Aaron Landsman is a New York-based playwright, performer, teacher and organizer. His awards include a Creative Capital Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an ASU Gammage Residency, and a Princeton Arts Fellowship. His current and recent theater works include: Night Keeper, which premiered at The Chocolate Factory Theater last year, and will be released as an album on the Hallow Ground label this November; the libretto to Follow, commissioned and premiered by Gaudeamus in The Netherlands; and All The Time in the World, a game-based devised performance about collective self-regard and social media. Landsman is currently developing School for Participation, a civic engagement toolkit using creativity as a starting point for public advocacy. This work has been funded by The START Entrepreneurship incubator. He is beginning to partner with the National Civic League on new outlets for this work.
Landsman’s artistic projects have been presented in NYC, regionally and abroad. His 2022 work Trouble Hunters premiered in Novi Sad, Serbia, in collaboration with the collective Kulturanova. His one-on-one performance suite Appointment was presented by ASU Gammage. His 2016 diptych Empathy School/Love Story premiered at Abrons Arts Center, and was a New York Times Critic’s Pick. His 2012-14 project City Council Meeting, created with Mallory Catlett and Jim Findlay, was presented in five US cities.
Landsman also started and co-directs Perfect City, a 20-year multigenerational, multi-racial collective working on gentrification, city planning, urban design and safety for women and non-binary people. Perfect City is currently funded by Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program, and the NEA. Landsman’s earlier work was commissioned and produced by The Foundry Theatre, Free Theater Belarus and PS 122.
Landsman is the co-author of The City we Make Together with Mallory Catlett, published by The University of Iowa Press in 2022, as well as essays, stories and poems in several journals. From 2003-19, Landsman performed with Elevator Repair Service, and has appeared in projects by Richard Maxwell, Tim Etchells, Tory Vazquez and others. He is a Lecturer at Princeton and has taught at and guest lectured widely.