The Night Falls

Karen Russell (book/lyrics) A native of Miami, Russell won the 2012 and the 2018 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. She is a graduate of the Columbia MFA program, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, and was a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2013. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, The New York Times, and the Best American Short Stories anthologies, and honored by the National Book Award’s 5 under 35 program and the New Yorker’s 20 under 40″ issue. Russell is also the author of St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories, and Sleep Donation: A Novella, and the forthcoming story collection Orange World. She lives with her husband and son in Portland, Oregon.

Ellis Ludwig-Leone was lauded by The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino for his “knack for simultaneously expressing beauty and crisis,” Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s music exists in the fine margins between euphoria and dread. Having come to international attention as the songwriter behind the celebrated band San Fermin, Ludwig-Leone has spent the last decade balancing his work as a songwriter with a robust career composing works for many of today’s contemporary classical luminaries. The 2022-23 season brings the premiere and album release of False We Hope, performed by the Grammy-winning Attacca Quartet and soprano Eliza Bagg (Roomful of Teeth); as well as the premiere of The Night Falls, with a libretto by Ludwig-Leone and Karen Russell (Swamplandia!), and direction and choreography from Troy Schumacher (New York City Ballet), at PEAK Performances @ Montclair State University. This season will also see the premiere of Daphne, a musical drama for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus with a libretto by Russell; the premiere and subsequent European tour of Past Life for harpist Lavinia Meijer and violist Nadia Sirota; and the premiere of a new work for choreographer Danielle Rowe and the Grand Rapids Ballet. Together with his bandmate Allen Tate, Ludwig-Leone is a founding partner of Better Company Records, a Brooklyn-based label with an emphasis on collaboration. He is a recipient of residencies from MacDowell and Banff Centre for the Arts.

Troy Schumacher (director/choreographer) is a Bessie-nominated American choreographer, dancer, and director living in New York, NY. His athletic aesthetic draws upon the artists he collaborates with to produce fresh, unexpected results. He is a soloist dancer with New York City Ballet and the founder of BalletCollective. He has been dubbed a “visionary artist” by T Magazine and is “one of his generation’s most acclaimed choreographers” (PBS). Schumacher’s work has been presented by New York City Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Performa, Danspace Project, Guggenheim Works & Process, Guggenheim Bilbao, PEAK Performances at Montclair State University, the Joyce Theater, the Savannah Music Festival, and NYU Skirball Center, among others. He has collaborated with many artists including Jeff Koons, Karen Russell, Zaria Forman, Thom Browne, Ken Liu, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, Maddie Ziegler, and David Salle. In addition, to live performances, Schumacher has choreographed numerous art, fashion, and commercial shoots, including works for Google, Sony PlayStation, Capezio, HP, Aritzia, CR Fashion Book, Tom Ford, and The New York Times. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Schumacher created, directed, and produced the first live world premiere ballets in the US: the one-act Natural History and the full-length Nutcracker at Wethersfield. For more info, visit troyschumacher.com