A person rests their hands on an electric guitar lying across their lap. The guitar is brown and white, and the person is wearing dark clothing.

Prep School: Field of Mars

This long-awaited production by Richard Maxwell & New York City Players will tackle a characteristically wide-ranging set of concerns, following their ethos of “creating new plays about people, relationships, and above all, feeling.”

Learn more about New York City Players.

RELATED EVENTS
Four men sit in two booth seats around a wooden table, engaged in conversation. Three face forward, while one gestures animatedly. The setting appears to be a cafe or restaurant with dim lighting.
  • Thu Jan 19 – Sun Jan 29, 2023

New York City Players: Field of Mars

  • Theater
  • Commission
Learn More

GET INTO IT

“Field of Mars” is a world premiere, so we can’t give you a sneak peek of the show. Get a behind the scenes look at a (previous) rehearsal process, captured in the Wooster Group’s “Dailies” series.

GET THEE TO THE LIBRARY

Recommended readings to get you in gear for the show.

  • Sarah Gorman, The Theatre of Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players. Routledge, 2011.
  • Richard Maxwell, Plays: 1996-2000. Theatre Communications Group, 2004
  • Richard Maxwell, Theater for Beginners. Theatre Communications Group, 2015.
  • Richard Maxwell, Evening Plays. Theatre Communications Group, 2020.

OFFICE HOURS

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Eating the Heart of Richard Maxwell BY NAOMI SKWARNA

The two interviews I’ve now done with Maxwell… have not made me any more expert in his work.

Hazlitt | 2014(opens in a new tab)

The Theatre: An Interview with Richard Maxwell by Hilton All

Richard Maxwell is one of the more adventurous theatre artists that this country has produced in decades.

The New Yorker | 2014(opens in a new tab)

The Unadorned Archetype: Discussing The Evening with Richard Maxwell

“I think you have to be good at reading the heart. Understanding your relationship to your own heart.”

Walker Art | 2015(opens in a new tab)

EXTRA CREDIT

Maxwell & the New York City Players are reaching way back for the title of this show: “The term ‘Field of Mars’ (Latin: Campus Martius) goes back to antiquity, and designates an area, inside or near a city, used as a parade or exercise ground by the military.” (Thanks, Wikipedia!) The “Mars” invoked here is not the planet but the god for whom the planet is named – Mars, the Roman god of war.
New York doesn’t have a field that shares this name, but you can take a stroll on one in Paris, New South Wales or St. Petersburg (pictured).


You can also visit the site of the first Field of Mars, although the field itself has long, long since been repurposed. The Pantheon itself was built on the original Campus Martius, and by the 1st century BC, the whole field had been drained and used to build public spaces (including theatres).

Aerial view of a large, landscaped triangular park surrounded by historic buildings, tree-lined paths, and roads in a city, with a river at the bottom right corner.