Anne Bogart Stages PRELUDE Outside BAM
En Garde Arts marked 40 years with PRELUDE, a free outdoor BAM show directed by Anne Bogart from a Charles L. Mee text. What it was and what is unconfirmed.
For three evenings this week, a plaza at 300 Ashland Place in Brooklyn became a stage. En Garde Arts, the company that has spent four decades turning New York streets, barges and hidden corners into theaters, presented PRELUDE from Oct. 13 to 15. Anne Bogart adapted and directed it from a text by Charles L. Mee. Admission was free and first come, first served.
What PRELUDE was
BAM lists PRELUDE as part of Next Wave 2026 and its fall season. The production reunited Bogart and Mee for a large-scale outdoor performance with original songs by the Lazours and elaborate costume constructions by Machine Dazzle. BAM's description says it invited audiences to witness fleeting encounters that show what it means to be alive together and in love in New York City. Shows ran at 7:30 p.m. each night, and an RSVP helped the company plan but did not guarantee entry.
The piece is a short one. The site New York Theater, in a review dated Oct. 14, put it at about 30 minutes and called it free, outdoors and awesome. Its writer described fairies, or perhaps oversized bugs, in Machine Dazzle costumes and two New York couples who bicker through most of the show before a truce for a closing song about the city by the Lazours.
A partnership with a track record
BAM notes that Bogart has directed Mee's work there before: bobrauschenbergamerica in 2003 and Hotel Cassiopeia in 2007. She returned in 2022 to direct The Medium. That history helps explain the pairing, which the theater presents as another chapter in a long creative partnership.
Bogart is also known as a founder of SITI Company and as a teacher of the Viewpoints method, though those details come from our general background, not from this week's sources. We list them as background and have not verified them against a current biography.
The playwright in the plaza
The most vivid moment in the review came after the performance. Mee, whom the writer identifies as an 88-year-old playwright, rolled across the plaza in a motorized wheelchair and spoke to the crowd. He said he likes plays that are not too neat or too finished. His own plays, he said, are broken, jagged and full of sudden turns, and he likes to set that chaotic material inside a classical form, such as a Greek form or a beautiful dance theater piece. The reviewer called this one a beautiful dance theater.
What the staging asks of an audience
Outdoor theater changes the terms of attention. Nobody buys a seat, nobody is required to stay, and passersby can wander in, which is exactly what the reviewer first assumed the man in the wheelchair had done. The free, first-come format means the audience is whoever shows up: neighbors, commuters and theater regulars standing together on a plaza, with the city itself as the backdrop. BAM's own description leans on that idea, calling the setting the rhythms of the city itself.
The costumes carry some of the load. Machine Dazzle is known for maximal, handmade looks, which is our background and not from the sources, and the review's picture of fairies or oversized bugs suggests a design that reads from across a plaza at dusk. The reviewer also gives the songs a clear place: a climactic number about love for New York City, which the couples sing once they stop arguing. We have only that one description of the music.
Why it matters
En Garde Arts has long been associated with site-specific work, and this anniversary production shows how much of that tradition is still alive. A free outdoor show in Fort Greene, as the reviewer places it, also fits the city's pattern of using public space for theater when seats are scarce or costly. The run is over, but BAM's Next Wave season continues, including the dance solo Toi, moi, Tituba on Oct. 23 and 24.
What we could not confirm
We did not attend PRELUDE and relied on BAM's description and one review. The 30-minute running time and Mee's age come from that review. We could not verify the full text, the cast list or attendance. The reviewer places the plaza in Fort Greene, while BAM gives the address as 300 Ashland Place, and we did not map the two. The cover photograph is a 2019 headshot of Bogart and was not taken at the production.
FAQ
Is PRELUDE still running?
No. The performances ended Oct. 15, 2026.
Who made it?
Charles L. Mee wrote the text, Anne Bogart adapted and directed it, the Lazours wrote the songs and Machine Dazzle designed the costumes.
Was it free?
Yes, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Sources
*Cover photo: Willraisesfunds, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AnneBogart_Photo_by_Calista_Lyon.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AnneBogart_Photo_by_Calista_Lyon.jpg)* (CC BY-SA 4.0).*