Programs

Coffeehouse Chronicles

Coffeehouse Chronicles

Coffeehouse Chronicles is an educational performance series exploring the history of Off-Off-Broadway. Part artist-portrait, part history lesson, and part community forum, Coffeehouse Chronicles take an intimate look at the development of downtown theatre, from the 1960s’ “Coffeehouse Theatres” through today.

CultureHub

CultureHub

CultureHub pushes the boundaries of artistic collaboration and experimentation as an incubator for creativity focused on the intersection of art and technology. We serve local and global communities by providing an open space for creative research, artistic exchange and learning. 

Downtown Variety

Downtown Variety

La MaMa and CultureHub are teaming up to create a Downtown Variety, a weekly online live performance series that will feature short acts of dance, music, theater, new media, comedy, A/V performance, and more. Responding to calls for social isolation, Downtown Variety brings La MaMa's 1960s café aesthetic to a virtual platform that links performers and audiences in real time across distance.

Educational Programs

Educational Programs

The Trinity College / La MaMa Program utilizes the landscape and history of New York City as a catalyst for an intensive study in the arts. The World Theatre Class students from Sarah Lawrence University visit La MaMa to conduct workshops and see shows. SU-CASA is a community arts engagement program that places artists and organizations in residence at senior centers across the five boroughs of New York City.

Experiments Play Reading Series

Experiments Play Reading Series

For the 23rd season of La MaMa Experiments we will focus on theatrical works in progress addressing mental health issues. No one is more familiar with the need to create greater access to mental healthcare than our New York audience, who come face to face with this crisis on a daily basis. After 3 years of a global pandemic, all of us are feeling the upsurge of anxiety and depression, but these trends have been on the rise long before Covid-19. The works this season shed light on important, personal stories and deal with this subject matter in many different and unique ways. From tongue in cheek comedies to absurdist tragedies, Experiments hopes to create a season that will destigmaify, enlighten and, yes, even entertain.

Beakers and test tubes of different sizes containing colorful liquid

La MaMa Archive

La MaMa Archive

Established in the early 1970’s, La MaMa Archives collects, preserves, and exhibits records of permanent historical value relating to La MaMa and the Off-Off Broadway movement. In doing so, it draws on a deep vein of in-house institutional memory, the passionate community of artists whose work has found a home on La MaMa stages, and a diversity of scholars, educators and international artists with whom we regularly collaborate.

La MaMa Archive banner collage of old show photos

La MaMa Galleria

La MaMa Galleria

Founded in 1984, La Galleria is a nonprofit gallery committed to nurturing experimentation in the visual arts. La Galleria encourages an active dialogue between new media, performance, the plastic and visual arts, curatorial projects, and educational initiatives. It serves the East Village community by offering diverse programming to an inter-generational audience, and expanding the parameters of a traditional gallery space. As a non-profit, La Galleria is able to provide artists and curators with unique exhibition opportunities that are largely out of reach in a commercial gallery setting.

A gallery wall for the Every Woman Biennial

La MaMa Indigenous Initiative

La MaMa Indigenous Initiative

The La MaMa Indigenous Initiative aims to provide a platform for Indigenous arts and culture, both nationally and worldwide. La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is committed to supporting ethnic diversity, cultural pluralism, and marginalized identities in the arts. The Initiative curates original Indigenous programming, including workshops, markets, and theatrical productions, to elevate the voices and artistic works of Native communities both nationally and internationally.

La MaMa Kids

La MaMa Kids

La MaMa Kids Online presents kids performances and hands-on workshops online, timed especially for “after school” viewing! La MaMa will continue to use emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression that questions how art can function and how we as a society can survive challenging periods of history.

La MaMa LiveTalks

La MaMa LiveTalks

La MaMa LiveTalks are conversations with artists, activists and thought leaders from around the country and around the world who join in discussions about art and life in time of crisis. La MaMa will continue to use emerging technologies to create a new venue for artistic expression that questions how art can function and how we as a society can survive challenging periods of history.

La MaMa Meet-Ups

La MaMa Meet-Ups

Meet-Ups give artists the opportunity to meet our curators and talk about their work. Every year, La MaMa curators open the doors to meet with artists in the fields of Theatre, Dance, Poetry, Art, Puppetry, Kids Performance and Art + Technology.

La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival

La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival

La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival continues to support La MaMa’s commitment to presenting diverse performance styles that challenge audience’s perception of dance by featuring performance/installations, experimental film screenings & public symposiums which address dance artists’ engagement with the current political climate, as well as honoring diasporic histories and legacy, ancestral inspirations and inter-generational dialogue.

La MaMa Puppet Festival

La MaMa Puppet Festival

The La MaMa Puppet Festival showcases new contemporary puppet theatre by artists from around the world. Curated by Denise Greber, focusing on diversifying the voices, stories, and perspectives shared onstage, with the goal of uplifting marginalized identities within the puppet community.

In the background are neon lights that read “La MaMa Puppet Series” in blue, pink, and yellow. A performer with short hair is wearing a black tank top and holding a metal human figure with eyes. The metal figure’s right foot is on the performer’s shoulder, and its left foot is on the performer’s hand. There are other human hands in the background.

La MaMa Umbria International

La MaMa Umbria International

La MaMa Umbria International provides artists from around the world with residency programs and intensive workshops. For over 25, La MaMa Umbria has fostered cross-cultural and international exchanges and creative collaborations. Hundreds of artists have found Umbria to be a space that is beautiful, spiritually enriching, welcoming, and open to bold artistic experiments.

A group of Umbria participants walking through grass with green Umbrian hills in the background

La MaMa's Squirts

La MaMa's Squirts

La MaMa's Squirts gathers some of the most exciting voices from New York City’s queer performance world, across the generations. Over three nights, curator Paris Alexander sculpts the fabric of queer community to pose questions, honor legacies and ignite the present. Join us as we celebrate those who paved the way, and uplift new voices and perspectives from the individualistic, yet multiplistic, Gen Z lens.

Online Happenings

Online Happenings

Presented by La MaMa and CultureHub, La MaMa is exploring ways to respond creatively to a situation that is potentially changing how we gather as a community in our theatres. La MaMa is working with CultureHub to provide online streaming of select productions and events on Howlround Theatre Commons.

Poetry Electric

Poetry Electric

The Poetry Electric fuses music, movement, sound, and dance with the spoken word and presents artists working in a wide range of styles including beatboxing, jazz and hip-hop theatre. This series has presented over 200 emerging poets from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Trojan Women Project

Trojan Women Project

Since 2014, The Trojan Women Project has sent artists from the Great Jones Rep to communities worldwide to work with actors, musicians and designers in re-creating the music and staging of La MaMa’s groundbreaking production of The Trojan Women, directed by Andrei Serban, composed by Elizabeth Swados, and produced by Ellen Stewart in 1974.