Milo Rau's RESISTANCE NOW! Town Hall

Tuesday, Sept 2nd / 2pm - 6pm / Staged Reading to follow

Featuring Free Public Reading of ENDSEIG: A SECOND COMING

Presented by DOWN to EARTH International Festival of Multidisciplinary Performance in Public Spaces.

Milo Rau’s RESISTANCE NOW! tour will stop in New York City at the Segal Center, on Tuesday, September 2, after several previous events across Europe.As an internationally recognized theatre director and artistic director of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna, Milo Rau along with Frank Hentschker will lead a day-long symposium that will connect political developments in Central and Western Europe and Latin America with those unfolding in the United States and their impact on the cultural sector.The symposium will introduce attendees to Rau's School of Resistance, a project that fosters international collaborative solidarity in the face of global threats to artistic freedom. DOWN TO EARTH will bring artists, activists, researchers, philosophers, politicians, and local guests into the conversation to share their visions of how to participate in a global, solidarity-based response to this charged contemporary moment.The symposium will be accompanied by a reading of Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek’s play ENDSIEG: The Second Coming featuring Nicole Ansari-Cox. The staged reading serves as an example of how artistic intervention works within the RESISTANCE NOW project. The day's events are free and open to the public.It is co-produced by the Martin E. Segal Center and Milo Rau’s Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna and part of RESISTANCE NOW TOGETHER.

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2:00 pm – 3:30 pm TOWN HALL, New York theatre artists, producers, students and festival makers will discuss the state of theatre and performance under the new government.3:30 pm Milo Rau in conversation with Frank Hentschker4:00 pm RESISTANCE NOW! Political Theatre Today Panel with Tania Bruguera, Milo Rau and Richard Schechner.5:00 pm Theater of the Real Carol Martin in conversation with Milo Rau.6:00 pm Reading: ENDSIEG—THE SECOND COMING, by Elfride Jelinek in a translation by Gitta Honegger. With actor Nicole Ansari. Directed by Milo Rau, followed by Q & A with the director.

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ABOUT DOWN TO EARTH

DOWN TO EARTH Festival Director and Executive Producer: Elena Siyanko

DOWN TO EARTH Festival Director: Frank Hentschker

Producer and Associate Director of Programs, Segal Center: Meg Araneo

Producer: Natalie Rine

You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support the DOWN TO EARTH here.

DOWN TO EARTH, NYC’s First International Festival of Multidisciplinary Creation in Public Spaces, brings world-class international performance, theater, contemporary circus, opera installation, and participatory events—absolutely free—directly to New York City’s vibrant, diverse communities. An initiative that embraces global exchange and democratizes cultural expression, the inaugural festival runs from August 29–September 7, 2025. The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at The Graduate Center CUNY serves as the festival's producer, organizational and curatorial home, and fiscal agent.

Here in NYC, partnering with parks in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens and collaborating with more than 10 dynamic cultural and community organizations, we’re staging performances and workshops across multiple urban spaces. Citizen expression beats at the heart of the festival’s artistic vision. DOWN TO EARTH affirms art’s critical role in the economic, social, and mental well-being of all New Yorkers. With a focus on how artistic presence transforms the experience of place, and the powerful role of outdoor creation in transforming communities and spaces, DOWN TO EARTH seeks to expand access to cultural expression, privilege public assembly, and combat the injustices inherent in socio-economic exclusion. Central to the festival's mission is our commitment to dismantling cultural barriers by offering free programs for students, youth, immigrant communities, and families. By attracting a diverse public to free outdoor arts and in-situ performances that are accessible and inviting, the festival will redress the shortcomings of an expensive system of cultural dissemination. Downtoearthfestival.org

Milo Rau's RESISTANCE NOW!

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