ANT Fest is our annual festival of All New Talent showcasing new work from New York’s most adventurous emerging artists. Every summer, Ars Nova throws open our doors to the next wave of pioneering theater, comedy, music and hybrid theater-makers who fill our stage with their most dynamic ideas.
House Fire Flag Father
From Gemma Soldati and Scott R. Sheppard
June 10 @ 7 PM
Father is gone. Daughter is here. Mother is quiet. Flag is folded. Rules are made. Flag is flown. Daughter is home. Flag is sewn. Fire is lit. Rules are broken. Mother is quiet. Flag waves. Daughter cries. Everyone laughs. All go home.
SUNFACE, (or music-for-robots)
From Mikey Rose
June 11 @ 7 PM
A cyber-folk concert and celebration of humanity that follows SUNFACE, a misfit, malfunctioning robot curious about "how to human" in a fully robot world.
Tourist Trap
From Elijah Guo and Dylin Taylor
June 12 @ 7 PM
Grace, Deborah and Shu-Ling are trapped in Times Square. Will they find the World’s Largest Applebee’s before it’s too late? In Tourist Trap, three Asian-American mothers reckon with identity crises, a creeping sense of dissociation…and a seedy, off-brand Elmo who won’t leave them alone.
Website Evangelist: Eulogy for a Laptop
From Alex Beige
June 13 @ 7 PM
Join Archbishop Beige, of the recently formed Website Evangelism movement, in celebrating the joyous intimacy of websites alongside the more somber offering of their only begotten laptop to the realm beyond. A night of pseudo-Catholic mass reconciling loss, misplaced internet intimacy & generational trauma into a laptop-puppet show.
Planet W: A New Science-Fiction Musical
From Matt Coakley, Franco Giacomarra and Marc David Wright
June 14 @ 7 PM
A small-town couple on the verge of ending their first adult relationship is abducted by a race of zany Aliens hellbent on destroying the Earth! Can the star-crossed lovers save their relationship AND the fate of humankind in time? Planet W blends the concept albums of 1970’s rock music with the mythic characters and stories of superhero comic books and classic American musical comedy.
Where We Meet
From Kate Eberstadt and Molly Rose Heller
June 15 @ 7 PM
A musical experiment. A solo experience exploring quantum physics. A refugee camp. Where We Meet challenges the boundaries of reality. Can we use music to reach those we’ve loved and lost?
GERALDINE!
From Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper
June 17 @ 7 PM
An oddball musical featuring a cast of thousands but performed by two dedicated weirdos and an electric piano, GERALDINE! is the story of a resident at the Lakeview Shalom nursing home whose crush on her home health aide leads her and the other residents into the sea where they find a new lust for life and, just possibly, a new hope for the world.
Good Person
From Brett Ashley Robinson
June 18 @ 7 PM
In this raucous, solo buffoon performance, our host, Patricia!, dares the audience to examine the intricate layers of being 'good' in a world teetering on the edge of chaos. Good Person is an audacious, unapologetic romp through society's contradictions made for queers, good black girls and anyone afraid of their own rage.
Mx. Piggy Makes an OnlyFans
From Tank
June 20 @ 7 PM
After five years of radio silence, the artist formerly known as Miss Piggy is back on a stage and they have a lot to say—chiefly about their love life, coming out as non-binary and their attempt at making an OnlyFans.
SHOWGASM: ANT FEST Edition
Hosted by Chloe Troast
June 20 @ 9:30 PM
Ars Nova’s untamed monthly variety-show-meets-party is guest-hosted by one of our favorite comedians, Chloe Troast (SNL), and features a who’s-who of the weird and wonderful—performing comedy to burlesque and everything (and anything) in between.
The Galas
From Justine Gelfman and Joan Sergay
June 21 @ 7 PM
Welcome to The Galas, a chaotic, comedic, centuries-spanning two-hander about the performance of raising money for scientific research. We need your generous support. Donate now. and now. and now.
Night T.V.
From Allisha Edwards and Fernanda Brigneti
June 22 @ 7 PM
A dark comedy sketch show disguised as bubble gum pop, this comedy duo channel surfs the late night programming with a bizarre take on familiar TV tropes.
The Jordan and Avery Show in Concert
From Jay Adana and Jess McLeod
June 24 @ 7 PM
Jordan and Avery are a pair of broke-ass not-quite-30-somethings who make comedy songs on Youtube and are being evicted from the apartment they share. After a video they make about it goes viral, the friends attempt to navigate their newfound success and process the years they’d spent and all they’d lost trying to find a way out of hardship.
Homofermenters, Or The Park Slope Co-op Play
From Madison Fiedler and Francesca Sabel
June 25 @ 7 PM
We’re all heroes when we work the Cheese Shift at the Park Slope Food Co-Op. It does seem like the Cheese Shift Leader maybe faked her death, but we’re all too polite to ask. Part satire, part slasher, Homofermenters follows the Friday 6 AM cheese shift as its members navigate joint ownership, the collapsing planet, widow-twins and how to cut through a human-sized wheel of parmesan.
THIRD SEX: 1930s transvestite leider
From Adam J. Rineer and Jason Aguirre taken from the translations by Erica Kastner & Thomas Gurinskas
June 26 @ 7 PM
A found text song-cycle/punk cabaret based on the short stories, articles, poems and personal essays of Das 3. Geschlecht, a transvestite magazine published in five issues from 1930-1932 in Berlin before n*zis burned its publishing house to the ground. Third Sex brings these forgotten trans and queer narratives to life through music inspired by the antifascist krautrock movement, punk and experimental.
swearing in english
From Ema Zivkovic and Katie Spelman
June 27 @ 7 PM
Everyone is lying all the time. In more than one language. Lulu, an “illegal” immigrant, schemes their way through existing in America. They might dance for you, they might yap at you, they might perform drag for you, but by god, they’ll make you know their name.
