Liveness: A Performance made from the wnyc archives

Dir. Steve Cosson

Video Design: Attilio Rigotti

Sound Design: Ryan Gamblin

“The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, the live event space and broadcast studio from WNYC and WQXR, has named The Civilians its 2023 Spring Artist-in-Residence. The Civilians creates ambitious and exuberant new theater that creatively interrogates our lived experience. During their residency, they will curate three evenings of multidisciplinary performances that highlight their signature investigative theater style.

For the second installment of their residency, “Liveness: A Performance Made From The WNYC Archives,” on April 17 at 7pm, The Civilians will stage a creative intervention with the WNYC archives. In the 1970s, WNYC regularly aired 90 minutes of free-flowing conversations with experimental filmmakers and radical poets that included awkward pauses and the background sounds of children playing. Performers will channel these voices of iconic artists from the past to create a portrait of a bygone New York City with all its gritty human texture.