The Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival, an annual showcase for experimental work has been cancelled. The presentations were scheduled to begin on Wednesday, January 12, running throughout the end of the month. A statement from the theater cited, “multiple disruptions related to the rapid community spread of the Omicron variant,” as the basis for the decision.
Originally, the Public had announced that it would require full vaccination as well as proof of a negative Covid-19 test to access its theaters and restaurant. But Mark Russell, the festival’s director, said in a video interview that he took stock of the test positivity rate and number of cases in New York, and decided it would be irresponsible to move forward with live programming. And even though last year’s Under the Radar was virtual, that took months of planning, a circumstance that precluded transitioning this year’s festival online.
The lineup for Under the Radar was to have included Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones; Our Country by Annie Saunders and Becca Wolff; An Evening With an Immigrant by Inua Ellams; Otto Frank by Roger Guenveur Smith and Mud/Drowning, with texts by María Irene Fornés.
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