Oskar Eustis on Under the Radar Pause- 'I Understand and Share the Hurt'

As BroadwayWorld's Cara Joy David first reported earlier this week, The Public Theater made "a financial decision" to pause its annual Under the Radar festival- a decision that has rocked the experimental theatre community. 

“I just feel like they don’t understand the value of it,” said Kelly Copper, whose company, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, has had three productions at Under the Radar. “It impacted theater around the world--I cannot overstate that enough. If theater’s mission is to change people's lives, it’s changed our lives and I guarantee it's changed far more people’s lives than an Alicia Keys musical will. So, if you’re looking for stuff to cut, this wasn’t it.”

Now Artistic Director Oskar Eustis has a released a full statement in response:

Last week, difficult news was shared that the UNDER THE RADAR festival would not return for The Public’s 23-24 season. We made the painful decision to place the festival on hiatus. I understand and share the hurt that those who participated in and loved the festival have expressed over the past few days.

The Public Theater has been the proud home of UNDER THE RADAR for 18 years. Under the brilliant leadership of Mark Russell, UTR became a beloved annual part of our city’s calendar, a time when we celebrated the cutting-edge performance art of the moment. It was also a vital gathering point for adventurous artists and audiences and the only place in our season where American and International Artists work side-by-side in multiple venues. My first artistic act when I became Artistic Director was to invite UTR to make The Public its home. 

Unfortunately, these are exceptionally challenging times in our field. The Public, like almost every other non-profit theater in the country, is facing serious financial pressure. We have not returned to pre-pandemic economics, neither in our expenses nor our revenue. Many of our programs are free or priced for accessibility, which make them particularly economically vulnerable. Because of these factors, we are assessing and implementing other cost reductions at the theater in addition to UTR. We must act now to avoid the kind of existential pressure currently battering some of our sister theaters.  

The Public retains its strong commitment to experimental, devised, and downtown work outside of a festival context, including the Devised Theater Working Group, our incubator for experimental artists. Further, Joe’s Pub continues to be a platform for many multidisciplinary artists; and we will continue our long-standing relationships with experimental ensembles. We will be aggressively searching for ways to support the artists who thought of UTR as home.

In the certainty that better times will come, we continue to work to preserve the health and mission of The Public. We look forward to a time when we can fully expand back into the robust and expansive theater we need to be.