“What to Wear” at BAM Harvey Theater: Michael Gordon & Richard Foreman’s Avant-Garde Opera (January 2026)

For a brief but memorable window from January 15–17, 2026, the BAM Harvey Theater in Brooklyn hosts a production that will not resemble anything else in your recent concert-going experience. “What to Wear” is a collaboration between composer Michael Gordon and avant-garde theater legend Richard Foreman — and calling it an “opera” is both accurate and somewhat inadequate.

About the Work: “What to Wear”

“What to Wear” inhabits the contested territory between opera, music theater, and performance art. The central conceit — the daily question of what to wear as a vehicle for exploring identity, anxiety, and self-presentation — sounds deceptively simple. In Foreman’s hands, nothing is simple.

Foreman’s theatrical language is fragmentary and associative. His texts resist linear narrative in favor of philosophical provocation: what you get is closer to a fever dream of aphorisms than a conventional story. Michael Gordon’s score is characteristically rhythmic, driving, and dense — his music tends toward minimalist structures pushed to their limit, creating an almost physical pressure on the listener. The combination is disorienting in the best possible way.

The Makers: Michael Gordon and Richard Foreman

Michael Gordon is a founding member of the Bang on a Can collective — arguably the most influential institution in contemporary classical music in America. His compositions have been performed by major ensembles worldwide, and he has consistently worked at the intersection of classical, rock, and experimental traditions.

Richard Foreman is the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater and has been creating work at the edges of American avant-garde theater for over 50 years. His productions have long been a litmus test for downtown New York audiences: you go knowing you might not entirely understand what you’re watching, and you go anyway because the experience is consistently unlike anything else.

The Venue: BAM Harvey Theater

The production’s setting is itself significant. The BAM Harvey Theater (formerly the Majestic) is famous for its preserved state of romantic decay — crumbling plasterwork, exposed walls, and structural elements stripped down to the bones over decades of intentional preservation. It’s a space that has hosted some of the most significant theatrical productions in New York history, including Peter Brook’s legendary The Mahabharata.

The Harvey’s aesthetic perfectly complements the production’s concerns with surface, identity, and what lies beneath. The room does conceptual work before a single performer takes the stage.

Address: 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Subway: 2/3/4/5 to Nevins Street; B/Q/R to DeKalb Avenue; C to Lafayette Avenue; G to Fulton Street

Who Goes to Shows Like This — and Why You Should

The audience for a Gordon/Foreman collaboration at BAM is genuinely mixed: serious music critics, performance studies academics, theater students, curious Brooklyn intellectuals, and people who simply follow BAM’s programming because it reliably delivers the unexpected. What unites them is an appetite for work that prioritizes experience over comfort.

If you want to see something that will generate debate over post-show drinks — something that might frustrate you, move you, or make you want to immediately read everything you can find about both artists — this is that event. BAM programs work like this specifically because New York needs spaces where difficulty is welcomed.

Practical Information

• Run time: Approximately 90 minutes (no intermission for most BAM productions of this type).
• What to wear (yes, really): BAM’s crowd tends toward the casually artistic — you’ll see everything from jeans to dress code. Dress for yourself.
• Dinner options: The Fort Greene and Boerum Hill neighborhoods surrounding BAM have excellent restaurants — from the long-standing Habana Outpost (seasonal) to newcomers along DeKalb and Atlantic Avenues.
• Accessibility: BAM Harvey Theater has wheelchair-accessible seating. See our NYC accessibility guide for transit options.

For more on what’s happening at Brooklyn cultural venues, check our NYC museums and cultural events guide, and see what’s free and outdoors at NYC parks this season.

Frequently Asked Questions