Dates
Apr 30 – May 12, 2024
SPECIAL TWO-WEEK RUN
Tue – Fri 7:30pm
Sat 2 & 7:30pm | Sun 2pm
Tickets from $45 (fees included)
To download a program accessible for screen readers, click here.
Approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes with one intermission
Fri May 3 at 6:30PM
Community Night welcomes Kate Prince for a conversation that highlights artists and organizations creating and sustaining a sense of belonging for immigrant communities, including People’s Theatre Project and poetry by Mujib Mehrdad through the Artistic Freedom Initiative network. Ticket buyers will be emailed to RSVP.
Post show Sun May 5 after 2pm matinee
Join us after the performance for a conversation with the show’s creators Sting, Kate Prince, Lukas McFarlane, and dancer Natasha Gooden, moderated by Tony Award winner Jeanine Tesori.
Purchase student rush, same-day tickets for $23 (fees included) with a current, photo student ID. Present your photo student ID at the box office on the day of the performance to buy tickets (maximum of two). The box office opens at noon. Tickets are subject to availability.
For groups of 10 or more people, email Info@NYCityCenter.org
This is such a powerful, serious piece about love and family. They've used my songs in a way that I find so heartening.”
— Sting on MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
4 stars
Infectious energy & knock-out style
Inspired by Sting’s greatest hits, including “Desert Rose," “Every Breath You Take,” “Roxanne,” “Fields of Gold,” and 23 more of the artist’s most beloved songs, this dance-theater sensation opened to rave reviews on London’s West End and makes its New York debut here at City Center.
Five-time Olivier Award nominee Kate Prince and her company ZooNation have been celebrated for dance-theater hits like Some Like It Hip Hop and Into the Hoods, and Prince received raves for her choreography on Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. In this latest acclaimed work, she weaves Sting’s music together into a story of three siblings driven from their home by war. Featuring powerful athleticism by world-class dancers and new musical arrangements by Alex Lacamoire (Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen) and Martin Terefe, this contemporary and street dance-influenced work tells an uplifting tale of humanity and hope.
Message In A Bottle contains some scenes of an adult nature, including depictions of wartime violence and displacement.
Secure access to premium house seats when you become a Patron starting at $2,500. Please call 212.763.1257 or email Patrons@NYCityCenter.org for more information.
Programming subject to change.
Photo by Helen Maybanks
by Dramaturg Lolita Chakrabarti
We are confronted by stories of displacement every day — in newspapers, on television and on our streets. We regularly hear about migrants fleeing oppressive regimes, but the focus is often on the catastrophic political in-fighting and violence and we lose sight of the people affected.
Message In A Bottle is an imagined story about one family.
In a fictional village in a country far away, the community live well and support each other. But when civil war breaks out, this idyll of existence is devastated as the community is broken and homes destroyed. We follow the fortunes of a father, mother and their three teenage children — Leto, Mati, and Tana — who face this brutal reality together. They are confronted with impossible choices in order to survive. They must leave their homeland and undertake a perilous journey to safer shores. Along the way, they will be separated from each other and must persevere alone.
Inspired by the passionate, evocative and iconic music of Sting, Message In A Bottle is a universal story of loss, fear, survival, hope, and love.
Photo by Lynn Theisen
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Associate Choreographer Lukas McFarlane on translating Sting’s music to dance in Message In A Bottle
Photo by Lynn Theisen
4 stars
The story of loving, losing and finding your way
5 stars
This is what dance is supposed to do. This is how it should make you feel.
As conceptually compelling as it is thrillingly executed
80 years ago, this City got its center.
Audiences like you got to enjoy world-class art at prices they could afford—and Manhattan got its first performing arts institution.
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