NEW YORK, NY.- The seemingly ordinary event of a woman playing with her beloved cat takes over the screens of Times Square for September’s Midnight Moment. Created by New York art and performance group Nature Theater of Oklahoma—whose directors, Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, are winners of 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards and a 2013 Alpert Award—the colorful and intimate animated film brings the experimental theater group’s work to over fifteen of the largest digital signs in Times Square. The video will premiere just before midnight on Sunday, September 1st and play every night throughout September from 11:57 p.m. – midnight.

The Midnight Moment is a synchronized program and presentation of the Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) and Times Square Arts. This month's program is co-presented with the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) as part of FIAF’s 2013 Crossing the Line festival.

The three-minute hand-drawn animation is a part of the Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s epic Life and Times series, a sixteen-hour, multi-art serial created from a single phone conversation with a 34-year-old woman, who tells her whole life story up to the present day.

In Episodes 4.5 and 5 (a Crossing the Line 2013 commission), the project moves away from live performance into other artistic forms. Episode 4.5, originally a 30-minute animated film, begins with the end of high school and the search for love. The saga continues in Episode 5—which makes its New York premiere on Friday and Saturday, September 20 and 21, at FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall as part of Crossing the Line—with the first sexual experience, told through a medieval illuminated manuscript with sexually explicit, hand-drawn illustrations, given to each audience member along with a flashlight.

Alan High, Chairman of the Times Square Advertising Coalition and President & General Manager of Clear Channel Outdoor Spectacolor & Mall Divisions, said: “We are excited to showcase the fascinating work of the performance group Nature Theater of Oklahoma on the digital screens this September as part of the Midnight Moment. The digital signs in Times Square represent the perfect place to display this exciting and cutting-edge content.”

Sherry Dobbin, Director of Public Art for Times Square Alliance, said: “Private life turns into performance on the Times Square screens in September. This work, which makes the mundane experimental, magnifies an intimate moment for public viewing in the world’s most visited public space.”

"Nature Theater of Oklahoma is one of New York's premiere downtown performance groups," said Gideon Lester, co-curator of Crossing the Line. "We're thrilled to be bringing their spectacular work to midtown, and to the attention of thousands of new audience members each night."

"Nature Theater of Oklahoma is thrilled to have a portion of the animated film that is Life and Times - Episode 4.5 included in the Midnight Moment,” says Kelly Copper, co-director of Nature Theater of Oklahoma. “It's the perfect platform for the work we're doing now—a combination of pedestrian content with epic intent. To be allowed this type of scale, and to put the work so iconically in the very heart of New York City—our home town—is really a dream come true."

Midnight Moment is the largest coordinated effort in history by the sign operators in Times Square to display synchronized, cutting-edge creative content on electronic billboards and newspaper kiosks throughout Times Square every night. The program premiered in May 2012 and is organized and supported by the Times Square Advertising Coalition in partnership with Times Square Arts, the public art program for the Times Square Alliance, with additional partners of participating sign holders and artists.

Each night, Times Square becomes a digital art gallery through dazzling visuals on select billboards and newsstands. Every show begins at 11:57 p.m. with a "countdown" that signals the start of the three minute nightly presentation. Past artists featured in the program include Robert Wilson; Tracey Emin; Seoungho Cho; Vicki DaSilva, Surabhi Saraf, and Elly Cho; Erika Janunger; Takeshi Murata; Bel Borba with Burt Sun and André Costantini, presented as part of FIAF’s 2012 Crossing the Line festival; Brian Gonzalez (aka Taxiplasm); Björk; JR; Ryan McGinley; Jack Goldstein; and Yoko Ono.