The Elementary Spacetime Show to Play Lincoln Center Later This Month | Playbill
News
Off-Broadway News

The Elementary Spacetime Show to Play Lincoln Center Later This Month

The work centers on a teenager who finds herself in a cosmic vaudevillian game show where winning or losing has dire consequences.

April 16, 2026 By Margaret Hall

César Alvarez, Emily Orling, and Spirits Go Blah

A public concert presentation of The Elementary Spacetime Show will play Lincoln Center's David Rubenstein Atrium later this month. The musical, which has been developed at Ars Nova, University of the Arts, New York University, and New York Stage and Film, will be presented April 26 at 7 PM.

The Elementary Spacetime Show tells the story of a teenager who, after a suicide attempt, finds herself in a cosmic vaudevillian game show that she has to win in order to die. Over the course of the show she soldiers through a series of musical and philosophical trials, each one of which illuminates another dimension of her struggle. Her clash with a depressed mosquito asks her to reassess the meaning of violence. Her encounter with another version of herself pulls her into a reckoning with self-hatred. 

The show was inspired by César Alvarez and Emily Orling’s shared loss, which they discussed with Playbill in 2019

The work features music and lyrics by Alvarez, a book by Alvarez and Orling, and direction by Dante Green. This presentation will feature performances from the cast of Montclair State University's current production, running at the New Jersey institution through April 18. This presentation is produced by Lincoln Center and Spirits Go Blah in a special arrangement with Montclair State University, with Esmé Maria Ng serving as line producer.

The concert will feature costume design by Orling, with Ashley Rose Horton as associate costume designer. Ansel Brasel will serve as production stage manager. 

For more information, visit LincolnCenter.org.

Trending Articles

More latest news

See All Latest News