Exponential Festival

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Under the Radar Festival and More Must-See Performance

A scene from Antigonón, un Contigente Épico, running January 10-14 at The Public Theater as part of The Public’s 14th Annual Under the Radar Festival. (Photo: Lessy Montes)

The Public’s Under The Radar Festival
January 4-15 at The Public Theater and other venues, various times and prices.

It is time once again for the slew of winter theater festivals that usually fill the month of January to its very brim, and cause many an artist to triple-check their schedule and/or wallets to see how they can make it all work. Beginning on Thursday is one of the most notable fests, Under The Radar, presented by The Public Theater. Though it’s only 12 days, there are more than 155 performances across five venues. Even slightly pondering that gives me scheduling-related anxiety.

A brief sampling of highlights: Roger Guenveur Smith and CalArts’s piece exploring the New Year’s Eve concert Jimi Hendrix played in 1969 in NYC, queer ensemble Split Britches’s meditation on anxiety and doomsday created in collaboration with local artists and elders, a concert of work by Erin Markey and Emily Bate, harunalee’s exploration of how memory can be gendered and racialized, Cuban company Teatro El Público’s underground drag-cabaret version of Antigone, and more. There is truly so much more. More →

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Backstage at a Fest That’s ‘Experimenting With the Idea of Experimental Theater’

Last week, we gave you the heads up about Exponential Festival, a cavalcade of local productions that are “all experimental and strange in nature, but in a way that’s experimenting with the idea of experimental theater,” according to founder Theresa Buchheister. With the fest continuing through Sunday, we checked in to see how it’s going. Watch our video for a taste of the shows at The Brick, Cloud City, The Silent Barn and The Bushwick Starr.

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Exponential: an Experimental Theatre Festival For the Brooklyn Set

(Flyer via The Exponential Festival)

(Flyer via The Exponential Festival)

January is theatre-fest time: there’s the always exciting COIL fest, Under the Radar at the Public Theater, and the opera-centric summit Prototype. But Theresa Buchheister– a founding member of Title:Point, the DIY production company that runs Vital Joint at the Silent Barn– thought it was the perfect opportunity to introduce her own operation into the mix, The Exponential Festival, as a counterpoint to the usual. “Most of the festivals are very Manhattan-centric and exclusively feature artists who are well established–they’re already getting huge foundational support–some of them it’s their actual job to be an artist, which is that golden goose we’re all chasing,” she explained.

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