Peak Performances

A commission from Montclair State’s New Works Initiative, this adventurous new play dives into campus life in two different times (2016, days before the presidential election, and 1976) as two student-formed political action groups attempt to draft by-laws. Conflicts arise as they discover that defining a governing identity within any group requires more than patience; it may just require a miracle.

With Esta Breve Tragedia de la Carne (This Brief Tragedy of the Flesh), Peak Performances introduces audiences to the singular work of the confrontational Spanish writer, director and performance artist Angélica Liddell. All the major European festivals – d’Avignon and d’Automne in France, Vie in Italy, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne in Switzerland – embrace Liddell with the adoration usually reserved for Romeo Castellucci and Robert Wilson.

Fast and spirited Oya is a promising young athlete who is offered a scholarship that could jump-start her future. Forced to choose between her dying mother and her own dreams, she makes a life-changing decision. Oya’s subsequent path to womanhood leads her to a crossroads where she finds herself torn between settling down and just settling.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Julia Wolfe (“Anthracite Fields,” 2015) and “cello goddess” (The New Yorker) Maya Beiser honor the essential labor of spinning thread. “Spinning” celebrates the work once performed by hand by women. Music has long been a vital part of the craft — both as a propelling force and as a distraction.