Daniel Kaluuya in GRASS and More Set for Park Avenue Armory 20th Anniversary Season

Park Avenue Armory today unveiled its twentieth anniversary season, celebrating and continuing two decades of its renowned commissioning and presenting program with groundbreaking works of theater, opera, experimental performance, and immersive multimedia installations by some of the most powerful artistic voices of our time, including Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Philip Glass, Phelim McDermott, FC Bergman, and more. Featuring a world premiere commission by Jacobs-Jenkins and several North American and New York premieres, the 2027 season brings artistic meditations on history, unity, and protest to the institution’s soaring 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall and historic period rooms. The first season presented under the leadership of Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director Deborah Warner, combined with some of predecessor Pierre Audi’s artistic imprint, it includes Warner’s heralded installation Peace Camp in its North American premiere. Complementing the Drill Hall programming, a new slate of Recital Series performances and Artists Studio programs bring unique artistry to the Armory’s historic period rooms.

Grass

The season begins in February with the world premiere of Grass, a new commission from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and longtime Armory Artist-in-Residence Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Conceived specifically for the vast architecture of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, Grass stars Daniel Kaluuya, Academy Award, BAFTA, and Golden Globe winner (Get Out, Misty Green, Judas and the Black Messiah) in his U.S. stage debut as the son who embarks on a fantastical, picturesque road trip through the American South with his mother as they attempt to reconstruct their family tree. The production allows audiences to bear witness to the pair’s surreal encounters with fellow countrymen and remnants of history on their epic journey through the monumental and mundane landscapes of America. Equal parts fantasia, memory play, and morality play, Grass is a surreal meditation on the limits of personal, ancestral, and national identity amidst social upheaval. Co-commissioned in partnership with the National Black Theatre, Grass reunites the creative team behind the Obie Award-winning 2014 production of Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon, with direction by Sarah Benson and set design by Mimi Lien.

Peace Camp: A Vigil

Over the summer, the Armory’s Anita K. Hersh Artistic Director Deborah Warner brings a newly conceived rendition of her installation Peace Camp: A Vigil to the Drill Hall, reflecting a fascination with the power of “found” spaces like the Armory. Originally mounted along the UK coastline as a commission of the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad, this new version repurposes the Drill Hall for vigil and collective meditation in challenging times, inviting visitors to freely wander a sea of tents emanating a warm glow, surrounded by a lush soundscape of love poetry, words, signals, and natural sounds by award-winning composer and sound designer Mel Mercier. To encourage extended observation and reflection, a weekly overnight vigil will extend the installation’s public hours from dusk until dawn.

Einstein on the Beach

In September, the Armory presents the North American premiere of a reimagined Einstein on the Beach, the sprawling avant-garde opera conceived in 1976 by renowned composer Philip Glass and visionary director Robert Wilson. In commemoration of Glass’ 90th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the composition, the opera’s new experiential staging is brought to life by imaginative innovator Phelim McDermott, his third and final revival of Glass’ acclaimed “portrait opera” trilogy. Co-commissioned by Park Avenue Armory in collaboration with English National Opera, Factory International, and Improbable, Einstein on the Beach is a moving, otherworldly portrait of Albert Einstein’s transformative vision, ricocheting across space and time. McDermott’s adaptation features a cast of acclaimed vocalists, instrumentalists, actors, and movement artists. Set in a transforming, atmospheric environment designed by Tom Pye within the soaring Drill Hall, the work immerses audiences in the scale of the scientist’s paradigm-shifting ideas.

Audience Plant 2027

Innovative multidisciplinary artists Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch bring the New York premiere of their site-specific concert installation Audience Plant 2027 to the Drill Hall in October. Building on their groundbreaking Artists Studio performance at the Armory in 2016 to Aspen Art Museum’s ambitious 2024 commission, Audience Plant 2027 invites attendees into an expansive multisensory setting, anchored by frenetic compositions weaving together original music and soundscapes spanning jazz and pop to video game scores, theme songs, and EDM beats. Featuring a towering performance sculpture and new Armory commissioned film works, the performance is complemented by improvised jam sessions led by frequent musical collaborators Jason Moran, Ashland Mines, Michael Beharie, and Aaron David Ross alongside nightly special guests. With each performance being a one-night-only experience, Audience Plant 2027 carries forward the artists’ longstanding collaborative history while remaining bodily and immediate.

Guernica Guernica

The 2027 Drill Hall season concludes in December with the North American premiere of Guernica Guernica, presented by the trailblazing Belgian theater collective FC Bergman. Using Picasso’s anti-war painting and the Spanish Civil War’s real victims as its starting point, the theatrical triptych explores whether images of war provide understanding or desensitize us to violence, considering the perspectives of those who have suffered from war, those who caused it, and those who bear witness to it. A cast of over 80 performers led by Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten, and Marie Vinck creates striking wordless tableaux that interrogate the roles of victim, perpetrator, and spectator, amplified by drones in flight recording intimate moments that are projected onto large stadium screens. Blending living sculpture and historical documentary, Guernica Guernica is a bold new form of protest art that urges audiences to consider their own positionality.

Recital Series

Over the course of the season, the Armory will present intimate performances, artist talks, and educational programs in its historic period rooms. The Board of Officers Room offers a home for classical and contemporary performances through the Armory’s Recital Series, including the North American, U.S., and New York recital debuts of mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor, soprano Nikola Hillebrand, tenor Xabier Anduaga, and bass-baritone Le Bu as well as artfully curated programs that push the art form in exciting new directions by harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and experimental new music ensemble Yarn/Wire.

Artists Studio

The Artists Studio, curated by MacArthur Genius and Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Jason Moran, will continue performances in the Armory’s Veterans Room. Programs include inventive works that defy categorization by bassists Brandon López and Chloë Sobek; actor, writer, filmmaker, and musician Terence Nance; guitarist and songwriter Ava Mendoza; and choreographer and performance artist Marlon Taylor-Wiles.

Photo credit: Andreas Laszlo Konrath