The Public Theater kicks off its 17th annual Under the Radar Festival January 6, running through January 17. The free programming features a mix of artists, including 600 HIGHWAYMEN, Javaad Alipoor, Inua Ellams, Trinidad González, Alicia Hall Moran, Piehole, and Whitney White and Peter Mark Kendall.

Curated by UTR Festival Director Mark Russell, this year’s lineup includes digital live streams and on-demand performances, as well as the return of the Under the Radar Symposium: A Creative Summit January 7, a half-day event featuring conversations and panels.

Check out a full list of programming for the Under the Radar Festival below or visit PublicTheater.org for more information and tickets.

A Thousand Ways (Part One): A Phone Call
December 21-January 17 (a pre-festival event)
Live Phone Call
By 600 HIGHWAYMEN
Written and created by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone
Pick up the phone. Someone is on the line. You don’t know their name, and you still won’t when the hour is over, but through this exchange—as you follow a thread of automated prompts—a portrait of your partner will emerge through fleeting moments of exposure.

Capsule
January 6–17
Streaming on Demand
By Whitney White and Peter Mark Kendall
Directed and produced by Taibi Magar and Tyler Dobrowsky
Inspired by the past year, Capsule is a kaleidoscopic reflection on isolation and longing, about breaking apart and breaking free and the impossible nature of connection. Through original text and music, White and Kendall grapple with race, the medium of film, and being caught up in the maelstrom of 2020.

Espíritu
January 6–17
Streaming on Demand
By Teatro Anónimo
Written and directed by Trinidad González
Performed in Spanish with English subtitles
Espíritu is a journey through diverse stories that happen during the night of an unknown city, that involve anonymous individuals marked by the spiritual crisis unleashed by the wild consumerism of the times and the exploitation of the neoliberal model in people’s consciousness, through power and the manipulation of their desires. The lack of answers that transcend money and the offer of material possessions will lead these characters to want to find the hidden devil that inhabits the city, and to catch it in a bottle.

Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran
January 7–10, 14–17
Select Live Performances Online
Written by Javaad Alipoor
Co-Created by Javaad Alipoor and Kirsty Housley
Produced by The Javaad Alipoor Company
Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran is a new play about entitlement, consumption, and digital technology, that explores the ubiquitous feeling that our societies are falling apart. Combining digital theatre and a live Instagram feed, it is the sequel to The Believers Are But Brothers, and the second part of a trilogy of plays from Alipoor about how digital technology, resentment, and fracturing identities are changing the world.

Borders & Crossings
January 7–10
Select Live Performances Online
By Inua Ellams
Produced by Fuel
Born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother against a backdrop of sectarian violence, Inua Ellams left Nigeria for England in 1996, aged 12, then moved to Ireland for three years before returning to London. A poet, performer, playwright, graphic artist, and designer, Ellams returns to the theme of migration in his work, exploring his own life experiences and wider global and political questions.

Disclaimer
January 7–11, 14–17
Select Live Performances Online
Written by Tara Ahmadinejad
Created by Piehole
On a seemingly perpetual brink of war with Iran, Chef Nargis hosts a cooking class aimed to prevent the unthinkable. Without a clear path, she hopes that some good ole fashioned empathy might do the trick, in the face of the ever palpable doom and destruction.

the motown project
January 8–17
Streaming on Demand
By Alicia Hall Moran
Presented by Joe’s Pub
Musical traditions yearning for each other across race, class, and nation grace Alicia Hall Moran’s meditation on the Motown songbook - a cinematic, movement-based aria fusing Sugar Pie Honey Bunch with Mozart while Marvin Gaye’s lyrical pathos finds solemnity in Purcell. Featuring Thomas Flippin (guitar), Steven Herring (vocals), Barrington Lee (vocals), and Reggie Washington (bass) in collaboration with choreographer Amy Hall Garner, the motown project reimagines Motor City poetics in a study of desire and infatuation only soul and opera embodied by one chanteuse could endure.

Devised Theater Working Group’s INCOMING!
January 6–17
Streaming on Demand
By The Devised Theater Working Group Cohort Members: Savon Bartley, Nile Harris, Miranda Haymon, Eric Lockley, Raelle Myrick-Hodges, Mia Rovegno, Justin Elizabeth Sayre, and Mariana Valenci This year, The PubIic Theater’s Devised Theater Working Group was challenged to create individual digital expressions for a group compilation video.