New York, NY – La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club presents the World Premiere of Midnight Radio Show’s Mia M.I.A., a science fiction fairytale about grief, love, the role of imagination in healing, and the transformative power of embracing the shadows. The show premieres on February 5, 2026 at 7:30pm at La MaMa’s The Club, 74A East 4th Street, NYC. Tickets are $10 for La MaMa Members, $25 for Students/Seniors, and $30 General Admission, and can be purchased here. Additionally, the first 10 tickets of each performance are $10 (limit 2 per person).
When grief shatters the world you know, love becomes worth crossing dimensions to reclaim.
Written and created by Charlotte Lily Gaspard, Mia M.I.A. is a genre-bending theatre puppet experience that fuses lo-fi space pop, live hip-hop, and hand-cut shadow puppetry into an emotionally charged journey through loss, love, and the impossible. Developed in residency at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club since 2021, the production has been shaped through three Jump Start programs, La MaMa’s renowned puppet works-in-progress series curated by Denise Greber.
After Mia vanishes without explanation, Ella is left to confront the brutal realities of grief and absence. Refusing to accept a world without her beloved, Ella launches into an enchanted, otherworldly dimension—one filled with space travel, unknown forces, and transformative encounters. What unfolds is a breathtaking odyssey where sorrow fractures into wonder, and healing emerges through courage, connection, and creation.
Told through live singing and original music, Mia M.I.A. pulses with energy and intimacy. Legendary griot and hip-hop artist Malik Work delivers electrifying live hip-hop numbers—written and performed for this Midnight Radio production—bringing ancestral storytelling traditions into bold conversation with futuristic soundscapes. The production’s innovative shadow puppetry, hand-cut silhouettes, and striking costume design conjure entire universes onstage, transforming the theatre into a living, breathing cosmos.
At once epic and deeply personal, Mia M.I.A. is a spellbinding exploration of love that refuses to disappear—and a reminder that sometimes, the only way forward is through the impossible.
“This project has been years in the making and is very dear to my heart. I began writing the story in 2021 during my residency in La MaMa’s 59th season “Breaking it Open,’” said creator Charlotte Lily Gaspard. “It was during pandemic times, when I also had personal tragedies unfolding at a time when no one could safely gather in person and support networks were in flux. I was fascinated by the idea of identity in the face of disconnection, and how our understanding of ourselves is informed by being in relation to others, and what happens when that is ripped away. I also wanted to explore these difficult themes with whimsy and playfulness, which I consider to be underappreciated superpowers.”
Building on the aesthetic of the fantastical, experimental theatre of Midnight Radio Show, Mia M.I.A. embraces the unique interplay between actor and silhouette, embracing shadow puppetry that performs both behind and in front of the shadow screen. The characters wander in and out of paper-cut, fantasy worlds, inviting the audience into an enchanted but simultaneously real, practical, and tangible space.
Midnight Radio Show is a multidisciplinary, sci-fi fairytale theatre collective based out of Brooklyn, NYC. The company creates collaborative works headed up by creative director and “bona fide fairy princess” Charlotte Lily Gaspard, joined by a diverse group of artists, musicians, actors and puppeteers.
Inspired by the creation of science fiction fairytales, afro-futurism, and the love of shadow puppets, Midnight Radio Show experiments with visual art, music, puppetry, and oral traditions of storytelling to create avant garde theatrical commentary on our modern world.
Production Credits
Written & created by Charlotte Lily Gaspard
Directed by Ash Winkfield & Charlotte Lily Gaspard
Music by Nebraska, Doc Frost, Malik Work, Rebecca KellyG
Puppet Design by Charlotte Lily Gaspard
Cast: Rina Dutta, Malik Work, Shabbi Sharifi, Gaby Febland, Zlata Godunova, Nat Marvan and Charlotte Lily Gaspard.
