McCarter Theatre's 'Arts & Ideas' is attracting extraordinary artists to engage with faculty and students
Actor Alan Cumming (foreground) and NPR host Ari Shapiro (center, gray jacket) were among the luminaries in last season's McCarter lineup to talk with students as part of the Arts & Ideas programming.
Last year, Paula Abreu of McCarter Theatre Center pulled off a huge performing arts "get" — booking the iconic Patti Smith to kick off the mainstage season — by offering Smith's agent something no other venue could.
Through McCarter's Arts & Ideas initiative, Smith would engage with Princeton University students in a public conversation facilitated by a Princeton professor and a Princeton graduate student prior to her evening concert.
"Patti told me herself on the phone that she was humbled by the opportunity to talk with students," said Abreu, McCarter's director of presented programming. "I was completely dumbfounded."
As part of McCarter Theatre's Arts & Ideas initiative, Patti Smith (center) takes part in a public conversation with Brigid Doherty, associate professor of German and art and archaeology (left), and Hope Litwin, a graduate student in music composition, in Chancellor Green Rotunda.
The same thing happened with the Icelandic-Chinese recording artist Laufey, described by The New York Times as “the Gen Z ‘it girl’ singer,” who will visit McCarter on Sept. 27 for a conversation with Assistant Professor of Music Anna Yu Wang.
"Laufey's current Goddess world tour has sold out major venues from Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney to New York and Los Angeles," said Debbie Bisno, McCarter’s director of University and artistic partnerships. "Like Patti Smith, Laufey doesn't 'need' McCarter. But when we told her it was a Princeton undergraduate student's idea to have her be in conversation onstage in a theater full of Princeton students, she said yes."
Along with Smith, luminaries from last season’s Arts & Ideas lineup included Alan Cumming of “The Traitors” and “Wicked” writer Winnie Holzman, a Class of 1976 alum. The Laufey event — organized in partnership with the student group Princeton Encore, the Department of East Asian Studies, the Department of Music and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students — is just one Arts & Ideas event on tap for this fall.
Critical connections
Arts & Ideas curates programming at the theater and in classrooms and venues across the University campus "through which we intentionally link students and professors with the artists on our stage and our expertise behind the scenes," Bisno said. The initiative is co-sponsored by Princeton's Humanities Council.
"Arts & Ideas has lit the flame for artists to consider coming to McCarter," Bisno said. "The normal conversation we have with the artists and their reps shifts when we describe the opportunity to connect with campus."
Performances, conversations and collaborations this fall include:
- Sept. 24: Zoe Sarnak, composer/lyricist of "Empire Records: The Musical,” running through Oct. 6 at McCarter, speaking with Professor of Theater and American Studies Stacy Wolf's class at the Lewis Center for the Arts.
- Oct. 7: Princeton students will join a conversation called “Finding Your Flow” with Natalia Lafourcade, the most awarded Latin Grammy female artist, in partnership with the Program in Latin American Studies, the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, and the Department of Music.
- Oct. 26: “Election Therapy,” a conversation at McCarter between satirist Andy Borowitz and Eliza Griswold, director of the Humanities Council's Program in Journalism, contributing writer for The New Yorker and a 1995 Princeton graduate.
- Collaborations now in the planning stage between guest artists on the 2024-25 McCarter season and student groups, including Princeton University Ballet, Mariachi los Tigres de Princeton, and the improv group Quipfire!
As part of McCarter Theatre's Arts & Ideas initiative, Laufey, winner of the 2024 Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, will appear on Sept. 27 in an onstage conversation with Princeton music professor Anna Yu Wang.
Bisno said Arts & Ideas programming has created a porous relationship between McCarter and the University community for the lively exchange of ideas, scholarship and expertise.
At last year’s "Conversation with Patti Smith," Brigid Doherty, associate professor of German and art and archaeology — who teaches Smith's artwork in some of her courses — and Hope Litwin, a Ph.D. candidate in music composition who was able to participate in the event as a GradFUTURES Social Impact Fellow, asked Smith questions about her inspirations and process as a singer, writer and visual artist. The event was not only enormously successful in its own right, it also inspired McCarter’s new student-centered collaboration with Princeton Encore.
Class of 2026 member Simon Marotte, a psychology major and music minor, was inspired after Smith's talk to start a series of his own. "I saw an exciting opportunity to hear from artists in a deeper way by hosting meaningful conversations about their lived experiences, passions and personal pursuits," he said.
The Laufey event is the first to grow out of Marotte’s vision, and the idea clearly hit a chord with Princeton students: When tickets for the conversation became available early this month, the 800 seats reserved for students to book free through Passport to the Arts were snapped up in under 30 minutes, Bisno said.
As part of her conversation with Yu Wang, Laufey will perform songs and answer questions submitted by students from across campus.
"I look forward to hearing about her approach to musical sound, cultural difference and finding community in a digital age," said Yu Wang.
Discovering that 'insights drawn from the arts are applicable to any field'
Bisno is especially excited about the impact that Arts & Ideas has had on students across academic disciplines. Professors and student groups are now approaching McCarter to make collaborations happen, Bisno added.
"What has surprised me most is students in economics, engineering, biology and sociology, who tell me, 'I didn't think of myself as creative,' or 'I didn't think of myself as artistic, before attending [an Arts & Ideas event],'" she said. "We're illustrating that creativity isn't a talent that only artists possess and that insights drawn from the arts are applicable to any field."
More than 50 Arts & Ideas programs have been held across campus, including: artist/scholar panels; public conversations; workshops, talks and curated experiences for academic courses as well as in the residential colleges and on-site at McCarter; mentorship and internships for graduate and undergraduate students; and more.
Previous events included a student workshop with Latin Grammy and Academy Award-winning Latin pop singer and physician Jorge Drexler; a Wintersession improv workshop led by "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" writer and performer Dion Flynn; and a guest lecture by Wendy Orshan, executive producer of Broadway’s "Some Like it Hot" and "Dear Evan Hansen," as part of the class “Musical Theatre and Fan Cultures” co-taught by Stacy Wolf in theater and Betsy Armstrong in sociology and public affairs.
More in-depth programs have included an Athletics Night centered on "The Wolves," a play about a women's soccer team, featuring a post-show talk with McCarter artistic director Sarah Rasmussen, Princeton student-athletes, coaches and the cast, as well as an ongoing collaboration with Princeton's GradFUTURES program called The Scholar's Take, which invites graduate students to write essays — not reviews — in response to performances in McCarter’s season.
Learn more about Arts & Ideas on McCarter's website.
Sabrina King (left), Princeton women's varsity volleyball coach and a 2001 Princeton graduate; Heather Driscoll, a soccer coach in Pennington, NJ, and soccer consultant for McCarter's production of "The Wolves," a play about a women's soccer team; Sarah Rasmussen, artistic director at McCarter; and Debbie Bisno, director of University and artistic partnerships at McCarter, engage in a post-performance onstage conversation as part of "Athletics Night."
McCarter Theatre staff member Sudha Iyer (left) participates in a Princeton Wintersession improv workshop "No Joke, No Pressure" with Jamie Caldwell, associate research scholar, HMEI, as students look on. The workshop was led by Dion Flynn, actor/staff writer on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."
Mame Diarra Samantha Spies (left), co-artistic director of Urban Bush Women, and performance artist Daniel Alexander Jones rehearse a commissioned theater work at McCarter inspired by the Toni Morrison Papers at Princeton University Library, as part of the campus-wide celebration of the author's life and legacy in 2023.
