ELEUSIS ARTS FESTIVAL to Launch in Long Island City From Frayed Knot Collective
Macbeth and Free Sex!! will headline the festival's theatrical lineup at Court Square Theater.
Frayed Knot Collective will present the inaugural Eleusis Arts Festival, a new interdisciplinary festival coming to Court Square Theater in Long Island City from August 21-30, 2026. By bringing together innovative theater, independent film, live music, staged readings, DJs, and community events, Eleusis asks a simple question with its ambitious premise: what happens if theater, film, and music converge?
Rather than treating each medium as isolated events, Eleusis is designed as a shared cultural experiment-one where audiences are encouraged to explore, discover, and participate. Performances and screenings become the foundation of a larger festival environment, with games, drinks, and DJ sets creating opportunities for audiences and artists to connect before and after the events.
The inaugural festival will feature two theatrical headliners: Macbeth, directed by Natalie Tell, set in the business savvy world of 2007, and FREE SEX!!, a satirical historical fiction based on the recent trial of rapper Young Thug, written by Hassan Sharif and directed by Adrian Harris. The festival will also present the Odeon Concert Series; Mythea Film Festival, an open-submission short film and script festival; staged readings of new plays and future FKC productions; DJ sets; and additional community programming throughout the festival.
Eleusis is built around discovery. The goal is not simply to give audiences more things to see, but to rethink the audience experience so being there becomes part of the art.
The festival takes its name from The Eleusinian Mystery Festival (Mycenaean period - 395 CE), ancient Greek rituals centered on transformation and communal storytelling. It will run August 21-30, 2026 at Court Square Theater in Long Island City, NY.
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