From the directors | September 2026
This season’s programming includes a playful and haunting New York premiere examining motherhood and artistic ambition (Katie Bender’s Instructions for a Séance), our signature showcase of independent artists and new work (The Mixtape Series), the creation and premieres of three new plays for NYC high schoolers that will eventually be available for teenagers around the world (Keen Teens), all while supporting our mission to produce intimate theater experiences celebrating hope and our shared humanity. At every Keen event, individuals become a community – and this communal energy becomes transformative. After all, hope and community give us the energy to move forward.
As we began dreaming about what our 2026/27 season would be, we found ourselves drawn to Katie Bender’s Instructions for a Séance. A séance and theater have a lot in common; they both necessitate a gathering of strangers in an intimate setting. Instructions for a Séance will be performed in a place we bet you’ve never been to: artXnyc. This venue is the kind of NYC building people walk by without a second glance, not knowing that inside there is so much history–especially during the Meatpacking District’s heyday. Housed in what was once an iconic nightclub, artXnyc now hosts a coffee shop, gallery space, two different bars, and a blackbox theater. Instructions for a Séance is performer/playwright Katie’s exploration of her internal conflict as an artist, mother, and wife. Inspired by the great escape artist Harry Houdini, Katie created this piece as a way to escape her life while giving us all the chance to be escape artists for an evening.
We are also so excited to continue creating one-of-a-kind artistic happenings with The Mixtape Series. With an artist taking on the role of performance curator, each evening is a theatrical mixtape come to life, filled with love, joy, and radical bravery! We will soon be announcing our curators.
We look forward to starting the third decade of Keen Teens with the 21st anniversary of this incredible program for high school students. Three playwrights are already hard at work in the act of creation–we’ll be announcing their names soon.
Once upon a time, Keen Teens produced a play called A Polar Bear in New Jersey starring a teenager named Joy Sunday. Joy is now a rising star; she was nominated for an Emmy this year for her work on DTF: St. Louis, which won the Emmy for Best Limited Series. We will be honoring her, and our longtime friend, theater artist, and advocate Sonja Berggren, at our gala this fall.
Keen is making things happen in a time when we need things to happen. If you would like to support our work, one way is to attend our gala! It’s going to be a night of nights at a speakeasy-like venue housed in a former Art Deco Bank. Learn more here. You can also donate to Keen here.
We hope to see you very soon! Thanks for being a part of Keen.
