"Conversations About The End': Prague Quadrennial 2027

Graduate design and technology students at the NIU School of Theatre and Dance have created a silent short film completely from scratch with no budget. The goal was to capture the absurdist American experience while tapping into humanity's innate need to create. They now have the opportunity to represent NIU and the States at the Prague Quadrennial, dubbed the "Olympics of theatrical design," this summer. The exhibit will also travel to Wayne State College and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology.

We need your help to share our art with the rest of the world! Your donations will fund:

-Artist travel expenses

-Costs of production materials

-Admission to the PQ!

In today’s America, people, artists especially, may have a dissociated and discarded feeling— as if they are absent-mindedly going through the motions. They are making mundane movements in a cycle, wondering who is controlling it all and how to stop it. There is a deep silence filled with history that many try to change, throw away, or ignore. Many playwrights, filmmakers, and other entertainment artists use absence and silence as a tool to convey this cyclical human nature.

Northern Illinois University seeks to examine the work of Samuel Beckett, Bodas de Sangre, and Chantal Akerman in order to place the audience in the control seat observing an abandoned and indistinguishable building— how will the characters in the story navigate their space? Experience characters while they create their own habitats, costumes, and identities from this absence.