Premiered June 2023
New York Live Arts

Written and Directed by Hannah Cullen
Created in Collaboration with the Cast

Performed by Hannah Cullen, Robyn Ayers, Nadia Halim, Maggie Joy, Matilda Mackey

Lighting Design: Ebony Burton
Original Score: sad about you
Video Design: Zack Lobel
Cinematography Consultant: Leo Gallagher
Camera Operator: Samantha Chapa
Production Management: Zaire Baptiste
Photos: Maria Baranova

Hannah Cullen’s newest work the end / the beginning is an existential, theatrical event about fracture and possibility. It occurs during an extended moment of collapse, in which the characters on stage begin to question their modus operandi and consider a more peaceful alternative. An amalgam of movement, narrative, and film, the work provides multiple perspectives through which to view the disintegration of their reality. In the face of crisis, their strategy has been an unrelenting commitment to business as usual, with the belief that the apocalypse is inevitable, so why bother? However, by yielding to their exhaustion, another option emerges and they discover that slowing down may beget change after all.

If the end of the world as we know it has already happened, is currently happening, and will happen again, might our time be better spent focusing on what we’d like to begin?