Ars Nova's annual All New Talent Festival is coming back to its Manhattan home next month, bringing 15 new works ranging from a rapping nun and priest to a bat trapped in a hospital to a cloud that wants to become human. ANT Fest runs September 8 through September 25 at Ars Nova, the nonprofit theater at 511 West 54th Street, and tickets start at $20.
The festival has quietly become one of New York's most productive talent pipelines, as reported by Time Out. Bowen Yang, now a Saturday Night Live breakout, performed at ANT Fest before his career took off, and John Early, today a recognizable figure in alternative comedy, also passed through the festival early on. Time Out's Mark Peikert notes that other alumni, including Matt Rogers, Jeremy O. Harris, and Ryan J. Haddad, moved from New York's indie-performance ecosystem into Saturday Night Live, Netflix specials, and wider cultural prominence.
A Launchpad Nearly Two Decades in the Making
Ars Nova launched the first ANT Fest in 2008, drawing over 250 submissions for just 30 emerging artistic projects staged as one-night showcases, according to BroadwayWorld. The nonprofit itself was founded in 2002 by Jenny Steingart and Jon Steingart in memory of Jenny's late brother Gabe Wiener, a 26-year-old music producer, and was built as a development lab for early-career artists, per Wikipedia. That incubator model has since produced some notable success stories: the OBIE Award-winning satire Underground Railroad Game, by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard, was first showcased at ANT Fest in 2014 before getting a full Off-Broadway premiere at Ars Nova in 2016 and an international tour, BroadwayWorld reported. Andrew R. Butler's sci-fi folk musical Rags Parkland Sings Songs of the Future followed a similar arc, debuting as a single-night concept at the 2010 festival before evolving into a full 2018 Ars Nova production that won the 2019 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, according to TDF.
What's Playing This Year
This year's slate opens with PDA Live!, a multimedia pop spectacle about a lesbian pop duo nearing superstardom whose secret is threatened by a mysterious blackmailer. Other entries on the 15-work lineup include a fictional pop duo dealing with an impending scandal, South Asian high school students performing Grease, and a piece titled I Am Madonna. I've Always Been Madonna. Fuck You If You Think Otherwise, I Don't Care What You Think, I Am Madonna. The Castle of Ghoul Hammond, described as a work involving queer cannibalism, werewolves, folk religion, cinema, and confetti cake, is set for September 9.
Special events round out the schedule. Stacked: ANT Fest Edition, hosted by drag artist Aimee Amour and featuring emerging musical talent, takes place September 10. The festival closes with Showgasm, Ars Nova's variety-show-meets-party, hosted by performance legend Erin Markey. ANT Fest also includes post-show parties for audiences and performers throughout its run.
Keeping Tickets Affordable
Ars Nova has built financial accessibility into the festival's DNA. Some ANT Fest shows participate in the theater's Name Your Price initiative, which the organization says is designed to make new work accessible, and which grew out of Ars Nova's broader What's Ars Is Yours policy introduced for its 20th anniversary season. Under that policy, 100% of single-ticket box office revenue from presented discovery shows goes directly to the lead artists, with some tickets available in pay-what-you-wish tiers as low as $5 to $15. This year's ANT Fest tickets start at an artist-suggested price of $20.
Ars Nova has also grown beyond its original 99-seat Midtown West stage. In 2018, the organization took over operations of the 199-seat Greenwich House Theater in the West Village, giving works that start as ANT Fest one-nighters a path to longer Off-Broadway runs, according to Times Square Chronicles. That pipeline has already produced a Broadway transfer: Dave Malloy's electropop opera Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 premiered at Ars Nova in 2012, moved to Broadway in 2016, and earned 12 Tony Award nominations the following year, per American Theatre. Ars Nova also co-produced the 2017 world premiere of KPOP, an immersive musical about Korean pop stars made with Ma-Yi Theater Company and Woodshed Collective, which itself transferred to Broadway in 2022, as reported by TheaterMania.
Timing Lines Up With Yang's Broadway Debut
The festival's return arrives just as one of its most famous alumni prepares for a milestone. Bowen Yang is set to make his Broadway debut as Mrs. Lincoln in Cole Escola's hit play Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum Theatre for a 12-week run starting in September. For a festival built on turning one-night experiments into lasting careers, it's a fitting moment for ANT Fest to once again open its doors to the next round of unpredictable new work.
