An online reading of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” directed by Matthew Watkins.

What does it mean to make theater online? How do we continue to make art and be present when the virus makes presence impossible? The world as we know it has come to an abrupt halt. The future is unknown and frightening.

In 1900, when Anton Chekhov wrote “Three Sisters,” the world was undergoing massive social, political, and economic shifts that culminated decades later with two World Wars, a global pandemic, and a wave of Communist revolutions. The three Prozorov sisters and their brother, Andrej, grew up in a bucolic, Nineteenth-Century world. That world has suddenly disappeared and with it everything they thought they knew and could rely on. The Twentieth-Century looms, an object of both hope and fear. The aristocracy is crumbling; political violence is on the rise; and Utopian dreams succumb to economic crisis. How can three sisters get free from the past and find their way in a future which might not have a place for them?

Click here for more information.

A living natural history museum diorama from the future that follows the efforts of three astronaut survivors of the climate apocalypse to reestablish civilization on “Planet B.”

Produced by [nueBOX] at Arizona State University.

Opera in four acts by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass
Performed by Open Ensemble
Staging and Design by Matthew Watkins

Barriers is a dystopic vision of the future where the lack of resources driven by climate change cause the movement of cultures that are impediments to dignity and survival. Through music, movement, poetry, and built environment it’s our intention to respond artistically and aesthetically to the current Central American migration crisis and the inhumane treatment of Central American migrants in both Mexico and America.

Created by Michael Pfister and Ashley Baker with words by Anna Flores and direction and design by Matthew Watkins.

Summer 2019 [nueBOX] SEED Artists-In-Residence