THE MUSHROOM
is presented In Collaboration with New Georges!
created by Normandy Sherwood and Nikki Calonge
presented by LMCC and New Georges, in partnership with Governors Island Arts
in partnership with Under the Radar – utrfest.org
“Gorgeously textured, totally trippy” – Sara Holdren, Vulture
Created by Normandy Sherwood and Nikki Calonge, The Mushroom is a radial play with spokes pointing outward that transforms the Arts Center at Governors Island into a world of growth, decay, wonder and transformation. Blending pageantry, dance, incantation and surreal theatrical spectacle, this immersive work explores fungal movement and the porous boundaries between bodies, landscapes and forms of life. The Mushroom is an enchanted and enveloping experience made by hand to evoke a tender awe. Featuring costumes that become scenery with successions of lacy meshes, The Mushroom invites audiences into a theatrical experience that unfolds in one of New York City’s most distinctive cultural settings while asking provocative questions: How do we reenchant the world? What knows it is alive?
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Nikki Calonge is an educator and artist whose past credits include performing in the Tony Award-winning Life of Pi on Broadway, the Obie-award winning Psychic Self Defense at HERE Arts Center, Lincoln in the Bardo at the Metropolitan Opera and Clown Show by Geoff Sobelle. Her work has been developed by Object Movement Puppetry Festival and in a New Georges Audrey Residency. Nikki teaches movement at Playwrights Horizons Theater School at NYU Tisch. She has a B.F.A. from NYU Tisch and an M.S. from Pratt Institute in Dance and Movement Therapy.
Normandy Sherwood is a writer, a director, and designer for theater. Recent work includes her curtain spectacular PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE (2024 OBIE Award, HERE Arts Center’s HARP resident); Scenography and Co-creation of Theater in Quarantine’s Phantom of the Opera (2025) and Nosferatu (2023), presented by NYU Skirball; scenic and/or costume design for projects at NYLA, HERE, Target Margin and more. She was a co-artistic director of The N.T.U.S.A. (2001-2017, R.I.P.) and more recently of The Drunkard’s Wife. She has been an artist in residence at HERE, MacDowell, Yaddo. Normandy is a Clinical Professor in Expository Writing at NYU with an MFA in playwriting from Brooklyn College.
The Mushroom would like to thank Foundation for Contemporary Arts Creative Research Fund; A.R.T./ New York Fund for Small Theaters, Creative Opportunity Fund and Design Enhancement Fund; New York State Council on the Arts; New Georges Audrey Residency; Mercury Store; IndieSpace; Exponential Festival 2026; and Materials for the Arts for their support of this project. TheMushroom is presented In Collaboration with New Georges, with the support of Venturous Theater Fund.
