NextNOW Fest 2025
Sketchup
Wednesday, September 10 to Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
Sketchup, UMD’s premier sketch comedy group, hosts a night of laughs and fun as they showcase both live and video sketches!
For more information, click here.
Free, no tickets required.
NextNOW Fest 2025
Arts for All
Terps After Dark
Wednesday, September 10 to Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s annual NextNOW Fest is a multi-day arts festival featuring performances and other experiences by intriguing, inventive artists from around the country and the University of Maryland campus. A forward-looking gathering place where art transforms our future and connects us all, NextNOW Fest is where creativity and community converge.
A University of Maryland campus tradition, NextNOW Fest is a signature event in University of Maryland’s Arts for All initiative, which leverages the combined power of the arts, technology and social justice to address the grand challenges of our time. NextNOW Fest is also a partner of Terps After Dark, an initiative by the UMD Division of Student Affairs that supports late-night, on-campus student programming.The festival is open for all to attend, including the general public.
For more information and the complete schedule, click here.
NextNOW Fest at the Clarice Smith and across the University of Maryland
Wedensday, September 4 through Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
Started in 2014, Clarice Presents’ annual NextNOW Fest is an inspiring arts experience that celebrates imagination, creativity and community. In addition to the core festival nights at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, we’re thrilled to continue partnerships with student-led groups, academic departments and university-based arts venues to hold festival events throughout campus.
NextNOW Fest is a signature event in University of Maryland’s Arts for All initiative, which leverages the combined power of the arts, technology and social justice to address the grand challenges of our time.
Our lineup and schedule will be released in mid-August! Register now to be the first to receive updates. Dates and times subject to change. Some activities are free.
ACTnow: The Evidence of Things Not Seen
Reanimating Traditions of Black Puppetry and Object Performance
Lecture
Thursday, September 14, 2023 • 5:30PM
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
A dialogue on puppetry and object performance as a powerful means of resistance to the objectification of Black bodies. Nehprii Amenii, writer and director of Food for the Gods and Dr. Paulette Richards, author of Object Performance in the Black Atlantic will ground the audience in the historical development of African-American puppetry and discuss the power of puppetry to redress cultural erasure and foster community healing. Light refreshments will be available.
Join us for the public performance December 7-9, 2023 at The Clarice: Nehprii Amenii: Food for the Gods
Free lecture, registration required. For more information and to register to attend, click here.
2023 NextNOW Fest
Where Creativity and Community Converge
September 5 – 14, 2023
Venue: Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.
Join us for our 10th Anniversary!
The Clarice’s NextNOW Fest is celebrating 10 years of creativity and community this September, and we want you to be a part of it! Save the date and join us for this annual celebration of our UMD and local creative community.
Started in 2014, The Clarice’s annual NextNOW Fest is an inspiring arts experience that celebrates imagination, creativity and community. By amplifying the voices of intriguing, inventive artists from around campus and our community, NextNOW Fest creates a forward-looking microcosm where art transforms our future and connects us all.
NextNOW Fest is a signature event in University of Maryland’s Arts for All initiative, which leverages the combined power of the arts, technology and social justice to address the grand challenges of our time.
Stay tuned to the latest event information and news by registering for updates!
For more information and to register for updates, click here.
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