Meropi Peponides, Kaneza Schaal, Mark Russell.
NEW YORK CITY: Under the Radar has announced its return as a citywide festival, to run Jan. 4-19, 2025, at various New York City venues, making its 20th anniversary as the nation’s premier festival of experimental performance, and following last year’s multi-venue return after being discontinued at its longtime Public Theater home for financial reasons. Joining the leadership team, alongside founding artistic director Mark Russell, are two visionary theatremakers: Meropi Peponides, a producer and former Soho Rep director, and theatre artist Kaneza Schaal. These two new co-leaders will serve for a two-year cycle.
Under the Radar has also unveiled a selection of its 2025 programming and the organizations who will collaborate to present these multidisciplinary works. (A full programming announcement will follow this fall.) Among numerous offerings in the 20th edition of Under the Radar Festival are:
- Playwright and performer Khawla Ibraheem’s A Knock on the Roof, directed and developed by Oliver Butler, following one woman’s routines of survival and everyday life in Gaza, in a co-production between New York Theatre Workshop and piece by piece productions, Jan. 8-19.
- Choreographer and dancer Faustin Linyekula’s search for a family archive shattered by history, the fragments spread between his body and Congo, in My Body, My Archive, presented by Live Artery | New York Live Arts, Jan. 8-11.
- The Onassis ONX-curated TECHNE, a multi-part experiential program of large-scale immersive artworks by John Fitzgerald & Godfrey Reggio, Marc Da Costa & Matthew Niederhauser, Margarita Athanasiou, and Stephanie Dinkins, presented by BAM, Jan. 4-19.
- 1970s Japanese avant-garde playwright Shuji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, in a colorful, all-female take by director Kim Sujin and Project NYX, presented by Japan Society, Jan. 15-18.
- Aakash Odedra Company’s Little Murmur, a dance theatre show about life with dyslexia, and UTR’s first work for young audiences and their families, presented by the New Victory Theater, Jan. 10-19.
- The annual Under the Radar Symposium, presented in partnership with HowlRound Theatre Commons, the Simons Foundation, and the Onassis Foundation, Jan. 9.
As it did last year, the festival continues to draw on its roots as a community gathering space, with additional programming addressing challenges and opportunities for an industry with potential for great transformation in a critical time. In addition to select performances, UTR will host the Symposium, an annual gathering of international performing arts leaders, as well as a Festival Hub to feature pop-up performances, live music, and more.
Already seeding new works, Under the Radar will take its first steps as a “producing festival,” featuring new commissions by Alex Tatarsky, Jenn Kidwell, and Nile Harris. In coming years, it plans to partner with other organizations to provide developmental support for premiere productions at UTR. As it grows its roster of productions, the festival strives to reflect the diversity of the city and world’s ambitious performance as they innovate under extraordinary conditions. UTR will continue to grow as a singular resource in America for all that is new and experimental.
Last year, Mark Russell and festival producers Thomas O. Kriegsmann and Sami Pyne of ArKtype took an immense leap to evolve the beloved festival after the Public Theater—the festival’s home of 17 years—announced that for financial reasons it could no longer host Under the Radar. The organizers convened many of New York’s most vital performing arts organizations and the multiplicity of their artistic leaders’ distinct visions to grow UTR into a citywide phenomenon. This format saw UTR carving out necessary space for artists and audiences and adventurous, experimental work throughout the city.
This year, the festival builds this collaborative structure into its own creative leadership and vision, with Peponides and Schaal, alongside Russell and ArKtype, opening the festival to vital new potentials and structures. Said Meropi Peponides in a statement, “The Under the Radar Festival has been a major influence in shaping my perspectives, sensibilities, and passions as a theatremaker and producer. Its global reach and the platform it gives international artists is an essential part of the ecosystem of New York City performance, and has shown how this work forges connections between people across the world, and speaks truth to the human condition. It is an honor to join Mark and this stellar team to help chart a path for the festival’s future.”
Added Schaal in a statement, “There are so many New York Cities. So often they don’t touch. My family squatted a building just blocks from PS122, NYTW, the Public—but never stepped foot inside them. As Under The Radar expands into its new life, how can we live up to the promise of theatre, the promise of participatory society, of people gathering around campfires to tell stories, of the Greek’s ‘demos kratia,’ literally ‘people power,’ where voting and theatre happened alongside each other? At its best New York is a city of entry points, places to begin and dream the impossible. As developer empires engulf the city, we are losing those entry points. Under the Radar has always protected entry points to craft, community, the city, and the world. I am thrilled to join and expand this practice.”
Said executive director Mark Russell in a statement, “I am thrilled to welcome Meropi Peponides and Kaneza Schaal to the Under the Radar artistic team. Under the Radar has always been a collaborative effort. Last year we took a step toward creating a city-wide festival with contributions from producers across the city, proof of the resilient and innovative strength of New York’s art scene. The addition of Meropi and Kaneza, with their unique perspectives, will help us build a festival ready for the future.”
