Theatre Development Fund (TDF), the not-for-profit performing arts service organization is presenting PERFORMETERIA, its first ever immersive festival featuring works from some of the most innovative Off-Off Broadway theatre and dance companies in New York City through its OffOff@$9 Program. Co-presented with Baruch PAC, PERFORMETERIA invites attendees to travel through multiple levels of theatres, nooks, and hidden venues.
Patrons will discover unique site-specific works from 15 Off-Off Broadway companies who will each present 10-minute performances over two nights – Monday, March 20 and Friday, March 24 beginning at 7pm at Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue (enter on 25th Street between 3rd & Lexington Avenue, NYC). On each of the nights, 10 of the companies will be performing giving attendees a great taste of their work. All tickets for PERFORMETERIA are $9. Similar to other immersive theatre performances, there will be staggered entry times: 7:00pm; 7:45pm; 8:30pm and 9:30pm to keep an even flow to the experience for all participants.
In order to purchase tickets to either or both evenings of PERFORMETERIA, please go to
tdf.org/PERFORMETERIA and sign up for free to join TDF’s OffOff@$9. Once registered, you can log on and purchase tickets for this first-time ever festival. TDF members may just log on as usual and look for PERFORMERTERIA under the Off-Off Broadway listings.
The companies performing on Monday, March 20 will be (* means group will be performing on both nights): The Assembly, Blessed Unrest*, The Fire This Time Festival*, Kinesis Project*, Lesser America*, The New York Neo-Futurists, The Pumpkin Pie Show*, Rady & Bloom, Talking Band, Theater Breaking Through Barriers.
The companies performing on Friday, March 24 will be: Blessed Unrest*; Dramatic Question Theatre (DQT); The Fire This Time Festival*; Flux Theatre Ensemble; Kinesis Project*; Lesser America*; Ma-Yi Theater Company; New York Deaf Theatre; Project: Theater; The Pumpkin Pie Show*
TDF’s commitment to the Off-Off Broadway community has been at the core of TDF’s mission since its founding nearly 50 years ago. Its popular TDF Voucher program was the lifeblood of many Off-Off Broadway Theatre companies for over 40 years. The OffOff@$9 Program was launched as a natural outgrowth of the voucher program whereby tickets to over 1,000 Off-Off Broadway productions each year are available to new and existing audiences for only $9 a ticket. In the first two years, OffOff@$9 generated 41,000 admissions for participating Off-Off Broadway companies. Last year, the program sold as many tickets in a single season, more than doubling its impact. OffOff@$9 was the recipient of the 2012 Ellen Stewart Award by the Innovative Theatre Awards for demonstrating a significant contribution to the Off-Off Broadway community through service, support, and leadership.
Theatre Development Fund (TDF) was created in the conviction that the live theatrical arts afford a unique expression of the human condition that must be sustained and nurtured. It is dedicated to developing diverse audiences for live theatre and dance and strengthening the performing arts community in New York City. Since 1968, TDF’s programs have provided over 92 million people with access to performances at affordable prices and have returned over $2.7 billion to thousands of productions. Best known for its TKTS Discount Booths, TDF’s membership, outreach, access (including its newly formed Autism Theatre Initiative), and education programs—as well as its Costume Collection—have introduced thousands of people to the theatre and helped make the unique experience of theatre available to everyone, including students and people with disabilities. Recent TDF honors include a 2011 Mayor’s Award for Arts and Culture, a 2012 Tony Honor for Excellence for its Open Doors Arts Education Program, a 2012 New York Innovative Theatre Award for its support of the Off-Off Broadway community, a 2013 Lucille Lortel honor for “Outstanding Body of Work” in support of the Off Broadway community, a 2016 “Friend of Off-Broadway” honor from The Off Broadway Alliance, and New York City’s 2016 TITLE II ADA Sapolin Public Service Award. For more information, go to
tdf.org.
Baruch Performing Arts Center (BPAC) has presented and produced over 1,000 cultural programs across the performing arts since 2003, including theatre companies such as the National Asian American Theatre Company, Folksbiene, New Georges, The Acting Company, Aquila and MCC, and the Dzul Dance and Jose Limon dance companies. BPAC, the New York home of the Alexander String Quartet, presents a chamber music season, a jazz series named for bassist and late Baruch faculty member Milt Hinton which has featured artists such as the Grammy Award-winning Turtle Island Quartet. Talk programs have included writers Amitav Ghosh, actress Linda Lavin, and thought leaders such as Gloria Steinem, and U. N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. The 2016-17 season includes the presentation of 10 premieres, including residencies for the making of new dance with Urban Bush Women, Sidra Bell, and Pigeonwing Dance, the American premiere of Cuban theatre maker Roxana Pineda, new works by composers Theodore Wiprud, Cindy Cox, Tarik O’Regan, and Tonia Ko, and talks with writer Teju Cole and artist Carola Gannis.
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ABOUT THE PERFORMETERIA COMPANIES:
The Assembly is a devised theater collective dedicated to telling urgent and complex stories that root its artists and audiences in a profound sense of community.
Award-winning experimental physical theatre ensemble
Blessed Unrest has been making dynamic, disciplined, and exuberant new works for the stage since 1999 in NYC and around the world.
The Dramatic Question Theatre (DQT) develops plays by member playwrights, and other female playwrights and playwrights of color.
The Fire This Time Festival presents the work of new and emerging black playwrights whose voices shatter the notions of what is possible in black theatre.
As an ensemble-artist driven company,
Flux Theatre Ensemble believes that long-term collaboration and rigorous creative development can unite artists and audiences to build a creative home in New York.
Kinesis Project creates large-scale, outdoor contemporary dance theatre. It places high-level dance performance in surprising, inspiring public spaces.
Lesser America is pop theatre: an ensemble dedicated to smart, quality entertainment that puts the audience first, fulfilling the promise of affordable, accessible theatre for the 21st century.
Ma-Yi Theater Company is home to the largest collection of professional Asian American playwrights in the country, whose works are developed and produced by the company.
A frequent home for Deaf artists, the
New York Deaf Theatre provides quality theatre productions, performances and events that are accessible to Deaf and hearing audiences.
The New York Neo-Futurists are an ensemble of writer/performer/directors dedicated to strengthening the human bond between performer and audience through audience interaction, planned obsolescence and elements of chance and change — contradicting the expected and eliminating the permanent.
Project: Theater creates events and productions that explore the performer/audience relationship and constantly endeavors to build theatrical experiences that ignite the audience's imagination and sense of unity.
The Pumpkin Pie Show is a rigorous storytelling session now celebrating its 20-year anniversary.
Rady & Bloom Collective Playmaking stages narratives in a stripped-down, efficient manner, with high energy and a sense of visual lyricism.
They are drawn to modern mythology—stories that ask us to believe in something bigger than ourselves.
For over 40 years, the Obie Award-winning
Talking Band has created new works -- combining richly textured music-theater with striking visual imagery -- that illuminate the extraordinary dimensions of ordinary life.
Theater Breaking Through Barriers is New York City's only Off Broadway theatre company dedicated to advancing the work of performers, writers and directors with disabilities.
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