The New School's College Of Performing Arts Reveals School Of Drama 2024-2025 Highlights

The College of Performing Arts – Mannes, Jazz, Drama, a progressive creative center at the heart of The New School, has announced 2024-2025 highlights for the School of Drama. The School of Drama is the creative home to a dynamic group of actors, directors, writers, creative technologists, and multi-disciplinary theater artists. With a focus on authenticity of expression, the school's curriculum confronts today's most pressing societal issues through the making of theater, film, and emerging media.

 

Season highlights for the School of Drama include the world premiere of The Ruminants from October 31-November 2; the premiere of a devised piece curated by the artistic leaders of Ping Chong and Company as part of the MFA Guest Artist Series on November 4; Euripides' Orestes translated by Anne Carson from November 21-23; the APEX Festival on April 25-26 and May 2-3; and the ongoing Naked Angels 1st Mondays at The New School series running from September 2024 through April 2025.

 

From Thursday, October 31 through Saturday, November 2, the School of Drama presents the world premiere of The Ruminants at Bank Street Theater (151 Bank St.), directed by faculty member Ana Margineanu. Admission is free but registration is required. The Ruminants is a new play that explores protest, privilege, and the lasting effects of one's actions. With only weeks left in her senior year, Bekka wonders if she has done enough to impact animal rights at her university. As the president of Animal Rights Now (ARN), she has organized numerous protests, but nothing seems to change. Determined to leave her mark, she plans a bold action that no one can ignore. But what will the cost be for those who join her and the animals she tries to help? The Ruminants was developed as part of the 2023-2024 Farm Theater College Collaboration Project with three universities: Austin Peay State, Shenandoah, and Middle Tennessee State.

 

Each year, the School of Drama invites regionally, nationally, and internationally recognized guest artists to share their artistic, collaborative, and philosophical approaches to theater-making with students in its groundbreaking MFA in Contemporary Theatre and Performance program. This year marks the return of members of Ping Chong and Company (PCC), longtime collaborators with the School of Drama and the College of Performing Arts, on Monday, November 4 at 7:30pm at The Glassbox Theater (55 W. 13th St.). Admission is free but registration is required. Rooted in the company's mission to “create[s] theater and art that reveal beauty, invention, precision, and a commitment to social justice,” PCC engaged students in their “Undesirable Elements” series, an ongoing practice of creating interview-based theater works that explore culture, identity, and belonging in specific communities. This production – an original student-devised ensemble-based piece centered on creative producing and community-engaged practice – culminates PCC's residency.

 

From Thursday, November 21 through Saturday, November 23 at Bank Street Theater (151 Bank St.), the School of Drama presents Euripides' Orestes. Admission is free but registration is required. In this exciting reimagining of Orestes, the poet, translator, and essayist Anne Carson gives birth to a wholly new experience of the classic Greek triumvirate of vengeance. Anne Carson's watershed translation of a death-dance of vengeance and passion is not to be missed, combining contemporary language with the traditional structures and rhetoric of Greek tragedy. “I'm interested in having the chorus members step out from the chorus into any of the roles to focus on the communal in the performance of this work and explore the idea that any member of a community can be the protagonist of the narrative,” says Ashley Kelly Tata, director. “Ultimately, Orestes should serve what I think is so urgent about the piece right now: these are young people playing out the story of a history of violence that they have inherited from the generations before them.”

 

The APEX Festival is a collective, artistic activation of the Bank Street Theater and surrounding spaces by graduating MFA Contemporary Theatre and Performance students, which this year will take place on Friday, April 25 and Saturday, April 26 and Friday, May 2 and Saturday, May 3. Eight distinct projects serve as each student's capstone offering as well as a public introduction to their work as it exists at this stage in their development. In celebration, the School of Drama invites audiences to experience a collection of performative artworks that push the boundaries of discipline and form. Anticipated performances include A TIME (June Seo); the starry-eyed (Lars Montanaro); Lacuna(e) (Catalina Cofone Polack); Unsay (Moira Zhang); Guanahani (Neka Knowles); Ernestine (Jasmine Kiah); Ameliaorated (Alina Burke); and Eros Without Love (working title, Anamaría Willars). Specific dates and times to be announced.

  

The School of Drama also continues its dynamic partnership with Naked Angels, a prominent figure in New York City's theater community. The esteemed 1st Mondays at The New School series, is a vital platform for emerging playwrights from Naked Angels' Tuesdays@9 community to showcase their work and for School of Drama students to interact with and learn from these emerging talents, gain insights into the process of creating and workshopping new plays, and forge meaningful connections within the industry. The 1st Mondays at The New School series will run through the 2024-25 season and include in-person readings of full-length plays on December 9, February 3, March 17, and April 21.

 

“The diversity of works this season includes a new translation of classic Greek texts, a world premiere play that resonates deeply with and speaks to the present moment, collaborations with leading arts organizations in New York City, and a festival of new and exciting multidisciplinary works from our third-year MFA  cohort,” says Jermaine Hill, Dean, School Of Drama and Associate Dean, College of Performing Arts. “These offerings demonstrate the depth and breadth of artistic exploration at the School of Drama and exemplify our commitment to being a destination that celebrates and epitomizes the best of student artistry in a variety of genres, mediums, and forms. We welcome you to join us for this bold and exciting production season.”

 

Established in the fall of 2015, the College brings together Mannes School of Music, the iconic 100-year-old conservatory; the legendary School of Jazz and Contemporary Music (SJCM); and the innovative and groundbreaking School of Drama. The College of Performing Arts creates opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration, innovative education, and world-class performances, encouraging students to work across traditions to become a force of new artistry. With an enrollment of over 900 students taught by 630 full- and part-time faculty, the College presents approximately 750 performances each year, nearly all of which are free and open to the public, creating an incredible performing arts resource for New Yorkers and visitors alike.

 

Performances by students and faculty at the College of Performing Arts break new ground, pushing the boundaries of convention and reinventing traditional forms. Additional highlights for the College this season include (Un)Silent Film series presenting Tod Browning's classic film Dracula with Philip Glass's score performed by Orange Road Quartet, the Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence, with pianist and guest conductor Michael Riesman on October 25; the Namekawa-Davies Duo (Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies) in Pianographique featuring music by Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Steve Reich, with real-time visualizations by Cori O'Lan, on October 26; Mannes Opera's double bill featuring one-act operas by David T. Little and Kamala Sankaram on November 8 and 9; performances by celebrated Mannes/School of Jazz Ensembles-in-Residence The Westerlies, Sandbox Percussion, and JACK Quartet throughout the season, including Sandbox Percussion's world premiere of Michael Torke's BLOOM on December 11; the New School Studio Orchestra performing Duke Ellington's The Nutcracker Suite on December 5; and multiple performances of the Mannes Orchestra at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, including Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light to the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc with The New York Choral Society on November 1, the U.S. premiere of Augustus Hailstork's Ndemera on December 9, and Sandbox Percussion in Viet Cuong's percussion concerto Re(new)al paired with John Zorn's violin concerto Contes de Fées performed by Stefan Jackiw on April 11. The New School Studio Orchestra presents the U.S. premiere of jazz great Carla Bley's rarely heard landmark album Escalator Over the Hill on May 2.

 

For a complete overview of performances at The New School's College of Performing Arts, read the 2024-2025 season press release here.

 

Performances at The New School's College of Performing Arts are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Some events require advance registration. View the full calendar of performances at the College of Performing Arts – including Mannes School of Music, School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, and School of Drama – for details on how to attend.

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