Milo Rau to Join DOWN TO EARTH FESTIVAL at CUNY’s Martin E. Segal Theatre Center

Internationally renowned theatre director Milo Rau, artistic director of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna, will appear in New York on Tuesday, September 2, 2025, as part of the Down to Earth Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave). Co-produced by the Segal Center and the Vienna Festival, the event forms part of Rau’s RESISTANCE NOW! project. All events are free and open to the public.

Throughout the day, Rau will participate in multiple conversations and panels, including Political Theatre Today alongside Tania Bruguera and Richard Schechner, and discussions with Frank Hentschker and Carol Martin. The symposium will also introduce audiences to Rau’s School of Resistance, an initiative fostering global collaborative solidarity in the face of threats to artistic freedom.

“Down to Earth brings artists, activists, researchers, philosophers, politicians, and community voices together to envision how art can participate in a global, solidarity-based response to today’s political and cultural crises,” said Frank Hentschker, Executive Director of the Segal Center.

The program concludes with a staged reading of Nobel Prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek’s Endsieg: The Second Coming, translated by Gitta Honegger, directed by Rau, and featuring actor Nicole Ansari. The reading will be followed by a Q&A.

Schedule – Tuesday, September 2, 2025

• 2:00–3:30 p.m. – Town Hall: New York theatre artists, producers, students, and festival makers discuss the state of theatre under the new government.

• 3:30–4:00 p.m. – Milo Rau in conversation with Frank Hentschker.

• 4:00 p.m. – RESISTANCE NOW: Political Theatre Today, a panel with Tania Bruguera, Milo Rau, and Richard Schechner.

• 5:00 p.m. – Theater of the Real, Carol Martin in conversation with Milo Rau.

• 6:00 p.m. – Reading of Endsieg: The Second Coming by Elfriede Jelinek, featuring Nicole Ansari, directed by Milo Rau, followed by a Q&A.

Admission

All events are free and open to the public at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10016.