PRELUDE 2017, Thomas Ostermeier and More Highlight Segal Center's 2017 Fall Season

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, located at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, announces its Fall 2017 season of public programs. The season features free public programs throughout the fall and winter, with contemporary theatre and performing artists from around the world.

Highlights from the Segal Center's FALL 2017 season of programs include:

· Prelude 2017, October 4, 5, 6-Festival: The fourteenth annual Prelude Festival presents artists at the forefront of contemporary New York City theatre and performance. Featuring an array of artists working in theatrical and interdisciplinary performance. The festival brings downtown experimental performance to the heart of the city, providing audiences with a survey of the current New York City moment via in-process presentations, installations, and discussions-all completely free and open to the public. www.preludenyc.org

· Thomas Ostermeier (Schaubühne, Berlin), October 12-Artist Talk: Join us for a conversation with Schaubühne Berlin's influential artistic director Thomas Ostermeier-one of the world's most thrilling and recognized German theatre-makers of today.

· Roy Cohn/Jack Smith: Remembering Ron Vawter, November 18-Screenings + Discussion: Join us for a rare screening of a tape of a live performance of Ron Vawter's legendary performance piece, Roy Cohn/Jack Smith, 25 years after it opened at The Performing Garage in 1992. Followed by a discussion with director Gregory Mehrten, author Gary Indiana, and critics and scholars David Román and Alisa Solomon. Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

· Female Voices from Brazil, November 6-Readings + Discussion: The Segal Center brings together three contemporary female playwrights at the forefront of Brazilian theatre. Known for their political and daring narratives Ana Maria Gonçalves, Cidinha da Silva and Marcia Zanelatto tackle the subjects of race, gender, and equality in Brazil's current turbulent socio-political climate.

· Sh?ji Terayama's Laura/Rora and Trial/Shinpan, November 20-Performance Screenings + Discussion: This evening will feature rare screenings of films by legendary avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Sh?ji Terayama. Many critics view him as one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He has been cited as an influence on various Japanese filmmakers from the 1970s onward.

· Italian Playwrights Project 2017, December 4-Readings + Discussion: After the success of the first edition of the Italian Playwrights Project (IPP, 2015/16) and a special evening dedicated to the work of Stefano Massini (Teatro Piccolo, Milan) IPP, once again the Segal Center will collaborate with Valeria Orani and Umanism NY (www.unmanism.com). The initiative will bring some of the brightest, innovative, and most engaging playwrights from Italy to New York to develop their pieces through translation into English and public readings of the work. The Italian Playwrights Project plays an important role in introducing contemporary writing from Italy to the US. The project restarted an artistic dialogue between the two countries, which has been sporadic over the last 30 years.

All events are presented at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016). Events are ALWAYS FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED. NO RESERVATIONS. Dates and times are listed below. All programs are subject to change. For updates, visit www.theSegalCenter.org.

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THE SEGAL CENTER 2017 FALL SCHEDULE:

October 4-6, 2016
Prelude 2017: Theatre / Maker
All Day, Segal Theatre + Elebash Recital Hall I Festival

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY is pleased to present the fourteenth annual PRELUDE Festival. Dedicated to artists at the forefront of contemporary New York City theatre and performance, PRELUDE 2017 features an array of artists working in theatrical and interdisciplinary performance. The festival gives audiences and artists a survey of the current New York moment via in-process performances, conversations, presentations, and workshops-all completely free and open to the public. "Theatre is more than words, professions, or institutions. It is a collaborative art form wrought by actors, technicians, composers, directors, designers, writers, press agents, producers, and countless other passionate theatremakers with their professional functions. And some of the very best work, the work we celebrate this week, is made by artists working outside and across these professional designations of our craft. These makers experiment with form, discipline, medium, and technology to devise their own unique mode of cultural production," says curator Andrew Kircher. The festival will feature panel discussions, workshop, and works-in-progress presentations by New York City artists such as Jerry Lieblich/Paul Lazar, Seonjae Kim, Darian Dauchan, The Builders Association, Renegade Performance Group/André M. Zachery, Jim Findlay, and many more. PRELUDE 2017 is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Thursday, October 12
Thomas Ostermeier (Schaubühne, Berlin)
2:00pm, Segal Theatre I Artist Talk

Join us for a conversation with Schaubühne Berlin's influential artistic director Thomas Ostermeier-one of the world's most thrilling and recognized German theatre-makers of today. He is best known for his acclaimed and worldwide touring productions like Hedda Gabler, Hamlet, An Enemy of the People, and RICHARD III. His productions won numerous awards and in 2011 he became the youngest ever recipient of the Golden Lion for his life's work at the Venice Biennale. With Marvin Carlson and Frank Hentschker.

Monday, October 16
The Judaica Project
with Nazl?han Eda Erçin (Turkey), Agnieszka Mendel (Poland), & Ben Spatz (US)
co-presented with Siti Company, additional support from the Center for Jewish Studies (GC, CUNY)
All Day + 6:30pm, Segal Theatre I Screenings + Presentation

The Judaica project is a laboratory for new embodied technique at the crossroads of experimental performance, critical identity politics, and ethno-musicological archives. Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to conduct six months of full-time embodied research, the Judaica project has been working with Jewish songs in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Turkish, Luganda, English, and other languages. The laboratory work draws on performance studies, social epistemology, visual anthropology, de-colonial Jewish studies, and contemporary philosophy to offer new ways of thinking and working with vocality, embodiment, identity, culture, and multimedia. www.urbanresearchtheater.com

Tuesday, October 17
American University of Beirut (AUB) & The Graduate Center, CUNY Academic Exchange
Contemporary Theatre in Lebanon with Sahar Assaf (AUB), Marvin Carlson, Peter Eckersall, and Frank Hentschker
6:30pm, Theatre Green Room, 3rd Floor, Room 3111 | Discussion

On the occasion of a new exchange partnership between the Ph.D. Program in Theatre and Performance, the Segal Center, and the Theatre Initiative, American University of Beirut (AUB) we welcome Lebanese theatre artist and AUB Assistant Professor of Theatre Sahar Assaf to celebrate the new collaboration. After a presentation by Assaf on contemporary theatre in Lebanon and a reading of an excerpt from No Demand No Supply: A Rereading of Lebanon's 2016 Sex Trafficking Scandal, written by Sahar Assaf and produced by Joy Sarah Arab, there will be a panel with Sahar Assaf, Marvin Carlson, and others that will touch on questions of Arab theatre, political theatre, dramaturgy and the contributions of women artists, among other topics.

Monday, October 23
2017 League of Professional Theatre Women's Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award: Adelheid Roosen
10:00am, Segal Theatre I Discussions & Roundtable
6:30pm, Elebash Recital Hall I Award Ceremony & Celebration

"Only a few times in a generation does a completely original theatrical voice burst onto the scene and revolutionize the form and structure of theatre-making worldwide; Roosen is such an iconoclast," - Melody Brooks, League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW). LPTW's Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award was established in 2011 in honor of Rosamond Gilder and Martha Coigney, two legendary theatre women whose work on the international stage proved that theatre knows no boundaries. Presented every three years, this award acknowledges the exceptional work of women in theatre. Linda Chapman (New York Theatre Workshop) will present the 2017 award to Adelheid Roosen. Roosen's work combines theatrical practice with a deep connection to community. Her work was described as "a magnificent demonstration of the power of theater to change the terms of public debate" by Thomas Sellar, editor of Theater Magazine (Yale).

Thursday, November 2
2017 Segal Award for Civic Engagement in the Arts: Jack Rudin†
5:00pm, Segal Theatre | Award Ceremony
Join us for an evening celebrating and honoring the life and work of the late Jack Rudin (1924-2016). An extraordinary supporter of The Graduate Center, CUNY and the Segal Center, he was a very close friend of Marty Segal, both of whom have made a considerable, lasting impact on the artistic life of New York City. Philanthropist Susan Rudin will accept the Segal Center Award for Civic Engagement in the Arts in his name.

Monday, November 6
Female Voices from Brazil
with Ana Maria Gonçalves, Cidinha da Silva, and Marcia Zanelatto.
Co-curated by Isabella Pinheiro and the Evoé Collective
6:30pm, Segal Theatre | Readings + Discussion

The Segal Center brings together three contemporary female playwrights at the forefront of Brazilian theatre. Known for their political and daring narratives Ana Maria Gonçalves, Cidinha da Silva and Marcia Zanelatto tackle the subjects of race, gender, and equality in Brazil's current turbulent socio-political climate. There will be excerpted readings from The Body's Night by Marcia Zanelatto; Got Pregnant, Gave Birth to Horses and Learned How to Fly Without Wings by Cidinha da Silva; and Diverse by Ana Maria Gonçalves. Followed by a panel discussion with the playwrights and the Evoé Collective, moderated by Frank Hentschker.

Monday, November 13
Roy Cohn/Jack Smith
Remembering Ron Vawter
6:30pm, Segal Theatre I Screening + Discussion

Join us for a rare screening of a tape of a live performance of Ron Vawter's legendary performance piece, Roy Cohn/Jack Smith, 25 years after it opened at The Performing Garage in 1992. Followed by a discussion with director Gregory Mehrten, author Gary Indiana, and critics and scholars David Román and Alisa Solomon. Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

Wednesday, November 15
Marvin Carlson
10,000 Nights
6:30pm, Segal Theatre I Book Celebration

"Only Marvin Carlson could have written such a wonderful and engaging theatre history." -Erika Fischer-Lichte, Freie Universitat Berlin. Join us for a celebration of Marvin Carlson's latest book Ten Thousand

Nights: Highlights from 50 Years of Theatre-Going. This volume collects an astonishing chronicle of a half-century of theatre-going, in which Carlson recalls 50 memorable productions, out of over 10,000-

choosing one from each year spanning from 1960 to 2010. The range of performances covered is wide and represent a history of theatre in itself-edgy experimental productions, theatre classics, mainstream

musicals, and street performance. Travel with the author to stages and sidewalks across Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Milan, New York, and elsewhere. Carlson provides unique insight on what theatre-going meant in each decade, what kind of theatre the zeitgeist produced, and his personal accounts of the productions. These engaging vignettes portray vivid descriptions of productions, venues, and neighborhoods, all told with necessary cultural context-covering significant theatre movements and artists from the late twentieth century to the present. Published by University of Michigan Press.

Monday, November 20
Sh?ji Terayama's Laura / Rora and Trial / Shinpan
with Terayama collaborator, Henrikku Morisaki
6:30pm, Segal Theatre I Performance Screening + Discussion

This evening will feature rare screenings of films by legendary avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer Sh?ji Terayama. Many critics view him as one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He has been cited as an influence on various Japanese filmmakers from the 1970s onward. One of the screenings, Laura, will include the restaging of Terayama's

1974 film performance with the original actor, Henrikku Morisaki. The screenings are part of a retrospective tour of Sh?ji Terayama works at Anthology Film Archives (Nov. 21-Dec. 10) and Harvard Film Archive. Followed by a discussion with Terayama collaborator Henrikku Morisaki, professors Julia Alekseyeva (CUNY Brooklyn), Peter Eckersall (GC, CUNY), Tom Looser (NYU), and Alex Zahlten (Havard University), and Chizuru Usui (National Film Center, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo).

Monday, December 4
Italian Playwrights Project 2017
co-presented with Umanism
6:30pm, Segal Theatre I Readings + Artist Talks

After the success of the first edition of the Italian Playwrights Project (IPP, 2015/16) and a special evening dedicated to the work of Stefano Massini (Teatro Piccolo, Milan) IPP, once again the Segal Center will collaborate with Valeria Orani and Umanism NY (www.unmanism.com). The initiative will bring some of the brightest, innovative, and most engaging playwrights from Italy to New York to develop their pieces through translation into English and public readings of the work. The Italian Playwrights Project plays an important role in introducing contemporary writing from Italy to the US. The project restarted an artistic dialogue between the two countries, which has been sporadic over the last 30 years. Supported by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York (Giorgio Van Straten, Director). The upcoming anthology of New Plays from Italy from the 2015 IPP has been translated thanks to a grant by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and InternationAl Cooperation.

Monday, December 11
Karen Malpede's Plays in Time
4:30pm, Segal Theatre I Reading
6:30pm, Segal Theatre |Panel Discussion

Join us to celebrate the launch of Karen Malpede's new book, Plays in Time, honoring twenty-two years of Theater Three Collaborative. The afternoon will feature the premiere public reading of Malpede's new play, Other than We-a futuristic Climate-Fiction tragi-comedy for the Anthropocene age. The evening will present excerpted readings from the anthology Plays in Time published by Intellect, 2017. Readings will include The Beekeeper's Daughter, Prophecy, Another Life, and Extreme Whether by Theater Three Collaborative actors and contributors to the book: Kathleen Chalfant, Christen Clifford, Najla Said, and George Bartenieff. Followed by a discussion about Theater Three Collaborative's antiwar and ecojustice plays in the US and Europe with artists and scholars represented in the book. Panelists include theatre professors Marvin Carlson and Cindy Rosenthal, actor Kathleen Chalfant, and the theater's founders-George Bartenieff, and Karen Malpede, moderated by Frank Hentschker. There will be live music by Arthur Rosen.

Monday, December 18
Celebrating the Life and Work of Trisha Brown†
2:00pm, Segal Theatre I Screenings
6:30pm, Segal Theatre |Panel Discussion

Join us for a day celebrating the life and work of Trisha Brown† (1936-2017). "One of the most acclaimed and influential choreographers and dancers of her time, Trisha Brown's groundbreaking work forever changed the landscape of art. A student of Anna Halprin, Brown participated in the choreographic composition workshops taught by Robert Dunn-from which Judson Dance Theater was born-greatly contributing to the fervent of interdisciplinary creativity that defined 1960s New York. Expanding the physical behaviors that qualified as dance, she discovered the extraordinary in the everyday, and brought tasks, rulegames, natural movement and improvisation into the making of choreography."-Susan Rosenberg, 2017. The afternoon will present screenings from the Trisha Brown Archive, curated by Cori Olinghouse, and the evening will feature a panel with dance experts and members of Trisha Brown Dance Company.

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The Segal Center bridges the gap between the academic and performing arts communities through dynamic public programs and digital initiatives that are free and open to all.

Home to theatre artists, scholars, students, performing arts managers, and the local and international performance communities, the Segal Center provides a supportive environment for conversation, open exchange, and the development of new ideas and new work. Yea­­r round, the Center presents a wide variety of FREE public programs, which feature leading national and International Artists, scholars, and arts professionals in conversation about theatre and performance. Programs include staged readings to further the development of new and classic plays, festivals celebrating New York performance (PRELUDE) and international plays (PEN World Voices), screenings of performance works on film, artists in conversation, academic lecture series, televised seminars, symposia, and arts in education programs. In addition, the Center maintains its long-standing visiting-scholars-from-abroad program, publishes a series of highly regarded academic journals, as well as single volumes of importance (including plays in translation), all written and edited by renowned scholars. www.thesegalcenter.org.

The Graduate Center, CUNY, of which the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center is an integral part, is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York (CUNY). An internationally recognized center for advanced studies and a national model for public doctoral education, the school offers more than thirty doctoral programs, as well as a number of master's programs. Many of its faculty members are among the world's leading scholars in their respective fields, and its alumni hold major positions in industry and government, as well as in academia. The Graduate Center is also home to twenty-eight interdisciplinary research centers and institutes focused on areas of compelling social, civic, cultural, and scientific concerns. Located in a landmark Fifth Avenue building, The Graduate Center has become a vital part of New York City's intellectual and cultural life with its extensive array of public lectures, exhibitions, concerts, and theatrical events. www.gc.cuny.edu.