of The Public Theater's winter season will include artists from across the U.S. and around the world, including Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Japan, and Rwanda. Curated by Co-Directors Mark Russell and Meiyin Wang, this year's UNDER THE RADAR will also launch a new series, Under the Radar + Joe's Pub: In Concert, which highlights artists who are working at the intersection of music and theater.

Co-Director Meiyin Wang recently chatted with BroadwayWorld about the upcoming festival and what makes it so special. Check out the full interview below.

Can you tell me a little bit about the UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL at the Public Theater?

Under the Radar is an international festival that is based in NYC and the Public Theater. It has been around for 12 years and each year, in the coldest time of year, we really bring the hottest works from around the world. It's really exciting to present forward work from artists from countries like Chile, Rwanda, France, Belgium and they are all really doing theater and investigating what theater can achieve in this world. They're asking questions about the art form, identity, their personal history... multi-disciplinary investigations.

So, we have the main festival program and then we have two-series. One is called the "In Concert," which is a brand-new collaboration with Joe's Pub. These are artists who are working in the intersection of music and theater. So, that's with Martha Redbone, Darkmatter and Pomee is French for Apple. Then we also have the "Incoming" series, which is our festival within a festival. It features New York artists, younger artists who are working in various disciplines and we invite them to do works in process in the festival. They are part of the Devised Theater Working Group (DTWG) and we assembled them as a cohort to meet throughout the year to really work out what it means to be a working artists in New York and how can we as Under the Radar and the Public Theater to support them as they are making their independent work.

What can fans expect from this festival and how does it differ from other festivals out there?

One of the main things I think is there is the architecture of the Public Theater. So, having all of the shows in one building, for the most part, really allows the artists and the audiences and even people from the other festival are going to collide within the Public Theater. So, you can't replicate the experience of going into the Newman Theater seeing one show, coming out and then going straight to like the Martinson Theater within the Public and seeing a show from Rwanda and then going to the next theater and seeing a show from NYC. So, it's sort of like a film festival with that format. I think that really yields so many possibilities for connections within the audience and the take away of how these artists are engaging with the questions of our time and how they are different or pursuing similar themes. So, that I think is one of the main things that distinguishes Under the Radar.

Also, other festivals have their own identities, but we are really theater focused, but we are really pushing what that means. For example, Tanya Tagaq who is doing "Nanook of the North" is an internationally known singer/performer and she is working the sound scape with Nanook of the North and reclaiming those images and we are calling it theater. So, what we are trying to do with Under the Radar is say 'What makes this theater?' and these are alternative to it.

How do you guys choose which shows will be featured?

We travel a lot to see work. We usually keep a finger on what is happening in NYC. We definitely have colleagues what is happening or most exciting in their part of the world or country. We just go see work. It's just the work we respond to most in the last year or two. It's a very immediate response to the work and it's very rare that we would do something that has been done 10 years ago. This is really a great snapshot of what is happening in the world of performance and theater now.

As the Co-Director of Under the Radar, what does your role entail?

I program the show alongside Mark Russell. We see the shows, we choose them and we basically plot out how these performances speak to each other. We also curate the incoming series with the DTWG. Also, apart from the Festival we really try to advocate for artists who are making independent work, artists who are making ensemble work. So with both Under the Radar, which is a great platform to see this work and to see it on the same level as international work or bigger shows at the Public and then with DTWG the idea is how can we support NYC artists year round and the resources to support them. Year round we are also part of the artistic team at the theater. The Public Theater is really the base for all the other festivals so we have something called the "Reading Room" where we have a pop-up library fro discussions and talkbacks and so we really try to engage the audiences in conversations as well.

Under the Radar runs from January 6-17, 2016 at the Public Theater (425 Lafayette Street
New York, NY 10003?). To buy tickets for the festival click here