kUnST fEsT

header design by Luiza Dale

September 15-20th, 2026
at The Collapsable Hole, NYC

$25 General Admission
$60 fUll fRoNtAL kUnST pAss (see all 3 shows with one pAss - Fri + Sat only!)

Long long ago, the cultural breadbasket in which we reside decided to prioritize arts funding. And the people rejoiced! Specifically, millions and billions of dollars were poured into experimental theater because it was understood, not just by the common people but the powers that be, that theater is a channel for our souls, for practicing imperfection and presence and collaboration and thus a necessary counter to isolation, and, by the nature of working towards a shared goal that is not war, in fact, a force for peace. Across stages, civic spaces, gardens, ballrooms, basements, restaurants, any place with chairs, really, very interesting kinds of shows with ample funding began to pop up. The spoken word abounded, the tickets were cheap, and beer flowed readily. And audiences laughed and cried and started their own theater companies in turn, and soon, there was no more war.

*Actually what happened was Kate and Rachel and Lisa came to the conclusion that all we have is each other. They read each other's plays and discovered that their plays were in conversation, speaking across distances in a bath of startling poetic and disturbing language. The words one lacked, another had. So they decided to make a festival. They called it kUnST fEsT: a nod to a fantasy of robust and vaguely German avant-garde cultural infrastructure, but also to the real and sustaining power of friendship. 

Presented in partnership with Immediate Medium, with support from the Laurence W. Levine Foundation, New Georges, and Clubbed Thumb.

THE SHOWS

Notes From the Cottage - written and directed by Lisa Clair
The Cycles - by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, directed by Caitlin Ryan O’Connell
The Intimacy - written and directed by Kate Kremer

Notes From The Cottage
written and directed by Lisa Clair

Wed 9/16 @ 7:30p
Fri 9/18 @ 7:30p
Sat 9/19 @ 2:30p

“1. Get un-haunted, 2. see objectively. This was on the advice of my psychic of course.” Notes from the Cottage is an unearthing, a ritual and a spell. It explores a particular place in a particular point in time but also the future as well as the past. Time as an infinite loop kind of thing. A psychotopographical romp into the here and now. Including songs and also dances!

Lisa Clair “clown-everyperson-diva” (David Cote) is a New York-based playwright and performer. She makes work under the name Lisa Clair Group, a collective of performers, musicians, and designers who collaborate across disciplines to create live, experimental performance. Lisa is a New Georges affiliated artist and a core member of Immediate Medium. Her work has been presented at MITU580, The Collapsable Hole, Target Margin Theater, SPRING/BREAK art show, The SFX Festival at The Wild Project, The Bushwick Starr Reading Series, Ars Nova ANT FEST, The Performance Project at University Settlement and more. She teaches experimental playwriting and performance at Sarah Lawrence College.

The Cycles
written by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, directed by Caitlin Ryan O’Connell

Tue 9/15 @ 7:30p
Thu 9/17 @ 5p
Fri 9/18 @ 5p
Sat 9/19 @ 7:30p
Sun 9/20 @ 11a

Three strangers, who are all pregnant, wait in a healthcare waiting room, seemingly for eternity. What begins as a naturalistic play morphs into a ritual that weaves between today, Medieval Europe, the 1960s, and prehistoric humanity.

Rachel Kauder Nalebuff’s performances have been staged at REDCAT, The Skirball Center, the Hammer Museum, and La Ferme du Buisson (in collaboration with Emily Mast). Rachel created Our Red Book, named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, and the New York Times best-selling My Little Red Book. Most recently, she is the author of Stages: On dying, working, and feeling, a hybrid collection of writing and interviews with end-of-life care workers that “feels truly revolutionary, in both form and in content” (Elif Batuman). She teaches creative nonfiction writing at Yale University.

Caitlin Ryan O’Connell is a theater director and teaching artist based in Brooklyn. She has directed and developed work at Little Island, Clubbed Thumb, The Bushwick Starr, The Public, Ars Nova, The Lark, Roundabout, New Georges, The Hearth, Fault Line Theatre, Montana Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and The Denver Center.

Together, Rachel & Caitlin approach theater-making as a way to explore a small-scale version of the world we wish to live in.

The Intimacy
written and directed by Kate Kremer

Tue 9/15 @ 5p
Thu 9/17 @ 7:30p
Fri 9/18 @ 2:30p
Sat 9/19 @ 5p

The Intimacy is a plural diary about the prickly, rose-like dance of friendship, artmaking, organizing (political, and which way should the couch face?), and caretaking. It’s also about Bette and Lucy, their feelings and habits.

Kate Kremer is a playwright and publisher whose works have been presented at JACK, the Public Theater (Weasel Festival), the Flow Chart Foundation, Dixon Place, the Bushwick Starr Reading Series, SFX Fest @ the Wild Project, the Motor Company, Brooklyn College, and the Figge Art Museum. She’s been a finalist for the Princess Grace Award and the Dennis and Victoria Ross Foundation Award, and received an honorable mention for the Leah Ryan Fund for Emerging Women Writers. Her writing has appeared in Fence, Red Branch Journal, HowlRound, and Culturebot, and her play uncollected trash collection was published as an unbound notecard chapbook by 53rd State Press. Kate is the editor of 53rd State Press and teaches playwriting at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise.