Past Events

The Equitable Arts Infrastructure Research Group and The University of Texas at Austin College of Fine Arts are hosting a national symposium focused on the enduring challenge of cultural, economic and racial equity in the nation’s performing arts sector. Over two days, through conversations with cultural professionals and humanities scholars, this convening will address gaps in understanding about how performing artists in the U.S. work and how their work is supported systemically. By defining, theorizing and historicizing new methods and approaches to an equitable arts infrastructure, this symposium will create a foundation for new understandings of how educational institutions and cultural professionals can support each other.

UTNT (UT New Theatre) presents newly developed works from playwrights of Texas Theatre and Dance and Michener Center for Writers. Now celebrating its 18th season, this festival exists as an incubator for new work, with many plays continuing on to be professionally produced across the country. UTNT (UT New Theatre) 2025 will feature three fully produced plays by graduate playwrights, in addition to new play readings and workshops.

Hello! It’s 1895. A young writer on a Russian estate recruits his crush to perform his new play for his mother, her boyfriend and the estate workers. It goes badly, but he refuses to give up. It’s also 2025. A company of actors in Austin, Texas performs a new play for you. It’s a cacophony of animals living and dying before your very eyes. But can anything truly be “new”—art, our lives, our problems? If not, then what do we need to feel whole? Come spend a thousand years with us in just one night trying to find out.

The Performance as Public Practice Fridays@2 speaker series facilitates discussions about the creation and study of performance. PPP welcomes artists from within and beyond the Winship Drama Building, including current students, distinguished alumni and arts leaders from across the country, to share their research and methodology. Up next is a conversation with Henry Castillo, PhD, a Research Fellow in the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.

this all really happened (i made it all up) is a performance choreographed by M.F.A. candidate Leo Briggs, in collaboration with movement artists Clara Bolivar, Avry Carraway, Gillian Gordon, Riza Hernandez, Emma Safier, IvyCamille Sampson and Katherine Vaughn. The work uses the phenomenon of alien abduction as an entry point to explore embodiments of narrative, spectacle and transformation. Connecting the experience of abduction to Briggs's own experience of transition, this all really happened (i made it all up) hovers on the border between spectacular tall tale and mundane reality, asking how the stories we tell ourselves become truths. 

Award-winning student dance company, Dance Repertory Theatre, returns to the stage in a series of new works of choreography by students and guest artists. Centering around the spirit of the cypher, this unique dance performance (performed in the round) weaves through unique dance styles including ballet, modern, hip-hop, African and ballroom to create space for a sense of community and catharsis. Choreographers include Meredith Rainey, Le'Andre Douglas, Love Muwwakkil and Megan Davidson. 

In this delightful stage adaptation, Roald Dahl’s classic tale is faithfully told by James himself along with the insect characters – Miss Spider, Old-Green-Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybird and Earthworm. The play begins at the end of the story, when James and his friends are living in the giant peach stone in Central Park, New York. 

One of Shakespeare's most cherished comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream follows the story of four star-crossed lovers who find themselves caught in a tangle of amorous confusion. Set between the court of Athens and the enchanted forest beyond, the play explores themes of love and illusion (mixed with a bit of fairy magic) in a world turned upside down.

A Thanksgiving play called by sports announcers. Every family holiday is full of tradition. Every family holiday is full of strife and joy. Where do our traditions come from? Why do we hold so tightly to them? Join the family at Wembly Stadium as they play the game called Thanksgiving Day: a day of gratitude in which we watch some people knock some other people down in order to get the ball over the line.