Andrew Schneider

After his immersive, interactive installation—NOWISWHENWEARE (the stars)—wowed over 600 attendees during The Dark in February, OBIE Award-winning Andrew Schneider returns to PS21 with a world premiere that gently removes reality from its normal and turns it inside out. 

Schneider is a performer, writer, and interactive-electronics artist whose work confounds. In FIELD, he disappears into a crowd. We cannot or will not say any more. Please join us for a singular experience of multitudes. Bring headphones. Bring everyone you can. 

FIELD is commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where it will be performed in October 2026, and PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance.

FIELD has been developed in residency via the Lincoln Center’s Collider Fellowship, Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and BANFF Fleck Fellowship.

Commonground is PS21’s annual free festival of contemporary spectacle, where renowned international artists explore the boundaries of what’s physically possible in surprising and participatory performances across PS21’s grounds. Commonground is a family-friendly celebration of the end of summer, welcoming the whole community to PS21 to be dazzled by the performing arts. 

This year’s festival features the world premiere of SUPERDRUM X, a work featuring 100 self-playing drums by Dutch musical collective Touki Delphine; the world premiere of FIELD, a new performance by OBIE award-winning director, writer, and electronics artist Andrew Schneider; Sayer Mansfield’s DIVE BARN, and more.

Andrew Schneider is mostly interested in how humans telling stories about ourselves to each other can make us better at being humans. And how much the second law of thermodynamics and grief have in common. 

He is an OBIE award-winning, Drama Desk-nominated director, performer, writer, and interactive-electronics artist creating original works for theater, dance, sound, video, installation and public art since 2003.

Andrew’s work uses new and old, high and low tech – from Wave Field Synthesis arrays and Volumetric Lighting displays – to literal smoke and mirrors. He is interested in the edges of human perception, using science as a blueprint for staging, and above all, the question of – how does it make you feel?

Original works include HERE (2025 – Jacob’s Pillow) NOWISWHENWEARE (2022 – Brooklyn Academy of Music and ongoing tour); »remains« (2020 – Radialsystem, Berlin) commissioned by the Sasha Waltz & Guests Dance company; NERVOUS/SYSTEM (2018 – BAM Next Wave); AFTER (2018 – Under the Radar, The Public Theater); YOUARENOWHERE (2015 OBIE award, 2016 Drama Desk nom); DANCE/FIELD (2014 – Roulette); TIDAL (2013 – River to River); and WOW+FLUTTER (2010 – The Chocolate Factory Theater), among others. 

Andrew is/was a member of the ‘25/’26 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, the Digital Future’s cohort at Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center’s Collider cohort, the Doris Duke Foundation’s Performing Arts Technologies Lab inaugural cohort, the arts incubator ONX, was a Sundance “Art of the Practice” fellow, and has received a fellowship from the Junge Akademie / Akademie Der Künste in Berlin. He teaches a recurring class on original-flavor reality at the Interactive Telecommunications Program and mentors for Theater Mitu’s Hybrid Arts Lab. Wooster Group company member 2007-14. More at www.andrewjs.com.

 

Created by Andrew Schneider
Collaborators – TBA
Choreographic consultants – Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart, Joel Suarez Gomez
Interactive Programming – Andrew Schneider + TBD

Development of FIELD is commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance

Presentations: PS21 – Chatham, NY (upcoming, Sept 2026) Lincoln Center – New York, NY (upcoming, Oct 2026)

Residencies: Lincoln Center’s Collider Fellowship – New York, NY Harvard Radcliffe Institue for Advanced Study – Cambridge, MA BANFF Fleck Fellowship – Alberta Canada (upcoming, summer 2026)