New York Theatre Review

June 2026 Listings Guide

2026-05-25T18:02:08.249-04:00

through Jun 1st

Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival

Tickets are FREE

Bohemian National Hall in New York, 321 E 73rd St, New York, NY 10021

Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival is an annual showcase of contemporary Central and Eastern European theater, established in 2017. The festival is a shared endeavor of the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association in partnership with numerous other cultural and performing arts organizations. The festival honors the artistic and political legacy of the Czech playwright/dissident/president Václav Havel. We support exchanges between American and European theater professionals and celebrate the power of the theater to transform our lives.

Jun 3rd-Jun 25th

Sugar Sugar!

Tickets are FREE

Domino Park, 12 S 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY 11249

Sugar Sugar! is a free outdoor experimental performance series that takes place on Wednesdays and Thursdays in June at Domino Park, right under the Williamsburg Bridge!

Jun 4th-Jun 7th

SUB: An Underwater Workplace Comedy

Tickets $32.07-$63.12

ERF Gallery, 1 Ingraham Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206

The year is 2085. A submarine named Meteora floats above sunken San Francisco, serving as a boutique weapons and uniforms shop for the CEO-led militias that control the planet. A paralyzed armourer, nepo-baby seamstress, cheery security guard, and dangerous power couple helm this dark and hilarious new play directed by Mitchell Polonsky of the Goat Exchange.

Jun 5th-Jun 13th

[.../+*^%<>€£¥$&@!!!!^^^]

Tickets $15-$275

The Chocolate Factory Theater, 38-33 24th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101

[.../+*^%<>€£¥$&@!!!!^^^] confronts the body as a site of political and existential conundrums. The title is intentionally unsayable, engaging that which cannot be uttered in the ineffable present, a way to stay with the body. It resists the explicative we so often demand of the historical moment and instead offers dance and performance as a form to negotiate these complex times. The work probes how material, immaterial, biological, and sensorial resources coexist in dancing actions that oscillate from the unstable and unresolved to unified group choreographies of mesmerizing dance steps. In this maze of interdependence, [.../+*^%<>€£¥$&@!!!!^^^] proposes non-linear thinking and embodied ways of knowing, questioning how bodies can and cannot be isolated from social, economic, and political urgencies.

Jun 6th-Jun 14th

LIGHTS NARROW

Tickets $25

Guild Hall, 1 E 29th Street, New York, NY 10016

Indie theater veteran and award winner Vincent Marano brings his acclaimed two-hander drama LIGHTS NARROW back to New York for a limited engagement. The 2014 production was nominated for 3 New York Innovative Theatre Awards and won for Outstanding Direction. A meditation on life, death and forgiveness, LIGHTS NARROW is an intense two-hander set in a limbo where a meth dealer and an angel struggle to see who is more in need of saving.

Jun 8th-Jun 27th

Fear & Wonder

Tickets $26-$66 (NOTAFLOF)

A.R.T./NY Theaters, 502 W 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019

Flux Theatre Ensemble is proud to produce the world premiere of FEAR & WONDER, written by Jason Tseng and directed by Emily Hartford. Forced to share a room at a conservative Christian summer camp, picture-perfect Ryan and cynical rebel Jabez expect nothing but a week of forced prayers. Instead, their late-night debates spark a magnetic, dangerous attraction that threatens everything they know. When the real world crashes in, will the fear of losing it all tear them apart, or will they risk everything to make something wonderful?

Jun 9th-Jun 27th

Criminal Queerness Festival

Tickets $10.50-$126

HERE Mainstage Theater, 145 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013

National Queer Theater’s Criminal Queerness Festival (CQF) showcases groundbreaking new works written by artists from countries where queerness is criminalized or censored. At a time when authoritarianism is on the rise globally, CQF elevates refugee, asylee, and immigrant queer voices and enriches the cultural fabric of New York City by introducing audiences to bold, original works that challenge Western norms and inspire global change.

AREA D

In AREA D, a scrappy Palestinian band lands an unexpected shot on the Eurovision stage. What starts as a lucky break spirals into a glitter-drenched spectacle, forcing the band to wrestle with whether visibility is worth compromising their identity. AREA D is a bold, genre-smashing musical fusing Arab-pop, punk, and electronic sounds.

Syrian Soap

Eat, Pray, Bathe with your exasperated ancestors in an intergalactic bathhouse and ponder: What kind of future ancestor do I wish to become? How far am I willing to go to express my authentic self? How much lotion is it acceptable to put on in front of other people? Full of heart and irreverence, Syrian Soap is part clown show, part stand-up, part fever dream.

faggy faafi Cairo boy

In the space between living and whatever the hell comes next, between daddy issues and Daddy issues, between the city that never sleeps and the city that never even blinks… Mohammad, the prodigal, closeted son returns to Cairo, and to his father's rapidly failing, irrevocable body. Distanced from his NYC boyfriend, Mohammad reunites with an old Cairo flame who now has a life of his own. And who’s to judge him, besides that angry little angel in the corner of the hospital room?

Jun 11th-Jul 3rd

Queerly Festival

Tickets $22.50-$27.50

UNDER St Marks Theater, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

Queerly provides a space for queer artists who’ve rarely or never seen their identities portrayed on stage to be able to represent themselves and tell their stories their way, as well as to provide a space for queer celebration, pride, and strength. The theme for this year’s festival is Then, Now, and Always. With this theme, we are creating a line-up of work that speaks to the ways queerness has thrived and will continue to thrive across time. Show offerings will include queering mythology, historical fiction, science fictional, biography-based work, storytelling, queer futurism, and more.

Jun 12th-Jun 13th

LILIA

Tickets are FREE

TheaterLab, 357 W 36th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10018

Parity Productions Presents a Free Staged Reading of LILIA by Monet Hurst-Mendoza. Synopsis: In a small Yucatecan town, circa 1960s Mexico, 14-year-old religiously devout Lilia is forced to turn to prostitution as a means of making a living. When young Lilia develops an unconventional friendship with a compassionate new priest in town, everyone's faith is tested. Caught between the secrets and lies that force us to question the morality of human nature, "Lilia" presents a passionate allegory about choosing between duty and desire.

Jun 13th-Jul 11th

Camping

Tickets $30-$120

HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theater, 145 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013

This is a love story. It’s hands that smell of Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue after days spent clutching fistfulls of her hair. It’s the rain hitting the earth in a way that reminds you of blood, that makes you think the world's holding a knife to your underwear. It’s the spins. It’s running out of air because you gulped too much of it while you were sobbing. It’s waking up hot and sticky. It’s desperately falling in love with your best friend inside a camping tent while everything outside rages.

through Jun 14th

Feltman: World's First Hot Dog

Tickets $40

The Chain, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY, 10018

Travel back to 19th century Coney Island as German immigrant Charles Feltman rises from struggle to revolutionize street food. Writer/performer Michael Quinn, who himself successfully revived the legendary brand before facing his own challenges, weaves a powerful parallel between past and present.

Jun 16th

Belle Noire: A Dazzling Tribute to the Icons of Jazz

Tickets $39-$69

Theater For the New City, 155 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003

Belle Noire is a dazzling musical tribute to the iconic Black songstresses who defined American music from the dawn of early jazz to the height of the swing era. It traces a historical and cultural through line from early Black women entertainers to contemporary performers, weaving music, movement, narration, and archival imagery in an immersive theatrical concert celebrating the sound, style, and soul of jazz legends like Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, Eartha Kitt, Dorothy Dandridge, and Ella Fitzgerald. Blending vintage visuals, cinematic projections, elegant costuming, tap dance, and live jazz, Belle Noire offers a cabaret-meets-theater experience that is both nostalgic and strikingly contemporary.

Jun 17th-Jun 21st

Beyond Encounters: An Evening of Three One-Act Plays by Hannah Benitez, Miriam Kulick and Lanford Wilson

Tickets $20-$30

Teatro Circulo, 64 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

Directed by Lorca Peress and starring Miriam Kulick and Jacob Harran, the evening of one-acts, which explore the unexpected ways people meet each other and themselves, begins with Lanford Wilson’s rarely-staged A Betrothal, followed by two new works by up-and-coming female playwrights: Bound by Miriam Kulick, and The Call by Hannah Benitez. Together, the three plays create a compact, character-driven theatrical event that moves from a witty comic encounter between strangers, to heightened historical drama, to 1920s noir cosmic horror. It is designed as an intimate theatrical presentation with a minimal set and a focus on performance, language, and atmosphere.

Jun 19th-Jun 30th

PrideFest

Tickets TBD

The Tank, 312 W 36th Street, New York, NY 10018

A festival of new and imaginative performances from queer artists that center our community. The shows of PrideFest 2026 address queer joy, laughter, struggle, resistance and beauty through a range of mediums including theater, comedy, puppetry, storytelling, and music. These performances will reflect where we've come from, where we are, and where we can go.

Jun 20th

Growing Takes Time: Games, Grapples, and Growth Grit

Tickets $17.94-$51.84

Noo Arts Wildflowers Green Roof, 520 Kingsland Avenue Brooklyn, NY, 11222

Movement artist Karley Wasaff presents Growing Takes Time, a life-sized interactive arcade and immersive performance world where the audience becomes the astronauts. Presented on the rooftop, this experience unfolds against stunning NYC sunset skyline views. Inspired by Pikmin, performers are PIKMII inside a living environment where collective survival depends on responsiveness, care, and collaboration. Participants move through childhood anxiety-driven game structures — including slap hands, floor is lava, rock paper scissors, and hot potato — which function as levels that build respect, trust, and community coordination. Blending contemporary dance with jiu-jitsu–inspired partnering, the work uses conflict, resistance, and cooperation as engines for collective growth. Tensions build. PIKMII grapple in real-time duets. Resolution becomes necessary for progression. Work together and the group levels up. Lose coordination and the game stalls. Through navigating friction and repair, the audience collectively shapes the evolving world.

through Jun 20th

The Downtown Urban Arts Festival

Tickets $25

Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003 & La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, 66 E. 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

In 2001, the theater program at DUAF was founded with the purpose to build a repertoire of new American theatre that echoes the true spirit of urban life and speaks to a whole new generation whose lives defy categorizing along conventional lines. That purpose has been realized, as 232 writers have created and refined their work for the stage.

Jun 21st

Don’t Cry For Me, My Yeshiva

Tickets $18

The 92nd Street Y - Warburg Lounge, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128

A 90-minute musical memoir about a lifelong search for family, love, acceptance, and that elusive rainbow connection, written and performed by Joe Fox. Directed by 23-time Manhattan Association of Cabaret’s award-winner Lennie Watts, with musical direction by Dan Furman. Part musical parody, part memoir, part love letter to Broadway, with reimagined show tunes, original songs, and razor-sharp storytelling, Don’t Cry for Me, My Yeshiva grows in part from Fox’s experience returning “back into the closet” while filming a 2009 documentary in Maine around a same-sex marriage referendum. A story of identity, family, and acceptance, told through music and memoir, this unforgettable evening follows his journey from the yeshiva classroom to the most unexpected of places.

through Jun 21st

I Wanttt a Unicorn Frappe!!!

Tickets $28-$53

The Tank, 312 W 36th Street, New York, NY 10018

Jenny just got engaged and she's very very excited although her fiancee doesn't seem to want to help plan the wedding or talk to her. But when a Prince on a unicorn offers Jenny some sexy solace, maybe things will work out ok? I Wanttt a Unicorn Frappe!!! is a frothy satire about wedding culture, addiction, societal pressure on women, and just how far we will go to avoid the truth.

Jun 24th-Jun 27th

Bequeathed

Tickets TBD

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002

Bequeathed is a surreal, playful, semi-autobiographical puppet show about the fight to unravel the gender binary, all told through a fantastical fiber arts world. A young person, questioning their assigned gender identity, receives an unusual gift of an embroidery hoop on their birthday. The hoop acts as a portal, and the young person is swooped up into a Georgian/Regency era world of strict gender roles, and sewing notions. Through a series of trials and tribulations, the young person struggles to perform the ideal view of womanhood. Ultimately they see what’s behind the embroidery hoop – a sparkly and wonderful fluidity.

Jun 24th-Jun 28th

PICASSO: LE MONSTRE SACRÉ

Tickets $26.25-$36.25

La MaMa, 66 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003

Created for the 50th anniversary year of Picasso’s death, PICASSO: LE MONSTRE SACRÉ asks how should he be judged? Picasso was an undisputed genius and visionary artist, yet his obsession with his work often destroyed those he professed to love. Brilliantly incarnated by Peter Tate, in a challenging, powerful, intelligent study, Picasso passionately defends his reputation. It’s an explosive, deeply passionate voyage of self-revelation, leaving the audience as his jury… Should we condemn or forgive him? How do we judge our great artists?

through Jun 28th

A Night of Chekhov

Tickets $60-$90

Actors Temple Theatre, 339 W 47th St, New York, NY 10036

A Night of Chekhov focuses on three of Anton Chekhov’s shorter works that are not as frequently staged as his major works, offering audiences a compact way to experience a broader range of the playwright’s material in one sitting. The evening includes one intermission and runs approximately 95–110 minutes total. The program includes Swan Song, The Proposal, and The Bear. Swan Song follows an aging actor reflecting on his life after a final performance. The Proposal centers on a marriage proposal that quickly escalates into conflict. The Bear depicts a confrontation between a widow and a creditor that shifts in tone and intensity. moves through the full range of Chekhov's genius - his recurring obsession with people desperately trying to connect and failing, and how funny and heartbreaking that can be all at once.

through Jun 29th

The Circuit: An Immersive Silent Disco Ballet

Tickets $45

Superfine, 126 Front Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Inspired by La Ronde, THE CIRCUIT is a site-specific immersive work that fuses dance, theater, nightlife, and public space into a moving experience unfolding throughout the streets of DUMBO. Audience members wear wireless headphones and move through the neighborhood alongside the performers while choreography, spoken text, and an original EDM score unfold around them in real time.

through Jun 30th

SUMMERWORKS

Tickets $75-$135 (Festival Pass)

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Clubbed Thumb's SUMMERWORKS Festival presents TITANS by Jesse Jae Hoon, directed by Tara Elliott; DERANGEMENTS by Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, directed by Annie Tippe; and THE FAMILY DOG by Bailey Williams, directed by Tara Ahmadinejad.

TITANS

In which the ordinary residents of an overrun American city answer the Signal and discover their extraordinary powers. Unfortunately, they must be brave.

DERANGEMENTS

In which two girlfriends catching up over dinner have their lives changed in a flash. Maybe it’s the ‘80s, but it’s probably just gas.

THE FAMILY DOG

In which Whiney returns to her childhood home to say goodbye to the pet who replaced her. Miracles abound, some in meatball form.

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DIE CUTE: Theresa Buhheister interviews Creator & Director Yiseul LeMieux

2026-05-13T15:37:32.976-04:00

Yiseul LeMieux's DIE CUTE opens on May 21 at The Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A little over 2 years ago, she presented a gallery show with interactive elements at Brick Aux, called The Circus is Coming to Town. Perhaps I am so drawn to her multi-layered artistic endeavors because I am also fascinated with the circus and with funerals? The portals she opens with specificity, detail, delight, and curiosity are ones I am interested in stepping into. It feels like following a sweet ghostly giggle down a dark alleyway and finding a psychedelic hug from the universe. You know what I mean? You're in luck, because I had the pleasure of asking Yiseul some questions before her show opens, so you can learn a little more about her from the brilliant source.

THERESA BUCHHEISTER: Hi Yiseul! So great to talk to you about this show. The doll you made me before I left NY is one of my cutest treasures. They also came in a little coffin-like box, which is also very cute. How did this project, DIE CUTE, come to you? Was it an idea you expanded? Or a concept you wanted to explore?

YISEUL LEMIEUX: I’ve always had this great anxiety about losing someone who feels like a part of me. Death is something no one can avoid, and I’ve been searching for a way to deal with the process of death, the idea of death, what death means… I thought maybe cute, cutifying death could be a method to cope with my own fear around it. Thinking about cute things has helped me throughout my life. Cuteness has sometimes been comfort, escape, pride, medicine, and more…. It could be an answer for death too. (Personally)

TB: When you create your worlds, what kind of space do you need? Do you create a workshop? Do you listen to music? Are there sounds? Smells? Vibes?

YL: For guaranteed inspiration, attending a boring event where I can’t leave in the middle of it, really helps. I used to play piano at churches for a living, and many of my world building ideas came during long, boring sermons. Oh, and currently, when I am taking a particularly dull class also. So yes, I guess there are some sounds that inspire me. When the sounds are in the range of boring to medium boring… they give me the best ideas. I don’t listen to music much. Hmmm… (I was a musician once, and I do have three degrees in music) It’s just too stressful listening to music. Smell. I guess when there isn’t human odor overpowering the room, and the humidity is under 40% with a scent of dust, it really helps speed up my process of ideation.

TB: What do you want people to know before coming to DIE CUTE, if anything?

YL:

There is no dress code. You don’t need any preparation for Die Cute.
If you have dietary restrictions, a surprise may be ruined.
I am not suicidal, so NO need to worry.
This bunny won’t bite (in case you are scared of bunnies), but this bunny also has very sharp teeth.

TB: What delights you most about making art objects and performances? What is the most challenging?

YL: I guess envisioning what the true function this object will serve is the most delightful part. The function can sometimes be revenge, and sometimes surprise or terrifying people. Also how truth can be hidden under texture, color, shapes….making and performing feel similar to me. The most challenging thing is that what feels most delightful to me may not quite come through, or what to hide and how much to hide, while still creating an experience that is not just about me. Finding and gauging the right balance is the challenge.

TB: When you go to a performance, what pulls you into it? What do you like to experience?

Details. Finding details and experiencing someone else’s performance through those details make it feel more personal, pulling me in to build a relationship with the piece.

show details:

DIE CUTE

May 21-24/ May 28-31 8PM at The Brick (579 Metropolitan ave.)

Yiseul LeMieux -Creator & Director

Masson LeMieux - Technical Director

Lilly Qualls - Producer & Production Assistant

A full-evening experience centered on the intersection of the adorable and the inevitable. From the bunny choir to the final reception, the play guides guests through a "super cute death" and the funeral that follows. It is a sincere, immersive look at how we deal with loss, balanced with humor, cake, and a takeaway that ensures the experience stays with you long after the curtain falls.

Website: Die Cute

Photo by Elyse Mertz

YISEUL LEMIEUX is a Korean-born artist living in New York City. Her work transcends disciplinary boundaries, often bringing together components in numerous media to create vivid narratives and alternative realities. She collaborates frequently with her partner Masson LeMieux, as well as with other artists, and her work often has a special focus on direct audience engagement and community feedback. LeMieux's disinterest with conventional boundaries between various media, between the artist and the viewer/listener, and the creative and receptive process are a part of her larger creative vision. She locates herself within a global network of entities - a world of unconventional interchangeability and a rejection of assigned values. The artist is interchangeable with another human, an animal, a vegetable, and/or a mug, et cetera. This ethos of interchangeability allows her to explore the infinite potential both of herself and of the entire world around her.

photo by Walter Wlodarczyk

Theresa Buchheister (they/them) is an artistic director, curator, venue operator, theater maker (writer, director, performer, producer, designer) and voiceover artist (director, engineer, performer, researcher and teacher). Theresa was in NY from 2004-2024 and during that time founded a few projects: Title:Point (an experimental theater company), The Exponential Festival (a Brooklyn-based experimental art festival that happens every January), Vital Joint (a weird basement venue focused on alt comedy, music and durational performance), ?!:New Works (a short form festival with different split bills every night for as many nights as possible) and SalOn! (a gathering of theater people, dancers, poets, musicians, chefs, scientists, doctors, activists, lawyers, freaks and other). They also received an OBIE for their time as artistic director of The Brick Theater and Brick Aux, was a collective member of DIY venue Silent Barn, was a frequent collaborator of Jeff Stark, Night Market and Secret Parks, performed in Richard Foreman's The Gods are Pounding My Head aka Lumberjack Messiah, was a manager at a bunch of bookstores (The Strand, The Drama Book Shop, Housing Works, The Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Book Shop) and has directed lots of audiobooks, cartoons and podcasts (How Music Works, Pokemon and The Last Days of Cabrini Green). www.theresabuchheister.com and www.titlepoint.org

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Talking Band 50 Years On: Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva on The Door Slams, a Glass Trembles, written and directed by Paul Zimet

2026-05-12T11:11:00.000-04:00

Steven Rattazzi and Tina Shepard in The Door Slams, a Glass Trembles. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Paul Zimet’s The Door Slams, a Glass Trembles is a stylized work at play on the border between physical theatre and selective realism. The play is a response to Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, a bildungsroman of sorts, set in a tuberculosis sanitorium high in the Swiss Alps, during the decade leading to World War I. Mann’s novel follows the evolution of a young man who, while visiting the sanitorium, himself contracts tuberculosis and is persuaded by the head doctor to stay. The Magic Mountain is principally concerned with the philosophical conversations that transpire in this land of the dying, with the impending threat of World War I, with illness, death, stasis, institutional entrapment, and time.

Zimet’s play, by contrast is set here and now—so very much now, that I wondered if there had been updates to the text during the rehearsal process to make the political references sharply topical. Zimet’s “magic mountain” is a rural bourgeois enclave (suggestive of parts of upstate New York) inhabited by retired dropouts from urban life. The play follows three couples: Clara (Ellen Maddow, who also composed the work’s accompanying score) and Marc (Jack Wetherall), a semi-retired couple whose retreat to the country is relatively recent and ambivalent; their local friends, Rick and Rita (Steven Rattazzi and Lizzie Olesker), who retreated years earlier to run a family farm; and Jenny and Norm (Amara Granderson and Patrick Dunning), a young couple with a child (whom we never see) who have come for a visit. There is a seventh character, Oona (Tina Shepard), an elderly friend and neighbor, and two characters who exist in memory only (staged via projections), Anne and Young Marc (Delaney Feener and Jesse B. Koehler). The Bildungsroman of Mann’s novel gives way to Zimet’s focus on Clara and Marc, as they grapple with the remoteness of their country idle, and their anxious sense of irrelevance in the face of a seemingly terminal retirement. In Mann’s novel, the hero will eventually escape the sanitorium to serve in World War I—its own form of terminal diagnosis. Zimmet’s Marc and Clara are “saved” from uselessness and boredom by a job offer—in the pharmaceutical industry. Like the war in Magic Mountain, the sense of menace this suggests is at once collective and personal: Marc and Clara escape isolation (and, specific to Mann’s play, the work-life irrelevance of the aging in an ageist society) to return to a corrupted world, spending their final years serving an immoral industry.

In The Door Slams, a Glass Trembles, it is the (rural) bourgeois home which constitutes institutional isolation. The play opens with a ritual of table setting: Clara and Marc, Jenny and Norm set and unset the dining table, the action running forward and backward, with repetitions and variations, against Ellen Maddow’s (deliberately) repetitive, clock-evoking score. The set, by Anna Kiraly, is unchanging throughout: a dining room with a downright balustrade suggestive of a porch, and an upstage flat in the shape of a house. This upstage wall is dominated by a large projection screen, at once evocative of a window and a television set. Projections (also designed by Kiraly) play throughout: nature, clouds, changing seasons, memories. Like the table setting, the images of nature are at once repetitive and subtly changing. Likewise, the action: Couples come and go, gathering around repetitive meals; their conversations drift across politics, memory, lost opportunity, past love, and death. Their political positions, generically to the left, are marked by a vague, fretful helplessness (reminiscent of the thought processes of characters in Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information). Characters enter, depart, return; games are played; relations are mostly warm; everyone listens politely to one another, with little mutual engagement. The table is reset; the music ticks and repeats; the seasons change. It is a slow death by banality.

The difficulty with banality and repetition is that they are fundamentally anti-theatrical, and the feeling of entrapment is contagious. The conceit of the play is thus difficult to sustain effectively. Zimet handles this in part by drawing upon the Walpurgisnacht scene in Mann’s novel; perhaps halfway through the play, the actors reenter, dressed now as figures from the novel, in (increasingly) preposterous 19th century masquerade costumes: wild hats, ball gowns, a donkey’s head in a gas mask. The dialogue shifts to the world of The Magic Mountain. Everyone is dying of tuberculosis. The latter half of the play is marked by several incursions from Mann’s world into ours, at the same time that change slowly emerges from stasis, bringing death, departures, and loss. Nonetheless, for me as a viewer, central ideas became quickly clear, and I felt myself entrapped together with the characters. This was by no means a universal experience; audience reception was very warm (most audience members gave a standing ovation).

Talking Band is a venerable downtown company with a remarkable fifty-year New York career. Co-founded by Zimet, Maddow, and Shepard—veterans of Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theatre—the company has produced over 50 original works concerned with “illuminating the extraordinary dimensions of ordinary life,” earning some 18 OBIE awards along the way. Founders Maddow and Shepard, along with longtime collaborators Lizze Olesker and Steven Rattazzi, seemed most at ease in the play’s shifting stylistics. The entire company was charmingly enlivened by Mann/Zimet’s carnival masque sequence (and Olivera Gajic’s delightful masquerade costumes), freeing them to play overt style and comedic character work. Rattazzi was particularly funny in his earnest donkey’s head dance. Tina Shepard’s powerful voice, dry delivery, and marvelous physical character work are etched in my memory. And a special mention is due to Delaney Feener, for the sheer force of her presence in a series of repeated entrances and crosses as the love interest, Clavidia, in Walpurgisnacht.

***

THE DOOR SLAMS, A GLASS TREMBLES

Presented by La MaMa in association with Talking Band

April 24–May 10, 2026

Tickets can be purchased at https://ci.ovationtix.com/42/production/1263489

With Ellen Maddow, Tina Shepard, Jack Wetherall, Steven Rattazzi, Lizzie Olesker,Amara Granderson, Patrick Dunning, Delaney Feener, and Jesse B. Koehler. Original music composed by Ellen Maddow, lighting design by Mary Ellen Stebbins, set and projection design by Anna Kiraly, and costumes by Olivera Gajic. Choreography by Flannery Gregg.

For more information, visit talkingband.org

***

Dr. Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva is a theatre scholar, director, and Founding Artistic Director of AnomalousCo, a queer/women-led, immigrant, feminist theatre ensemble. Her work is driven by the investigation of power, gender, and displacement and a commitment to theatre as a space for collective authorship and political encounter. Syssoyeva is author of three foundational works on the practice of collaboratively devised theatre: A History of Collective Creation, Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance, and Women, Collective Creation, and Devised Theatre (Palgrave Macmillan). A Fulbright Fellow and Mellon Foundation Fellow, she holds a joint PhD in Drama and Humanities from Stanford University. She is a 2026 recipient of a three-month COHO Residency with The Bechdel Project for the development of her play, The Rise and the Fall, and 2026 winner of the Jean Dalrymple Award for Best Director in Feminist Drama for AnomalousCo's (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling.

***

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May 2026 Listings Guide

2026-04-27T15:08:00.001-04:00

May 1st-May 17th

The Censorship of Dreams

Tickets $10-$40

Ellen Stewart Theatre @ La MaMa, 66 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

A restarted civilization stripped of memory and ruled by constant surveillance, where brain-computer technologies shape truth, and dreams are the last remnants of the past. They become a dangerous currency for those who struggle to survive. A timely and resonant exploration of how love, language, and the body are reshaped in a world without privacy, Armenian director Arthur Makaryan creates visually striking, interdisciplinary performances that blend theater, technology, and political inquiry. Rooted in international collaboration, the company explores themes of memory, control, and resistance through immersive storytelling, bridging experimental forms with urgent social questions to provoke, unsettle, and inspire.

through May 2nd

LATE BLOOMING

Tickets $23

wild project, 195 East 3rd Street, New York, NY 10009

In LATE BLOOMING, closeted novelist Libao struggles between his sexuality and his parents’ expectations. When his childhood friend Shan returns to a gentrifying Elmhurst, Queens, buried desires and family tensions are forced to the surface.

May 2nd-May 16th

NEEDLE & BONE and THIS IS NOT A DEATH CULT

Tickets $25-$35

The Flea, 20 Thomas St, New York, NY 10007

In NEEDLE & BONE, the proprietress of a haunted tattoo parlor attempts to connect with her father on the anniversary of his passing. In THIS IS NOT A DEATH CULT, a legacy media journalist and her protege help a whistleblower expose a philanthropist’s secret cult. Two shows in rep.

May 2nd-May 24th

Canciones

Tickets $35-$55

The exact address of the venue, which is a private home located in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, will be provided when you reserve tickets.

Join three generations of the legendary Guerrero family as they gather for a special family reunion. In the kitchen, Kati and Ellie are digging up old feuds. In the living room, Maestra will tell you about the generations of musicians that came before, while you sit next to her sipping your drink. And on the patio, you can get high (on life) with the cousins! As the evening unfolds, secrets are unearthed, old rivalries are revived, and the family is forced to decide who will carry on their musical legacy. Inspired by the seminal Linda Ronstadt album Canciones de mi Padre, Canciones is a site-specific party, an acoustic Mariachi jam, and a family reunion all rolled into an immersive, interactive experience. Come for the tamales—stay for the chisme! The performance will run approximately two hours and includes a family-style dinner served in the middle of the show (gluten free and vegan options available).

through May 3rd

CUMULO

Tickets $30

MITU580, 580 Sackett St Unit A - Ground Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Whimsical and violent, CUMULO is a puppet allegory that examines how we reclaim autonomy when life sends us into freefall. Protagonist Plum plummets through a skyscape of sentient cotton candy clouds and creatures in an immersive journey of embodied self-transformation, supported by a cotton candy set embedded with fans, and a large-scale mobile of floating cloud islands.

through May 3rd

Fresh Fruit Festival

Tickets $23

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

All Out Arts is proud to announce the return of the Fresh Fruit Festival, New York City’s landmark multidisciplinary LGBTQ+ arts celebration. Marking over two decades of "Fighting Prejudice Through the Arts," the 2026 festival will take place from Monday, April 20 through Sunday, May 3 at its long-time home, The Wild Project, in the heart of the East Village.

through May 3rd

The Menopause Monologues

Tickets $10.50-$126

HERE Mainstage, 145 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013

The theatre movement that’s bringing real life menopause stories out of the darkness and into the spotlight through a collaborative and multi-disciplinary production. Each performance is followed by a Q&A with a certified menopause doctor or specialist.

May 4th-May 24th

DAD DON'T READ THIS

Tickets $30-$95

St. Luke’s Theatre, 308 W 46th St, New York, NY 10036

In suburban Central Ohio, four girls meet weekly for a sleepover. They talk and sleep and play The Sims, a computer game that simulates real life, on a laptop. They gossip, snack, and attempt to get drunk. They strive to fulfill their needs, struggle to understand the relationship between doing and being seen, and begin to suspect they don't have a whole lot of agency. Wait, nevermind; that's The Sims. Dad Don’t Read This is about the people who know you before you know anything.

May 5th-May 19th

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY

Tickets are FREE

Various venues across all 5 boroughs

Each year In Scena! showcases some of the best Italian theater from Italy, in New York City. The festival features productions that have already toured in Italy as well as readings of Italian plays in translation, mentorships and exchanges between Italian and International artists. The goal is to promote greater awareness of Italian theater and Italian artists among New York City theatergoers, and to build a bridge between the artistic scenes in Italy and the US.

May 6th

Wild Works: Puppetry on the Edge

Tickets $24.50

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Wild Works: Puppetry on the Edge is a new performance series spotlighting artists who are reinventing and expanding the language of puppetry today. Curated by Resident Curator Amanda Card, the series features bold, boundary-pushing work that experiments with form, embraces risk, and explores the emotional and imaginative power of the animated.

May 7th-May 30th

Come and Knock Down My Door

Tickets $38.62

The Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012

Come and Knock Down My Door is a riotous political-situation comedy in two acts. It’s January 7th, 2021…The U.S is still in the throes of a deadly Pandemic, and the 2020 Presidential Race has yet to be conceded. After “Storming the Capitol”, Pablo, a freewheeling pot dealer, returns from Washington, DC to the Lower East Side apartment he shares with his liberal roommates, James, an African American musician, and Mina, his Russian speaking girlfriend. Hilarity ensues, misunderstandings abound, and their world nearly spirals into chaos as Pablo’s roommates fear the FBI will come and knock down their door.

May 8th-May 9th

“W=S” (The Transistor Shock)

Tickets are FREE

Polaris North Studio, 245 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001

William Shockley, 1956 Nobelist, co-inventor of the transistor and indisputable Father of the Information Age, is the center of this work which explores the co-existence of his scientific genius with his very controversial theories about intelligence and race.

May 8th-May 10th

LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA & GALICIA

Tickets $25

Newport Center, 525 Washington Boulevard, 3rd Floor, Jersey City, NJ

New York City Players' Incoming Theater Division presents a double-bill evening of performances directed by Richard Maxwell. The performances will be presented consecutively, with a 30-minute intermission. They will be presented in Spanish with English supertitles.

through May 9th

You & Me

Tickets $30-$100

The Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at The A.R.T./New York Theatres, 502 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019

Chloe's twin sister Delilah was responsible for a school shooting. Delilah's girlfriend, Mackenzie, survived the attack. When Chloe and Mackenzie cross paths, an unexpected bond forms.

May 9th-May 31st

Falling Out: A New Musical

Tickets $20-$55 (Please note that there is a $25 food and drink minimum.)

Chelsea Table & Stage, 152 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001

Following an acclaimed run downtown, FALLING OUT makes its anticipated Off-Broadway transfer. In a downtown New York music bar, ballads of lost loves and missed opportunities float on the air. Worlds collide when a melancholic transplant meets a musician with a past. Together they create a discordant harmony that will uncover the truths they both need to reshape their lives. Hailed as "so deeply felt-so exquisitely rendered" (Opening Night Reviews) and "intimate and immersive" (TheatreLife), this hit, experiential folk rock musical is not to be missed.

through May 10th

The Door Slams, A Glass Trembles

Tickets $10-$40

La MaMa Downstairs, 6 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

This world premiere, written and directed by Paul Zimet with music by Ellen Maddow, takes its cue from Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and looks at what happens when time stretches, warps, and slips out of sync during moments of personal and collective unease. The play looks at the passage of time, mortality, and complacency in two separate planes.

through May 11th

I AM NOBODY

Tickets $25

The Magnet Theater, 254 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001

Lucas’ phone has seized control of his mind. It gives him no peace!!! His only recourse is to abscond with a batch of super-charged microchips, intent on unleashing a powerful cyber virus capable of destroying the modern world. Hot on his heels are Naomi, a troubled barmaid and aspirant singer-songwriter, who’s convinced Lucas is a holy man with a holy plan, and Nathaniel, his co-worker at the microchip plant, who’s so smitten with Naomi he’ll drive her 1000s of miles to rendez-vous with another guy. Will Lucas manage to destroy modernity before this modern world can tear them even further apart?

May 13th-May 22nd

Constance: A Confession

Tickets $10.50-$126

HERE Mainstage, 145 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013

Developed in EiO’s The Writers’ Room, Constance: A Confession is a comedic journey following one woman’s devotion to the long art of the con. The opera starts with a shocking act of violence in a grad school art class, and continues as Constance finds work as a psychic, becomes a wellness influencer and grows her online empire into a cult—with deadly consequences. Scored for four singers and all-star experimental ensemble Hypercube, this new opera takes a biting look at the power of storytelling in the hands of a charismatic figure.

May 14th-May 30th

Obit.

Tickets $49-$68

East Village Basement, 321 E. 9th Street, New York, NY 10003

When an anxious soon-to-be father returns to his estranged dad’s chaotic New York apartment, he’s pulled into a messy, darkly funny confrontation with family history, forgotten memories, and the unraveling mind of a man he thought he’d already said goodbye to, until an obituary forces him to rewrite what legacy really means. Balancing dark, biting humor with emotional urgency, Obit. explores dementia, generational inheritance, and the fear of becoming one's parents, while asking what, if anything, we leave behind when memory fails.

May 14th-June 30th

SUMMERWORKS

Tickets $75-$135 (Festival Pass)

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

May 15th-May 17th

Two Hysterical Musicals: Gunfight at the Not-So-OK Saloon and Does Not Compute

Tickets $54.22

John Cullum Stage at American Theatre of Actors, 314 W. 54th Street, New York, New York, 10019

Gunfight at the Not-So-OK Saloon is a Gilbert & Sullivan-inspired musical comedy set in the Old Wild West, where frontier drama meets rapid-fire wit in a showdown of song, satire, and stagecoach sass.

Does Not Compute is a heartfelt sci-fi comedy about two overworked robots who rebel against their human owners — and discover love, identity, and unexpected feelings along the way.

May 15th-May 23rd

If You’re a Man at Night…You Gotta Be a Man in the Morning

Tickets $25-$45

The Tank, 312 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018

The year is 2026, and 2016, and 2020, and we are gathered for a theatrical meditation on Ryan L*chte and the extinction burst of masculinity he represents. An all trans/gender nonconforming cast asks us how we can feel empathy for those whose bodies are so different from our own? What would you do if everything that once made you happy disappeared? How would you avoid hardening after a ritual shaming? Can we, the audience, give Ryan L*chte grace? Is there a way for us to “create the ‘Lympics inside us,” as Ryan says, and fill each others’ wells of loneliness? One way to find out.

through May 16th

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT

Tickets $22.75-$48.75

The Bushwick Starr, 419 Eldert St, Brooklyn, NY 11237

A mad scientist named Michael presents a workshop on "thinking about", a technique for untethering yourself from linear thought and expanding your mind's ideation possibilities. Using notebooks and a whiteboard as a guide, Michael and the audience become co-conspirators in the creation of comedic chaos. Through a series of jokes, crowd games, monologues, creative exercises and real time “thought experiments”, Michael leads the audience down a winding road of absurdist and associative thought that brings us back to what really matters: our connection to ourselves and the people around us.

May 16th-May 24th

EVERYONE HAS A STORY TO TELL, a Free Multilingual Community Play Activating Lower East Side and Chinatown Gardens

Tickets are FREE

M’finda Kalunga Garden, 6th and B Garden, and El Jardín del Paraíso in the Lower East Side, and the Open Door Senior Center in Chinatown

In a time marked by social change and deepened isolation, a new free interactive community play written by Obie Award-winning playwright Carmen Rivera, seeking to bridge divides and foster empathy, healing and understanding in the community through intimate, real-life narratives. Offered free of charge to the public in LES and Chinatown community gardens, with art-making workshops and food justice programming, the events are created in collaboration with seniors, new migrants, and housing-insecure artists in the Lower East Side and Chinatown.

May 16th-Jun 28th

A Night of Chekhov

Tickets $60-$90

Actors Temple Theatre, 339 W 47th St, New York, NY 10036

through May 17th

Love Story

Tickets $28-$53

The Tank, 312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018

Maria is dead, but she's still on the call sheet. She's trapped inside a play that keeps restarting itself, where scenes from her life are rehearsed and revised by the people who loved her. Conversations loop. Arguments reset. Stage directions are sentient. Maria watches as their memories turn her into a character, a plot device in the stories of the people she loved. As the play slips between rehearsal, recollection, and imagined afterlives, Maria tries to wrest back authorship of her own story. She argues with monologues, questions the rules of the world she’s trapped in, and refuses to become a symbol of loss. Love Story navigates what comes after death, when love refuses to let you step into your light.

through May 17th

The Bad Daters

Tickets $35-$55

Paradise Factory, 64 East 4th Street New York, NY 10003

Liam is looking for someone special, Wendy is looking for anyone but him. What happens when the last thing you’re looking for is exactly what you find?

May 19th-May 31st

Mikey!

Tickets $20-$30

The Tank, 312 West 36th Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10018

SOS from the Sistine Chapel! I miss Florence… sure the sodomy police suck…! But what I wouldn’t give to be 16 sneaking around the Medici Palace with Piero again. He’s not Unfortunate! The voice in my head, ANGEL David was RIGHT! The Statue of David came so easily. Now my life is a deranged battle between love and art. How has my life become some crazy battle between love and art? I cannot let Bramante - the bitchy architect, get his way! The Pope is wishy washy, Leonardo is a conspiracy theorist. Thank god Francesco forgave me! They’re my only help… I need to get out of here ASAP! SEND HELP! - Michelangelo, Sculptor, in Rome

May 21st-May 30th

Consuewella: Triptych In Move

Tickets $30-$45

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002

Consuewella: Triptych in MOVE a powerful thought-provoking puppet performance about an African American woman’s journey through MOVE—a radical, mostly African American, back-to-nature activist organization from Philadelphia—the system and the bombing by its own government. In our current moment, when “terrorist” has come to mean anyone standing up to state power, this moving play asks us to consider who the real terrorists are.

through May 23rd

An Ordinary Afternoon in 1974

Tickets $35

Theatre East’s Court Square Theater, 44-02 23rd St, Long Island City, NY 11101

What begins as an ordinary afternoon quickly becomes a story that refuses to stay quiet. Bold, irreverent, and full of joy, the play follows two longtime friends and neighbors, Joan played by Carla Briscoe (Blue Caprice, A Little Help, Breaking the News) and Elizabeth played by Holly Cinnamon (Marvel’s Daredevil, A House of Dynamite, Hocus Pocus 2, Succession) as they revisit their shared past. An Ordinary Afternoon in 1974 is a vibrant celebration of women claiming their space, their voices, and their extraordinary power.

May 28th

OOPS! We Lost a Nuke!

Tickets $18

Brooklyn Art Haus, 24 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Oops! We Lost a Nuke is a comedic play set in the 1950s, featuring four characters performed – sometimes simultaneously – by two actors. When an unassuming pacifist abuses his position within the US government in order to hide a nuclear warhead, it becomes clear that his affair with his secretary and his wife's affair with her doctor are the least of their worries.

May 28th-Jun 21st

I Wanttt a Unicorn Frappe!!!

Tickets $28-$53

The Tank, 312 W 36th Street, New York, NY 10018

May 29th-Jun 20th

The Downtown Urban Arts Festival

Tickets $25

Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003 & La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, 66 E. 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

through May 31st

CLAWS

Performed live via phone call (the audience can call in from anywhere)

CLAWS places you at the center of the narrative as you assume the role of a volunteer operator for the fictional “Etcetera Helpline.” Moments into the call, a terrified teenager begs you for help with a monster in his closet – but as the night unfolds, you may start to wonder which side of the closet door is really on. Your choices influence the outcome of the story in this suspenseful, psychologically-charged experience. What begins as a simple request for help quickly spirals into a series of high-stakes choices, leaving you to question what you believe - and whether your decisions will save Danny or unleash something far worse.

through Jun 1st

Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival

Tickets are FREE

Bohemian National Hall in New York, 321 E 73rd St, New York, NY 10021

through Jun 14th

Feltman: World's First Hot Dog

Tickets $40

The Chain, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY, 10018

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Third Reich of Dreams: an Interview with Playwright Anne Nelson and Director David Skeist by Jody Christopherson

2026-04-16T20:32:00.011-04:00

I've always liked David Skeist, I think, in part, for the same reason that I like the theater (when I do like it): the thrill of confronting + analyzing a cultural truth through the lens of history, while still managing to dream. Another of my favorite artists, Jack MacCarthy once said (and I'm likely paraphrasing this, sorry Jack) "in the theater you can take any world that you want and put it onstage." David's staged worlds don't ignore or look away, but they also do not settle into dismay. And isn't that a lot of what we need? And not just right now, but always, or even just for this weekend (thank you Anne Nelson). . .

I'm going to let the team's synopsis speak for itself:

Three weeks after Hitler seized power, a young Jewish journalist named Charlotte Beradt began collecting dreams. These were the dreams of everyday Berliners, exploring surveillance, arrests, complicity — and resistance. Years later, from her new home in New York, Beradt published a collection of these dreams as an indictment of the encroaching brutality of the regime. Playwright Anne Nelson and director David Skeist are adapting this work for the stage, now presented in a captivating and haunting production in development.

Third Reich of Dreams plays Friday, April 17 at 9:30pm | Saturday, April 18 at 3pm | Sunday, April 19 at 7pm

Creative Team:

David Skeist (Director and Producer), Anne Nelson (Playwright and Producer), Labhaoise Magee (Creative Producer, Fair Play Productions), Produced in association with Caborca, Hao Bai (Sound Design), Jared Wofse (Light Design), Jian Jung (Design Consultant), Lisa Klages (Stage Manager)

Tickets range from $23-$44 and can be purchased here.

Jody Christopherson: After research and thought there’s a moment, for me, when I’m certain as to what my next project will be. When was that moment for you in this process?

David Skeist: These days, I tend to work on multiple projects at the same time, most of which develop over a matter of years. In that sense, the next project is always the one that happens to have the next active phase booked on the calendar because of how schedules, opportunities, and funding line up. But there was in this process for me a moment it became clear we would take, or make, the earliest possible opportunity to put it in front of an audience. It happened over the course of our residency at The Mercury Store, where we were granted a week to explore this material with an extraordinary group of actors and a stage manager from the resident company. It is hard to overstate the creative value of that kind of space. Anne and I had been discussing this material for years as part of an ongoing conversation and collaboration on theatre and democracy, and we believed in the idea enough to apply, but it wasn’t until we got to try staging some of the dreams that the theatrical potency landed for me. Then it became a matter of time, and as the piece is quite timely, time moved quickly.

Anne Nelson: For me, the project took off when David Skeist made his interest clear. We share so many of the same values and concerns, and our approaches are complementary. The book had been simmering in my mind for two decades, and he was the perfect theatrical interlocutor.

JC: This work seems fundamentally enmeshed in questions of truth and what we subconsciously understand. What’s your approach to staging these concepts?

DS: Truth is hard to look at, especially these days. The scale of the ruptures we are facing is cataclysmic. It’s existential. It’s tragic. It’s absurd and it’s sublime. It is too big and too upsetting to hold in any one little human consciousness, so in order to make life comprehensible, we put it in the subconscious, which is just another way of saying we choose not to think about it too much. When a whole group of people does that at the same time, it becomes the collective unconscious, which is the subject of this play. Theatre is about pointing at truths beneath the surface, subtext, the bombs (both figurative and literal) that drop during our silences. So one way I approach staging is by inviting a lot of silence. The play is a meditation on the collective unconscious of a group of people living under circumstances that mirror, or set a precedent for our own.

AN: As a playwright, a historian, and a classical singer, I'm very text-bound. It's important to me that the script should be an accurate representation of the material, but also that it should "sing" in terms of syllables and rhythms. My hope is to offer David clean and beautiful pages to stage. Then I step back and wonder at his creativity.

JC: As you are working (solo or with collaborators) how do you process taking in this kind of information? Is there a support system you’re finding useful solo and / or as a collective?

DS: That is such a good question. I am wired such that I would rather contemplate or converse about horrific things that feel big than pleasant things that feel small. My good friend Susan once started a conversation with my other good friend Eleanor by saying “I just want you to know I don’t do small talk.” I feel like that a lot of the time. I also get a lot of sensual pleasure out of being alive, so being around art that is sensually gratifying and also about all the big, awful shit that’s hard to think about is in a sort of perverse way my happy place. And clearly I say that as someone for whom art is a matter of vocation and recreation not life and death, but Messiaen composed the Quartet for the End of Time in the bathroom of Stalag VIII-A.

But the other thing I should really say is that although I can be introspective, even self-involved at times, I’m also an extrovert, and I take energy from being in deep, collaborative, intimacy with like-minded and like-hearted people. Every person involved in this project is someone with whom I’ve had a moment of profound, joyful connection, in some cases decades of them—which I am so fortunate to say about many of my collaborations. We are dealing with dark stuff, but every day we are laughing as much as crying in rehearsal, what could be better?

AN: This play couldn't have happened without David. Over the past twenty years I've written three major non-fiction books, two about anti-Nazi resistance movements in Berlin and Paris, and most recently, about the Radical Right and fossil fuel interests in the US. It can be a lonely business -- years of friends asking, "What are you up to?" and answering "The same as last time." So the experience of theatrical collaboration is pure joy, when the right chemistry's in the room, which is the case here.

JC: Are there parallels you’re seeing between Nazi Germany and the US today which you are exploring in this work?

DS: One of the first things I did after the 2016 election was pull a book off my shelf called Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler by Anne Nelson. It is, in fact, the only thing I remember doing in the immediate days after the 2016 election. For the last ten years (can you believe it’s been ten years), that book has been a pillar of my worldview.

I’m not going to elucidate all the parallels I see because this isn’t one of my endless soapbox posts on a social media platform I won’t name, but I will mention two. The first is that we have packed thousands of innocent people including children into concentration camps under conditions so inhumane they are deadly and we are building more. The second is that as scared as I am of the violent masses who cultishly follow violent men, and I am fucking terrified of them, I think the real horror story of now as of then is about the people who see these men for who they are, and yet…

AN: Yes. I've been particularly interested in offering a work that looks at the years 1933 to 1939, which are often overlooked by Americans in favor of the war years. It's a period when authoritarian measures gradually tighten like a noose. Third Reich of Dreams discusses the public measures, such as the silencing of critical media and brutal immigration crackdowns. But it goes deeper in the subconscious, depicting the perverse seductive qualities of a dictator, the grief and fear of the persecuted, and the tendency that Timothy Snyder criticizes as "complying in advance." But the audience will find their own meaning in the work.

JC: How are you disrupting fascism?

DS: By reading, watching, and listening to Anne Nelson. Also Black, indigenous, and women’s histories, art, and literature, and generally seeking to learn from perspectives outside my own intersections of privilege.

I’m trying to disrupt fascism by making this play and other works of art that invite, cajole, provoke, or force a confrontation with what’s really happening and what’s at stake. I am part of a theatre company, Caborca, whose work focuses on corruption and colonialism from a largely Puerto Rican perspective, a population repeatedly targeted in this fascistic decade but more broadly in an extractive relationship with the United States for more than a century. We’re currently working on a musical about the critically endangered right whale. I believe art matters. I don’t know that it can tear down fascism alone, but I think it’s hard to do without it.

Outside of art-making, I go to protests (where you and I recently bumped into each other) and I phonebank and canvas when I can. I worked on a local swing-district congressional campaign in 2018 which was a great experience that made me feel more nimble and empowered politically—especially because we won. I believe in talking and I believe in persuasion. I’ll talk to almost anyone about almost anything if we’re talking in good faith. In practice, lately, this has meant having a lot of hard private and public conversations with friends, family, and even strangers about what is happening in the Middle East.

I give what I can to social, political, and artistic causes I believe in, and I live unapologetically in pursuit and celebration of queer joy.

AN: I don't know that I am. But I do feel that I'm doing what I can. My book is one effort: Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. Another is speaking across the country at screenings of Bad Faith, the documentary largely based on my book. My reporting for the Washington Spectator is another. Third Reich of Dreams is a welcome sojourn in the creative space, but part of the same mission.

JC: What are your hopes for the state of journalism and theater in America?

DS: When I was a teenager, I saw my cousin Rick Goldsmith’s documentary Tell the Truth and Run about the journalist and gadfly George Seldes, which I subsequently screened at my high school. It left me with an indelible belief that journalists are heroes.

This subject is definitely Anne’s bailiwick, so not to sound like a broken record, but everyone should read her book Shadow Network and watch the film Bad Faith which is based on it, and listen to her sobering yet riveting interview about the destruction of local journalism among other things on the essential podcast Gaslit Nation(also the subject of Rick’s latest documentary Stripped for Parts).

I think journalists and theatre artists, when they’re doing their jobs right, are doing different versions of the same thing.

AN: I believe that the arts and journalism are public goods, just as important as clean air and water. Citizens can't make good decisions without factual information, and they can't dream and create without the arts. So we should have a government that restores and expands the public funding for journalism -- not just PBS and NPR, but the kind of publicly supported local journalism that's so successful in Scandinavia. And we should massively fund the arts, so Americans can enjoy the same kind of access and opportunities that Western Europeans take for granted. These measures could be easily supported by taxing the top one percent in amounts that would go unnoticed in their portfolios.

JC: What was the last dream you had that you remember?

DS: I’m a student on a college campus and ICE has swarmed in to disappear someone. A group of us including me and my partner are summoned to intervene, and we end up stealing all of their luggage and equipment and spiriting it around the campus in different hiding places. I wake up thinking about signs we can all surreptitiously wear to indicate that these items can be passed among us in an elaborate game of keep-away. I had this dream a few days before we started rehearsal.

AN: I dreamed that I opened a door in my apartment, and saw four fat, snarling rats facing me. I stared at them in horror. Then I looked down and saw a dessicated dead rat at my side, and felt a glimmer of hope.

ANNE NELSON is an award-winning author and playwright whose work explores the dynamics of dictatorship, resistance, and human rights. Her play The Guys has been produced in 50 states and 15 countries, and a film version featuring her screenplay and starring Sigourney Weaver is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Her book Red Orchestra: The Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler, has been called a “key text for researching internal anti-Nazi resistance.” Her most recent book, Shadow Network, explores the role of the Religious Right and fossil fuel interests in bringing Trump to power. She is the recipient of a Livingston Award for journalism and a Guggenheim Fellowship for Red Orchestra. She has been collaborating with David Skeist for over a decade.

DAVID SKEIST is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist in New York. He directed Susan Hyon's solo show Soo Jin Pretty Nail (and more) and the premiere English readings of Die Illegalen, Gunther Weisenborn's 1946 firsthand dramatic account of the Berlin resistance, translated by Anne Nelson. He is producing director of Caborca, a bilingual experimental ensemble founded in 2009. His many collaborators over more than two decades have included Richard Foreman, Elizabeth Swados, David Gordon, Len Jenkin, Nikolaus Wolcz, Doris Mirescu, Josh Fox, Meiyin Wang, Tom Minter, and most frequently Javier Antonio González. He was assistant to André Gregory on The Master Builder. David is also a composer of new musical theatre and choral work and teaches acting at Barnard College.

JODY CHRISTOPHERSON is a multidisciplinary artist working in the mediums of theater, music, photography and journalism. She is the founder of the New York Theatre Review blogspot and proudly serves as the site's Co-Editor in Chief, in partnership with Amelia Parenteau.

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Ria T. DiLullo on Frances Smith’s Our Price to Pay as part of NYC Fringe Festival 2026 at Under St. Marks

2026-04-13T12:08:00.001-04:00

Our Price to Pay. Photo by Rainer DeLalio.

Young queer folks need a safe place to vent.

Is there a safer place than a basement theater in a Fringe festival for a young group of artists to portray a sexy sapphic couple killing their ultra-conservative family-turned-into-zombies from a virus they got because of their political point of view?

No, there isn’t.

So buckle in, because in Our Price to Pay, that’s exactly what you get.

The highlight of the show is the full cast fight sequence set to high-energy music under red lights. Big fight sequences in small spaces under Fringe tech timing restrictions are hard to pull off, but this team did it well. The direction on the zombie physicality is good and the fight choreography is genuinely gripping; I always know where to look and when to look there. The fight moves are varied, including punches, hair pulls, grabs, and slams. The timing works so as to give the family who becomes zombies the ability to slip offstage unnoticed, and re-emerge with their zombie makeup ready to get in the action. Some of the makeup fits the “horror” bill. Some of it is red, and so I didn’t see it under the red light and therefore didn’t notice it until the bows. But it doesn’t really matter—this fight scene rocks.

When that is over, what’s left?

Sweat.

Heavy breathing.

A basement.

This is the position our sapphic lovers Ellie (Avaana Harvey) and Sylvia (Gail Tierney) find themselves in for the last scene.

I was curious to know, what’s left after the immediate threat has been neutralized? What will these two young lesbians talk about in the relative safety of the basement? The answer: not much. But maybe there’s just not much to say when you’ve exerted all your energy fighting to save yourself and your loved one. Maybe there’s not much to say when you’ve fought to come out of the closet only to be driven into the basement. But hey, at least there’s room for two.

The tension of the play was never between Ellie and Sylvia. They are locked into one another; safe and in love when they’re allowed to be in each other’s arms. The tension for them as out young lesbians wanting to build a life together is in the zombie horror trope as a metaphor for society: in this case, the far Right. The theme is “us against the world,” ending with “nowhere to go.” But they’re safe. They’re alive. And they have each other.

Theater has always been a valuable outlet in times of turmoil, political unrest, and societal divide. Sometimes the only thing we can do is play out the fantasy of defeating the suppressors, and violently. Fantasy and violence in the context of pretend are what make horror such an enduring genre. It gives us the chance to come together with like-minded individuals to express our rage and fears and maybe even triumph over it, if only for the duration of the show.

*************************************************

Our Price to Pay

By Frances Smith
Directed by Emmie D'Amico

Cast: Gail Tierney, Avaana Harvey, James Miller, Louis Courage, Eric Berger, Nikki Cannon, Margo Hera, Mitchell Wiley, Corinne Kaleta & u/s Dyoisa Wiggins

Frances Smith & Deepti Aravapalli (Producers), Jack Underwood (Stage Manager), Anna Item (Assistant Director/Intimacy Coordinator), Brian Cecala (Fight Choreographer), Lily Estelle (Make Up Designer), Makenzie Martin (Costume Designer), Hannah Tarr (Set & Props Designer), Michael Roll (Sound Designer)

Performance schedule date and times:

April 2 @ 6:30 PM, April 4 @ 8:40 PM, April 9 @ 9:50 PM (with livestream), & April 15 @ 9:50 PM (with livestream)

$15.00 + $2.50 fee - $25.00 + $2.50 fee

Web Link to tickets:

https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1346/

Photo credits:

Rainer DeLailo

Ria T. DiLullo is a native New Yorker, director, playwright, and actor. They are also the founder/artistic director of The Skeleton Rep(resents), a 10+ year old indie theater company with a mission statement to explore modern myth through the development and production of new works. Keep up with Ria and TSR - @dilulloria / @skeletonrep / www.dilulloria.com / www.skeletonrep.org

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Cameron Page on 1 Small Lie as part of the NYC Fringe Festival at the Wild Project

2026-04-13T11:33:00.005-04:00

Martin Dockery in 1 Small Lie. Photo by orangemouse.

In the first few moments of the highly compelling one-man show 1 Small Lie, playing now at The Wild Project as part of the NYC Fringe Festival, Martin Dockery ask us to hum. We each pick a tone at random and produce it from our mouths collectively. It’s a deceptively simply way of binding the group together, a tiny bit of witchcraft that alchemizes us from individuals into an audience. It binds us to each other and to him as a performer for the next 58 and half minutes (he's timed it).

When I hear the phrase “one-man show” I immediately think of a coming-of-age memoir or a political screed. 1 Small Lie couldn’t be further from either of these. This is a show built to entertain, not pontificate or even educate. It is not here to share feelings or process childhood trauma. If there are moments where we might stop to reflect on ethics, morality, friendship, or community, they pass like a shooting star glimpsed from the corner of your eye. Stay focused on the fast-moving tale, the show seems to be saying.

1 Small Lie is a detective noir story combined with a fish-out-water tale, like a pulp novel co-written by Raymond Chandler and Bill Bryson. If that sounds fun, then you will enjoy this play—and even if it doesn’t sound fun, you will probably still have a good time.

The story is set during the height of the COVID pandemic, when Martin was stuck at his godmother’s house in Montauk. He walks past a deer that has been hit by car, and in his hunt for the car that hit the deer, he stumbles into a criminal underworld and is forced to confront a number of morally questionable decisions.

Martin Dockery's likeability is his strongest asset, and he uses it to good effect here. When he shares an ethically questionable choice he makes, he talks us through his thinking in such a persuasive way that the audience immediately gives him the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to watch this show and put yourself in the shoes of the narrator—which is what all great stories should do.

The lighting scheme consists of a number of various-sized table lamps dotted around the stage, which turn different colors depending on the mood of the story. This is an effective technique at times, such as when they all flash white for a strike of lightning. But he controls the lights from his phone, which he has to take out of his pocket every ten minutes, and that interrupts the flow of the action.

Martin Dockery has an incredible ability to win over an audience. He is a born storyteller. If he hasn't performed at The Moth, then they are missing out. Dockery reminds me of Alan Cumming when he played the lead in Cabaret, or the early shows of Taylor Mac, how he could coax an entire room into humming America the Beautiful. Halfway through the hour-long show, however, I found myself thinking “Okay Martin, you’ve won me over…what are you going to do next?” The audience would have followed him on any kind of strange theatrical journey he wanted to take us on. Dockery could have jumped forwards or backwards in time, put on an accent and changed characters, or any number of other theatrical techniques, and the audience would have gone there with him.

There's nothing wrong with a great storyteller telling a great story. But after a while the audience wants a change of pace, some variation in tone, a new narrative voice. Given what a talent Martin Dockery is, I found myself wishing that he had been more ambitious. He drips with charisma, but I wanted to see more of his range, I wanted to know if he could do more than win me over.

1 Small Lie is a gripping, rollicking tale that is well worth an hour of your time. He even offered to meet everyone at a nearby bar after the show! I didn’t get a chance to join him, but I have no doubt that would have been a fun time too.

1 Small Lie

Created, directed, designed, mixed, & performed by Martin Dockery.

The lights are controlled from Dockery’s phone.

Website: https://martindockery.com/1-small-lie

Performance Schedule: April 9 at 9:20 pm, April 10 at 6 pm, April 12 at 7 pm & April 18 at 5:20 pm

Streaming 60 min
Tickets Here: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1344/

Photo credits: orangemouse

Cameron Page has performed at numerous Manhattan venues that no longer exist, including Baby Jupiter, Luna Lounge, and Collective:Unconscious. His short plays have been performed at the Bowery Poetry Club, the Cherry Lane Theater, and the Bushwick Starr. Prior to that he lived in Washington DC, where his writing appeared in the DC City Paper. He currently lives in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.

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Mieko Gavia on Vanessa Codorniu’s Perra Puta Loca Bruja as part of the NYC Fringe Festival at Chain Theatre

2026-04-09T12:54:00.003-04:00

Vanessa Codorniu in Perra Puta Loca Bruja. Photo by Cody Myers.

It is difficult to capture the essence of Perra Puta Loca Bruja in a tidy bow. At times Vanessa Codorniu’s solo show feels like a joyful hybrid of a stand up, an extended monologue, an ancestral ritual, and a TED Talk. At times it felt too full for the confines of the Chain Theatre’s small black box and the piece’s allotted 60 minute time slot. It’s no easy feat to attempt to cover both the breadth of Argentine history and the depth of the artist’s love for her Perra Puta Loca Bruja ancestors while dancing, wrangling props and dresses, and deconstructing and reconstructing misused female archetypes.

As a bit of a PPLB myself, I was more than game to catch this as part of the New York City Fringe Festival (formerly Frigid). The theater was packed, with patrons tiptoeing around a row of electric candles downstage. These candles later set the scene for a welcoming ritual. Codorniu, also known as the Biz Bruja, wears white and cleanses the space while drumming to the four Cardinal Directions. She dances with scarves and colorful stage lights and invokes the ancestors of what we call the Americas, making sure to acknowledge the Indigenous and African people who lived, worked, sang, and bled to nurture her grandparents’ home of Argentina. I found myself wanting more specificity on whose practices we were witnessing and whose ancestors we were acknowledging—it felt a bit vague to this No Sabo kid. But not all rituals need or welcome extensive ethnographic breakdown, so I let myself drift into odes to Yemayá, through the short slideshow on Afro-Argentine history and blanqueamiento, and past a slightly staccato slam poem about Eve (of Eden) and misogyny.

These topics alone could have filled an hour time slot, but the true meat and muscle of this piece was the costumed snapshots of her time with female ancestors—those who were said to embody Perra (bitch), Puta (whore), Loca (crazy), or Bruja (witch) archetypes. Here Codorniu’s tone shifts from passionate teacher to friend and confidante as she flips between her younger self and the women (and men) who influenced her life. She tells funny, tender, heartstring-pulling anecdotes about her grandmothers, her mother, and her spiritual advisor, and despite some clunky transitions, her love for these women is palpable.

It was, however, difficult to draw close association between these women and the PPLB archetypes. If Codorniu’s goal was to show how her loved ones’ lives led them to be stereotyped, it was half-accomplished. Each ancestor defied cultural expectations in their own way, but aside from the Bruja being…an actual Bruja, the labels were somewhat interchangeable. Perhaps these connections would’ve been reinforced had the show run to completion. Unfortunately the show ran long—and with a tight festival schedule looming, Codorniu had to jump to a hurried conclusion about reframing these negative stereotypes into empowering archetypes, a few parting thoughts, and a sales pitch for her upcoming oracle deck. Out of respect for the next artist’s time slot I dashed from the theater—unwittingly into a camera lens and someone asking for a soundbite on behalf of the artist. Disoriented in the light of the lobby, I stuttered out some thoughts and continued on my way. I hadn’t connected enough to my Perra archetype to refuse.

Perra Puta Loca Bruja

By Playwright Vanessa Codorniu

Starring Vanessa Codorniu

Performance schedule date and times: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1383/

April 4th at 7:15 pm; April 7th at 6:15 pm; April 8th at 7:55 pm; April 18th and 19th at 5:35 pm (in person and livestream)

Tickets available here: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1383/

Photo credits SLICE OF LIME PHOTO, EMIL RODRIGUEZ-POWELL

https://perraputalocabruja.com/

MIEKO GAVIA (she/they) is a writer, actor, audiobook narrator, and producer. Her acting credits include Canary in the award-winning film Canary Trap, Joan of Arc in La Pucelle, Lou Salome in Lou at the Paradise Factory, the webseries Quarter Century (Imani), Afterswarm at JACK (Gigi), Gardener of Stars at Detroit’s Light Box (Gardener), The Reenactors at Abrams Arts Center (Actress 2), and Creative Time’s installations: Private Moment (Alice) and The Privilege of Escape (Dr. Crenshaw). Her audiobook work includes From the World of Percy Jackson: The Court of the Dead: A Nico di Angelo Adventure, and the AUDIE nominated Devil Reached Toward the Sky, Their play Dog has been performed at the Gene Frankel Theatre, Afterswarm (co-written with Heather Harvey) has been performed at JACK, Ophelia: A Prism has been performed at Oberlin College and Mai House, and her non-theatrical writing has been featured in Bustle, Buzzfeed, Oxygen, Efniks, and on Netflix’s Youtube channel. Mieko is also a producing ensemble member for Black Revolutionary Theater Workshop, a Brooklyn based, social justice focused theater company. https://www.miekogavia.org/

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Ria T. DiLullo on Heather Seltzer’s Portia and Ellen as part of NYC Fringe Festival 2026 at Under St. Marks

2026-04-08T17:33:00.003-04:00

Heather Seltzer as Portia and Sarah Hartley as Ellen in "Portia and Ellen". Photo by Kathryn Cooper for By Hart.

For a 50 minute show, Portia and Ellen does some theatrical heavy-hitting while keeping the laughs rolling.

Stand-out lines that nail the show’s themes include:

“Are you getting cancelled—again?” (Portia)

“I want to rebrand—as no brand.” (Ellen)

“There was only so long you were going to be allowed to be America’s sweetheart.” (Portia)

“If I’m not moving I’ll die.” (Ellen)

And Ellen is certainly on the move. Sarah Hartley’s Ellen is a spot-on impersonation, complete with her iconic opening-of-show dancing, which goes further into the audience as each new taping segment occurs. If you’re lucky, she might ask for a high-five, groove with you, or climb over you.

Portia, by contrast, is still. Still in the bath with Pinter’s Betrayal. Still doing yoga with Chekov’s Three Sisters. “An actor must prepare,” she says. Heather Seltzer’s impersonation of Portia is also precise, remarkable for both its humor and groundedness, without ever straying from the source material as we think we know her.

The only time Ellen is truly still is when she’s on hold, waiting for God to talk to her. The only time Portia is on the move is an original Fosse-style song and dance number about her life and how she needs more light (figuratively and actually).

As Seltzer and Hartley bill it, Portia and Ellen is a “fictional imagining of the final days of Ellen's daytime talk show. A theatrical fever dream about marriage, cancel culture, and the limits of personal growth.” The show has a clear structure; Ellen does a taping of her talk show featuring different famous canceled people who have made comebacks (all excellently played by Seltzer), Ellen interrupts Portia’s actor preparation at home with her own concerns, and something of the fever-dream variety follows. Between each segment, we get Hartley & Seltzer as Ellen & Portia in filmed reenactments/imaginings from their shows (both separately and together), famous photographs or video footage of them, and real headlines. The pace of all these elements are on point throughout the performance, always long enough to get the joke or settle into what we’ve just seen before we’re brought back into their world live on stage.

Now, I want to take a moment here to say that I don’t go to Fringe shows expecting a high production value (or indie theater in general), so I was genuinely surprised by the quality of the production for Portia and Ellen. From the pre-taped segments/projections to the original music and a particularly delightful cartoon-ish bathtub, all the design elements felt perfectly placed and well considered, always serving the story without outshining it. It’s not that they’re doing too much, it’s that they’re doing exactly the right thing, one at a time, and knocking them down like dominos.

I would not call this show, in the strictest sense, a “play.” There is not a question that gets answered by the end. But it is theatrical. It is dramatic. (I personally want my theater to be both theatrical and dramatic.) Portia and Ellen does have a clear structure, an emotive arc, and makes great use of what live theater has to offer.

You will laugh during this show. Many times. You’ll be tickled into thinking about their stated themes—marriage, cancel culture, and the limits of personal growth—without being told what to think. You’ll leave glad you came.

P.S. If you can, go with a friend. It’s always nice to hear your friends laugh too.

Portia and Ellen

By Heather Seltzer
Directed by Amanda Xeller

Cast: Heather Seltzer and Sarah Hartley

Designers: Daniel Hoyos (Producer), Michael Bolgar (Choreographer), Seann Cantatore (Composer), Brian Chase (Technical Crew Lead), Francine Zerfas (Vocal Coach), Jennifer Moon (Portia Quick Change Artist & Crew)

Creative and Design Producing Partner - By Hart (including Danielle Franceschi, Adam Ball, Mike Mitchell, Guatami Hazra, Christian Swinehart, Kathryn Cooper, Lucia Racekova, Aubreigh Brunschwig, Erin Smith, Nichelle Tesone, Kristin Ingram, David Ibarra, and Jenna Weissman)

Performance schedule date and times:
April 8, April 9, & April 15 @ 8:10pm

Tickets are available here: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1349/

Photo credits: Kathryn Cooper for By Hart

https://portiaandellen.com/

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Kodi Lynn Milburn on Kona Morris’ & Padriac Lillis’ How to Poop in an Outhouse at -72°F as presented by New York Fringe Festival at Under St. Marks

2026-04-04T22:37:00.001-04:00

photo by Joshua Wachs

Fringe is a platform for staging productions that work well in unconventional spaces and with intimate, up close audiences. I have a special place in my heart for the beauty of fringe. I find that stripping back a show's ability to hide behind spectacle, allows for out of the box thinking and creative problem solving. Fringe allows the story and storyteller to take center stage. This simplicity often makes room for stories to reach audiences that may not have otherwise been heard. That being said this show hit the mark in some ways and missed in others.

This solo show follows the writer/performer, Kona Morris’ personal experience living in Alaska immersed in an indigenous community, marrying a native man, and giving birth to a mixed indigenous child. Ultimately, Kona returns to the lower states, but the majority of the story takes place in the village of Gwichyaa Zheh (also known by its colonial name, Fort Yukon). Morris does a beautiful job of being present with the audience.

The story touches upon the struggles of deciding to become a parent — that balancing act of wanting youth and freedom vs. community and roots. Speaking as a cis woman who is able to have children (but having none myself), I found the conversation surrounding abortion and reproductive health care in America compelling. Morris’ comments about the struggles to find access to healthcare or abortion for birthing people in such a remote location highlighted a point of intersectionality that is rarely spoken about. I appreciated the raw and open approach to their experience and the, by no means simple, journey to deciding to have the child. The show explored the very real fear of bringing a baby into the world given the political climate of the early 2000s. Horrifyingly, those fears resonated firmly with issues today.

Speaking as a designer, I enjoyed the use of color during a lovely description of the northern lights. Designer Matthew Hallock’s use of moving lights and gobos gave great texture and, when used, helped immerse us further into the plot. The use of voice over, voiced by Kaihinjik Alexander, was a hilarious and nice change of pace, though used sparingly. Adding more voice over could have given the team an opportunity to bring in more collaborators from the community they’re speaking on, giving them a seat at the creative table. There were also a few climactic moments in the piece that could have been supported with sound design to help root the stakes of the moment in tandem with the acting. Riding in a bush plane and canoeing down a river are great canvases for more design elements.

Speaking from an indigenous perspective myself (Tsalagi, Eastern Band, Wolf Clan, & Czech), I personally had some issues with the piece. We’re not a monolith, so other natives may not have taken issue, but I found myself uncomfortable when the main character spoke in a fake native accent. I also found myself wondering why there were traditional seal skin gloves and beadwork on the wall as, at best, decoration with no acknowledgment of their cultural significance and without using them at all. I felt some of the descriptions of the performer’s experiences teetered between eroticism and genuine curiosity, wonder, or respect. There were many moments when real issues facing First Nations could have been discussed but were skimmed over. For example, the title: the crux of the joke was about having to use an outhouse because there was no running water or indoor plumbing, but WHY does this community lack these resources? Not having basic needs in remote areas or on reservations is a huge issue and not delving deeper into the causes makes natives’ lack of access the butt of the joke (pun intended). It’s not for lack of innovation; it’s because of the manufactured poverty and subjugation of native populations by the American government — this should be named. Additionally, the performer mentioned working at a grocery store, but ignored that one of the biggest issues facing Native Alaskans is the price of food and how big companies exploit the lack of options by price gouging. There was talk of fishing and traditional practices, but no acknowledgement of climate impact, overfishing by corporations, or laws against traditional practices being enforced as late as the 70s.

Natives are masterful comedians and can take a joke, often using humor as a coping mechanism, but without cultural, historical, or political context, we become the joke. Using native stories with little context to the why, or without a call to action, feels like a performative land acknowledgment.

There were two moments that I felt were done well, culturally speaking. The first was a comment regarding how a lot of young girls in the tribe would become pregnant and then drop out of school. When it is first mentioned, the tone is purposely judgemental. Later, Kona acknowledges the lack of reproductive care and that people in the tribe were bringing babies into a beautiful and thriving environment, rich with community. The second moment involves the beautiful name of their child being the first name in their native tongue on a birth certificate in 30 years. The erasure of language is a huge issue, and what the story lacked was the WHY. Is it because native languages are banned from use or systematically destroyed in residential schools? I think if you’re going to tell native stories as a non-native person, it’s a fine line between appreciation and using native stories as an interesting prop. I’m sure that wasn’t the intention, but in 2026 we need to go beyond intention and consider impact. I think the show had some beautiful notes of growth. I appreciated the effort to include language while speaking on the warm and welcoming community. I wish there was a native director or consultant on the team.

I understand too that we cannot touch on all the issues, that some moments in life aren’t that serious, that this is Morris’ story from Morris’ perspective, but representation in the arts for indigenous people is so scarce and often our stories are told without us there.

Produced by Joshua Wachs, Pickles and Cheese Productions, New York Fringe Festival, and Under St. Marks present

"How to Poop in an Outhouse at -72°F"
Written and Performed by Kona Morris
Directed by Padraic Lillis
Lighting Design by Matthew Hallock
Voice Over by Kaihinjik Alexander

Performance Dates & Times

Thursday, April 2, 2026 @ 9:50pm
Friday, April 3, 2026 @ 6:30pm
Sunday, April 5, 2026 @ 5:20pm
Saturday, April 11, 2026 @ 12:20pm
Friday, April 17, 2026 @ 8:10pm

Link to tickets:
https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1327/

Kodi Lynn Milburn, dubbed as the "Swiss Army Knife of Theater," embodies a fusion of creativity and activism. As a mixed indigenous neurodivergent queer, Kodi’s artistry resonates with a commitment to justice, harmony with nature, amplifying lost voices, and reflecting contemporary issues, echoing the ethos of the Jester's Privilege. Kodi’s work has been described as “inspired” (Alix Cohen, Women Around Town), “amazing” (Travelanche), “sound designer, Kodi Lynn Milburn deserve(s) much credit for the show’s aesthetic” (David Shengold, Opera News), “lush compositions and evocative soundscapes…a fantastic collaborator: creative, proactive, generous, organized, versatile, and indispensable” (Nathan Davis, Drama Desk Nominated Sound Designer) Cross-discipline credits include: Sylvia Milo’s The Other Mozart (Hong Kong, Edinburgh Fringe, NYC, U.S. Tour, Canadian Tour), Treaty (The Foundry, Middlebury Town Hall Theater), Funny Guy (59e59, London, Edinburgh Fringe), Manon (Irondale Theater), Talking With Angels (TheaterLab), Faust (Baruch Performing Arts), Salome (Irondale Theater), Orgy & Bess (Judson Church), AMP (HERE), Tussaud/Antoinette (IRT), Big Wave (TaDa!, The Tank), Enjoy your Meal (Edinburgh Fringe), Tiffany Caputo (Edinburgh Fringe), Anime-Zing Gameshow! (Edinburgh Fringe), Empty NeXt (TheaterLab), Vice & Virtue (NYTF), My Onliness (The New Ohio), Chess (American Theater for Actors), Bananas (The Rat), Uta Hagen Centennial Salon (Lincoln Center), Heart Strings (Atlantic Theater Co), 7 Magdalenes (Baryshnikov Arts Center, TheaterLab, HERE), Sparkle Spa (BMI), Ewalt & Walker (54 Below), Good Samaritans (The Tank), Ghost Shower (The Tank), Halalish (The Tank), Mary & Max (Bobby Cronin & Crystal Skillman), Voyage en Chanson (National Sawdust), L’autre Mozart (Fringe North, Halifax Fringe), Rhinoceros (Atlantic Acting School) and more. Kodi is a New York Foundation for the Arts Music Fellow. Kodi’s fine art has been featured in partnership with Arts Gowanus and Red Hook Art Project.
Kodi has an album available on all streaming platforms under Kodi the Composer called "Sound the Alarm"! kodilynnmilburn.com IG @heythereitskodi

Theresa Buchheister on Elina and Arseniy Kaplun’s Lunatic presented by Frigid in The New York City Fringe

2026-04-03T23:36:00.002-04:00

Lunatic photo by Maria Filippova

Elina Kaplun is a bit of a time traveling clown, a poetic explorer and a patchwork of influence. Immediate and full disclosure: I have never been to one of Elina’s shows! However, when you know nothing else of a person, a shared inspiration can crack open a communication. In this instance, the shared inspiration was Daniil Kharms. When “Today I Wrote Nothing” came out in 2007, I was a manager in the basement at The Strand and a friend on the first floor called down to my desk and said, “You gotta read this book.” Since then: I met the translator Matvei Yankelevich; directed “An Unsuccessful Play” multiple times (a one-page play where 7 people vomit); curated “LAPA” into my first year at The Brick (a beautiful piece by The Million Underscores that was shutdown after 5 days due to the pandemic) and continue to find motivation in his ideas as I live forward in time. Connecting with Elina, who is presenting her piece “LUNATIC” as part of Frigid Festival, has been a total treat. You will learn much about her in this interview, where we get into the whys and hows of creating absurd, difficult, physical performance in 2026. I hope that something in this back and forth connects with you and pulls you in so that you go experience her show this month!

Theresa: Your practice and the performances you share with audiences weave together a great deal of artistic influences, from absurdist Russian poets to 20th century movement techniques to old timey clown to surrealist visual art. Tell us how you found yourself drawn to these ideas and modes and how you integrate them into your art.

Elina: I've been in love with Russian poetry of the Silver Age since my school time, around 5th grade. It's fun that I'm performing exactly that piece I fell in love with: "Giraffe" by Nilolay Gumilev in "Lunatic". I always had that feeling of mystery of this world and wondered how to figure it out, something that those poets were able to shape into words. Long story short, during my acting study in Russia when I was diving into the Stanislavsky system, I was also joining flash mobs in Moscow. And I loved the absurdity that we were making people think that they are going crazy. This way of communication with the audience when it's not obvious is a coincidence or performance. It was fun and now I'm realizing that it was truly in the style of Kharms and Vvedansky. Later, when we moved to the U.S. I helped my friend to build an art car for Burning Man, sewing shades from a white fabric and my friend turned up some lightning and music. I saw the shades and started to read my favorite poetry, it was a piece by Sasha Chorny. And I realized that I need to turn it into a performance. I always thought that poetry, music, and lighting are connected so beautifully. At this moment I felt how modern this poetry sounds and it gave me a feeling that we are going in a circle again and again with the same questions.

A year later I was sitting in my living room at 3 am. My third kid was about 5 months old, so I was badly sleep deprived. I had about 25 pages of poetry printed and started to read it while listening to music. Then I laughed while watching the hanger remembering Stanislavsky’s quote: “The theater starts with a coat check”. I thought: “Fine, I’ll start from hanger”. I took some Christmas lights, white linen and started to play. And this is how it’s all started.

My huge inspiration by that time was the theater BlackSkyWhite Show and the Snow Show by Slava Polunin. Watching them I realized that I want to explore more about physical theater and movement, so I explored and collected visions and started putting them together. It took me 6 years to complete it and translate it and make an adaptation in English. During that time, I performed in California in Russian for the Russian community.

So, to answer your question, I was collecting for a long time and was just really curious, how to take that feeling from me and bring it out. And of course the poetry itself was my main guidance. Creating my character- Lunatic I realized that he is a clown, so I attended The Clown School in Los Angeles and I was playing with other clowns and found my own there. Practicing 5 Rhythms dance practice for the last 3 years I realized how many things I can process through dance and movement, so it incorporated it as well. And finally. I'm in New York to perform at the Fringe Festival.

Theresa: Thanks so much for this history and inspiration! I feel like it brings so much into the conversation that will draw people into your work. Can you describe the atmosphere of Lunatic and your performances in general? I hear there is no audience interaction, though it seems that’s something that has been of interest in the past.

Elina: Imagine that you have an opportunity to witness someone's night dreams and follow this emotional roller coaster of visions and scenes changing, while it's just lights and music, but it's enough with this electric poetry. We were looking for the right color of lighting for each emotion and the super important part is also about rhythm and voice sounding, it's also changing and not in record, on life.

Lunatic is going through struggles and fear to show up and at the same time it's impossible for him to hide anymore. So he is diving right into the chaos of his mind to figure it out. It was my goal to cross the line between audience and Lunatic. There is interaction, but it's delicate and surrealistic. For the first time it's happening through a fish ( it's a puppet that I created) . So it's the fish meeting the audience and connecting with it, while Lunatic is more like witnessing this process. And the second time is when Lunatic is just going to have a couple of hand contacts to figure out that he wasn't alone all this time, as anyone actually isn't, when we are letting people into our lives.

It is important for me to build this connection with the audience, opening myself up through my character, but not being destructive. I don't want to scare anyone, but to gain their trust.

As I heard once after a performance: "I felt like I watched someone's trip and got an insight from another person, as I would get it by myself". I think it's a great explanation of what I want Lunatic to create for an audience. And while we were translating it with my husband, we spent so much time exhausting each other to find the right vision, because just a straight translation was like cutting half of this incredible world of poetry. More than that during working on this performance our older daughter became a ballet dancer and now she is in her first year of professional training in Joffrey Ballet School. She is dancing the part of the star in Lunatic and it's my pleasure to give her creative freedom of showing up and to watch her dancing on the stage. I'm sure it's not gonna be for a long time though while she is dreaming of traveling the world as a dancer. So this is another precious detail of this Lunatic story for me. Like a dream, that can't be scary and chaotic, but catching attention and bringing relief.

Lunatic, photo by Konstantin Plotnikov

Theresa: That is a fascinating way to approach connection with the audience. I am curious, what have you found most challenging about this style of performance and the presence it demands? What has been the most rewarding?

Elina: That's the hardest question, you know! But it's easy to answer: I found that questioning myself for a really long time was the most challenging part. "Am I good enough?" While we were in the process of adapting my performance to English. I met the wonderful actor Areg. He had the same acting master as I had back in Moscow, and after, he got his degree in NYFilm Academy. So Areg helped me a lot to find more instruments in my acting and by the end of our work he gave me a certificate: "You are the actor! Stop questioning yourself!" But to be honest, I think it's pretty normal for human beings. In general I am just trying to do my best to bring my truth as I'm feeling it. In some way I'm that Lunatic, just trying to look normal, while I have three kids to take care of in normal life.

The most rewarding part is to meet someone from the audience after the performance, who is trying to give me feedback and is just crying. Usually it's one person. This is how I understand: great! Another Lunatic that heard that he is not alone. Because I've been there, in this crisis, where it seems that you are laying in the dust and just can't move.

Theresa: Is there anything that you and/or Lunatic cannot imagine doing onstage? Anything you hope to do some day onstage?

Elina: When I started to work on this performance, I originally wanted it to be about 5 lunatics who are completely disconnected and don’t notice each other until they figure out that they were together all this time.

I’m looking for my people to create this together. It's my big dream. I felt that this kind of connection between people is something that we are losing nowadays, but we need it so much. And I would love to make this story about Lunatic bigger.

I love to explore more about theatre, experimental and physical, immersive theatre. "Sleep no more" was a mind blowing experience. I wish I could create something like this, but like an open air experience. I visited Yellow Mill near Paris, an Art Residence by Slava Polunin and I fell in love with that place. It's amazing how powerful art and theatre might be when it's connected with nature and the line between audience and performers disappears. So I'm an open book and this was a huge part of the reason why we moved to New York from California recently.

Theresa: So much inspiration and artist experiences can be viewed at different times in life as “hitting different”. Like, it meant a lot to you but when you found out how the sausage was made, you ponder whether it was worth it. Do you feel that way about any of your training or shows you feel are formative to you?

Elina: I'm trying to keep my answers short, but it looks like It's not going to happen! As I mentioned before, my huge inspiration definitely was "The Snow Show" by Slava Polunin. There is a book that he wrote called "Alchemy of Snowness" about how he created his show. It's on my bookshelves and I always come back to it. I was lucky to actually meet Slava in his residence and speak with him. And not only his answers, but his energy, how open and down to earth he was, being a real legend in conversation with me impressed me. I realized that most incredible creators act simple and humane.

The Clown School by David Bridel definitely was formative. I went there and spent all of my time being awkward and dealing with it right in front of the audience. David's guidance and the way how careful he was put me in my child's mind, like 5 years old, when you are reacting before thinking how it looks or how it'll be judged. This freedom of being awkward and actually having fun out of it changed me and my artist vision.

Of course Burning Man made a huge influence on me. Every time there I was part of some art and creative team. I saw how people can actually create whatever they imagine in the middle of nowhere together. How this city covered by dust might give a feeling to everyone who is looking for it: you are here, you are enough and you are at home. And what it's given to people, how they open up, like butterflies. It taught me that if you are giving it from your soul no matter how hard it might be, it will be heard and seen.

I mentioned The BlackSkyWhite Show before. Marchella and Dima opened this unbelievable world of physical theatre for me. Just like; "here is the door, follow us."

Poetry itself. For the last five years I was diving deeper and deeper. And while history made its own circle and I actually see this turnout of repressions and it's the dark time, I understand what they were writing about not from my mind, but from my heart. I felt it with my body.

5 Rhythms practice - is another thing. When I realized that dancing in waves, connecting with my body, letting emotions go away with the movement and having catharsis out of it is such a huge experience and part of me, I learned to speak with movement. Not like a professional dancer, who has a stunning body and doing incredible movements, but as a human being, who is beautiful in his imperfections.

But the biggest thing is about my family. As you can see, it became a family project and it wouldn't have happened without support and involvement by my husband. It's a huge influence on my kids also. Being a mom of three I'm always thinking: am I true to myself right now?

Theresa: Thank you so much, Elina. I have loved getting to go back and forth with you. I hope I get to see you perform in the near future!

"Lunatic"

By Playwright Elina and Arseniy Kaplun

Directed by Elina Kaplun

Cast: Elina Kaplun, Uliana Kaplun

Designers and again - Elina and Arseniy Kaplun

Performance schedule date and times - April 5 - 5 p.m., April 6 - 7:40 p.m., April 11 - 5:20 p.m., April 18 - 2 p.m., April 19 - 5:20

Runtime: 45 minutes

Web Link to tickets - https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1376/6897:7595/

photo by Sergey Sterling

Elina Kaplun is a multidisciplinary artist, actor, and director working across physical theatre, clowning, and visual art. Trained in Moscow at the Institute of Russian Theatre, with additional training at The Clown School Los Angeles, she brings together Stanislavsky’s psychological approach and Meyerhold’s biomechanics with dance, poetry, and immersive performance.

In California, she performed Chekhov in Russian theatre and directed The Cherry Orchard with a young ensemble at West Performing Arts, creating the set and visual environment as part of her practice.

Her work explores visibility, vulnerability, and the tension between belonging and isolation, combining precise physical language with poetic imagery.

Her current work LUNATIC has been performed at festivals including Burning Man and within Russian-speaking theatre communities. LUNATIC marks her NYC Fringe debut.

photo by Walter Wlodarczyk

April 2026 Listings Guide

2026-03-30T12:53:00.002-04:00

CHECK OUT THESE FRINGE SHOWS! (SPONSORED)

Apr 1st-Apr 6th

The Meeting

New York City Fringe

Tickets $27.50

The Chain Theatre's Chain Studio, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10018

Five former performing artists convene a meeting in a fascist near-future, when all forms of art (and even the utterance of any art-related words) have been banned, lest you risk incurring state-sponsored violence from the “Boot Crews.” Their “official” purpose: to discuss important matters of the day; namely what a person is to do in a world when one’s purpose in life has been eradicated. But over time they prove that even the most fascist, controlling society can never stop people from being who they truly are. Come to The Meeting. Careful what you say.

Apr 1st-Apr 13th

Apoloholics: Based On True Stories of People Who Apologize Too Much

New York City Fringe

Tickets $20 In-Person, $10 Livestream

The Chain Theatre's Main Stage, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10018

Apoloholics is a heartfelt and humorous exploration of people who have spent their lives apologizing for simply existing. What happens when they try to reclaim their voices? Through a series of witty, poignant, and relatable stories inspired by real-life experiences, the play confronts the hidden cost of self-doubt while celebrating the journey toward self-acceptance. Perfect for anyone who's ever said "I'm sorry" a few too many times. Written by life-long apoloholic, Mary Corigliano.

The cast features Marguerite A. Boone, Mary Corigliano, Gabby Franco Ferro, Blair Tate, and Zack Watson. The creative team includes Nora Alexander (Director), Mary Corigliano (Writer and Producer), and Caitlin Malczon (Stage Manager).

Poster by Clarita De Gennaro

Apr 2nd-Apr 18th

Thoughts & Prayers

New York City Fringe

Tickets $35

The Chain Theatre's Main Stage, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10018

In a society benumbed by senseless tragedy, survivors of an act of mass violence struggle with the ritualized return to normalcy. Thoughts & Prayers developed and written collaboratively by The Antigone Project is a theatrical experience that confronts teen isolation, recognition, and gun violence wrapped in a red, white, and blue veneer.

The cast will feature Clarita De Gennaro, Maddy Kelly, Jeann-Mykul Bowen, Cato Crumbley, Paige Hapeman, Barbara Moreno, Niarra Bell, and Dustin Bussman.

Apr 4th-Apr 19th

Perra Puta Loca Bruja

New York City Fringe

Tickets $17.50-$22.50

The Chain Theatre's Chain Studio, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10018

One mouthy mujer. A thousand ancestors. All the fire. This isn’t just a show, it’s an ancestral reckoning. In this ritual-infused solo performance, Vanessa Codorniu transforms four incendiary archetypes: Perra, Puta, Loca, and Bruja (Bitch, Whore, Crazy, Witch) as represented by her ancestors into a live theatrical journey through identity, lineage, and reclamation.

Honoring roots that trace from Africa, Indigenous lands in Argentina, Spain and NYC, Vanessa weaves equal parts humor, folklore, and embodied storytelling, Perra Puta Loca Bruja untangles the stories we’re told about women, culture, and power and weaves them back together with defiant joy and unflinching honesty. Part memoir, part ceremony, and all heart, this work invites audiences into a shared encounter where laughter becomes clarity, and ancestral voices refuse to stay quiet.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Apr 1st-Apr 19th

New York City Fringe Festival

**Fringe shows in this listings guide are marked "New York City Fringe"**

The New York City Fringe Festival is an open lottery-based theater festival that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in an environment that values freedom of expression and artistic determination. In true support of the Indie Theater Community, 100% of box office proceeds go directly to the artists whose work is being presented.

Apr 1st-Apr 4th

How to Become a Saint (while wearing pants)

New York City Fringe

Tickets $7-$35

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Trans saints! Queer Angels! Cake! How to Become a Saint (while wearing pants) uses clown and physical theater to celebrate the queerness of sainthood. Who gets to be a saint? What narratives do we choose to celebrate? And how does cake taste so good?

Apr 1st-Apr 17th

The Follower

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Chain Studio, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

A disillusioned young woman becomes obsessed with an aloof classmate. She begins studying his life and dismantling her own. Imitation becomes a twisted form of intimacy, as she remakes herself in his image in hopes of becoming worthy of his attention. What begins as an innocent fantasy of self-improvement spirals into an uncontrollable fixation, threatening to leave them both exposed.

Apr 1st-Apr 17th

The Last Audition

New York City Fringe

Tickets $22

The Chain Mainstage, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

A once-celebrated Shakespearean actor returns to an empty stage for a final audition. Wry, intimate, and emotionally charged, this darkly funny solo play explores memory, aging, and the fierce need to remain seen. A poignant love letter to theatre, resilience, and the courage to keep going.

Apr 1st-Apr 18th

Online & Personal

New York City Fringe

Tickets $10-$20

The Rat NYC, 68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Paige Lerman cites the dangers of loving online -- She finds herself stuck in a personal haunted house of boredom, mediocrity, and virginity until one day she decides to brave the real world. In this dark and comedic retelling of an online queer love story, we explore loneliness, trauma and redemption. Content Awareness: mental health & SA

Apr 1st-Apr 25th

Bent Through Glass

Tickets $59

30th Street Theater, 259 West 30th Street, New York, NY 10001

Equally heart-breaking, raw, and hopeful, Bent Through Glass is a father’s chronicle detailing the loss of his daughter by suicide. As he navigates through the remnants with his surviving family, his story raises awareness while depicting the redemptive properties of love. Drawing on his background as an actor and comedian, Koltchak threads moments of wry, unexpected humor that arise naturally from the depths of his grief.

Apr 2nd-Apr 15th

Our Price to Pay

New York City Fringe

Tickets $15-pay what you can

Under St Marks Theater, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

Long-distance lovers, Ellie and Sylvia, are savoring their last moments together in Sylvia’s new apartment on the fourth-of-July (of all holidays) in Dallas, Texas before they find themselves launched into the zombie apocalypse. The virus, however, seems to only be infecting those who consume conservative media outlets. They seek shelter in Sylvia's parents' basement, but before they can, they are intercepted by Sylvia’s conservative family. The couple are then forced to endure a celebratory barbecue with them, and in the process, also have a front-row seat to the zombification of the Jones family. As the family transforms, they reveal more and more their true feelings about what makes a "good American". They all break bread, allowing us to gain insight into the mindsets of conservatives, the turmoil of being a queer person in a conservative family, and the power of queer resilience.

Apr 2nd-Apr 16th

Book Club

New York City Fringe

Tickets $22.50-$27.50

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Five friends meet for a book club. Did anybody read the book? Someone’s cheating. Someone’s going broke pretending to be ethical. Someone’s about to scream. Set in one Brooklyn living room over one messy night, "Book Club" is a dark comedy about female friendship, curated lives, and the quiet violence of pretending you’re fine.

Apr 2nd-Apr 17th

How to Poop in an Outhouse at -72°F

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25-pay what you can

Under St Marks Theater, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

Award winning storyteller Kona Morris tells the astonishing and hilarious true story of how, at 19-years-old, she fell in love with a Native Alaskan and drove him home to northern Alaska, where she lived in a remote village north of the Arctic Circle for 5 years, surviving grizzly bears and subzero weather, while learning invaluable lessons from his tribe and becoming a young mother. From wolves to whirlpools, this is a humorous adventure tale about our ability to adapt, transform, and sometimes use an outhouse when it's really cold outside.

Apr 2nd-Apr 18th

Becoming Psychic

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Rat NYC, 68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

A skeptic begins having psychic experiences and is forced to confront a terrifying possibility: she might be losing her mind. After accidentally meditating on vacation, Gada Jane finds herself talking to statues, consulting the DSM-5, and doing psychic readings. Becoming Psychic is a darkly funny solo show about doubt, belief, and the cultural line between insight and insanity.

Apr 2nd-Apr 18th

The Third Choice

New York City Fringe

Tickets $27.50

The Rat NYC, 68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

The Third Choice chronicles therapist-comedian Tahir “Tai” Chatur’s journey through identity and belonging, shaped by a lifelong reluctance to choose. From rural Kenya to even more rural Canada, this solo show blends stand-up, storytelling, and therapy, walking with you through culture, faith, and the exhausting life of a chronic yes-man.

Apr 2nd-Apr 18th

Your Love Isn't Love

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Chain, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY, 10018

Two men. One apartment. A love story that refuses to behave. When private erotic roleplay begins to spiral into something darker, Gio must decide whether he is loving his partner — or enabling his destruction. Set in 1990s New York, Your Love Isn’t Love is an intimate and unsettling look at queer shame, desire, and the fragile line between intimacy and annihilation.

Apr 2nd-Apr 25th

Ismael Loutfi: Heavenly Baba

Tickets $40

SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam St, New York, NY 10013

Heavenly Baba explores Ismael Loutfi’s relationship with his deeply religious immigrant father — affectionately known as “Baba,” and chronicles Baba’s attempt to convert the entire state of Florida to Islam by painting Islamic slogans all over his car. A nuanced discussion on identity, self-discovery, and belonging, Heavenly Baba examines the contradictions of growing up Muslim in America, and invites audiences into a world shaped by devotion, contradiction, and generational love.

Apr 3rd

Whiskey Flicks Live!

Tickets $13

Torn Page, 435 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011

Whiskey Flicks Live! is an unscripted, booze-infused, deep dive into film with Michael Niederman and Daniel McCoy. Whiskey Flicks Live! is an unscripted, booze-infused, deep dive into film. Every performance, Daniel shows Michael a unique series of themed movie clips, and Michael responds with improvised comedy and critique. Michael doesn't know what Daniel's gonna play; Daniel doesn't know what Michael's gonna say, and the audience is along for the ride! Each performance of Whiskey Flicks Live! is a unique experience for both audience and performers, as we draw on a century of cinema to delve into how we live now, to reflect on how art reflects life (and vice versa), and to remember why we fell in love with the movies in the first place.

Apr 3rd-Apr 11th

Crosswords

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Chain Mainstage, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

Gene and Val’s perfect life shatters when a serial killer’s coded note appears in their morning paper. When they decide to try and solve it, they start to unravel their own marriage instead.

Apr 3rd-Apr 12th

There's Something Seriously Wrong With Cyrus

New York City Fringe

Tickets $20

The Chain Theatre, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY, 10018

A one-person comedy about growing up queer in an immigrant household and learning how to tell the truth without losing your sense of humor. Blending stand-up, storytelling, and pop anthems inspired by Madonna and Taylor Swift, Cyrus revisits family pressure, identity, and self-acceptance, turning personal history into a funny, disarmingly honest shared experience about finding your voice and living unapologetically.

Apr 3rd-Apr 16th

A Baby For Me? No Thank You, Please!

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25-pay what you can

The Rat NYC, 68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

When everyone in her life pressured Bailey to have a baby, she spent a lot of time questioning, researching and agonizing over what was wrong with her—until she found the answer, literally inside of her—at the gyno's office.

Apr 3rd-Apr 19th

Walter Schlinger's Romeo and Juliet

New York City Fringe

Tickets $20

The Rat NYC, 68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Walter Schlinger stands alone in an infinite green field. The world's favorite love story is dissected in this meta-theatrical solo performance, reckoning with ideas of youth, tragedy, & validation.

Apr 4th

Hide

Tickets $20-$25

Howland Cultural Center, 477 Main Street, Beacon, NY 12508

What happens when one man dares to speak the truth his community refuses to face? HIDE, a searing new one-person play written and performed by Jeffrey Doornbos—a longtime member of the internationally renowned Blue Man Group—confronts that question head-on. In an era when silence often feels safer than conviction, HIDE examines the personal toll of courage—and the uneasy boundary between righteousness and recklessness.

through Apr 4th

The Bat

Tickets $37.25-$42.42

New Stage Performance Space, 36 West 106th Street, New York, NY 10025

In a kindergarten changing room a rubber bat vanishes into thin air, igniting suspicion and resentment among parents. As mutual distrust and resentment are lead bare, what unfolds is a tale of family and community life that is both humorous and heartbreaking, familiar and unsettling. Within the most quotidian of settings, "The Bat" offers a layered portrait of contemporary Hungarian society.

Apr 4th-Apr 14th

All The Rage

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Rat NYC, 68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

The righteous breakdown every woman needs. An indoctrination and irreverent comedy about female rage; Comedian Venessa Peruda punches through patriarchal propaganda and reframes female rage. Pop culture characters and sketches expose the infuriating and hilarious realities of being a woman that will make you scream. Venessa goes even further to demonstrate how anger and humor are linked, sharing a trick that will reduce your urge to castrate men on a weekly basis.

Apr 4th-Apr 17th

Bride to Be

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Following her acclaimed 5-star solo debut How to Give Up On Your Dreams, Meg Millane returns to the stage with Bride to Be — a razor-sharp comedy about wedding planning, family pressure, and the immense cultural baggage of “I do.” Is she planning her dream wedding, or redefining it?

Apr 4th-Apr 17th

Fever Dream TV

New York City Fringe

Tickets $20

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Fever Dream TV is a surrealist one man show from Nikolai Phalen that combines stand up comedy with absurdist character study to create a hilarious reflection on the meaning of creating in the face of nihilistic circumstance. In FDTV, Nikolai performs his stand up show only to be interrupted by a god-like figure who appears to be connected to the worlds oldest dog and for some reason Jennifer Coolidge. Fever Dream TV is queer pop cultural reference through the paradigms of Camusian Philosophy— in the words of Camus, “One must imagine Sisyphus as a gay guy named Nikolai, and his boulder as a comedy show called Fever Dream TV at wild project from April 1st-April 18th”. As part of its run 15% of ticket sales will be donated to the IDP (Immigrant Defense Project) which is doing valuable work in the nyc community.

Apr 4th-Apr 17th

The Total Veronica Experience

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Rat NYC, 68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

The Total Veronica Experience is a richly-layered and hilarious dialogue between life and the afterlife, highlighting the enduring human need for connection and purpose, and sometimes….bacon.

Apr 4th-Apr 19th

did you charge your phone for the end of the world?

New York City Fringe

Tickets $15

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

The year is 2034. A city-demolishing asteroid is heading straight for Brooklyn. Rather than alerting the public to the impending catastrophe, the government delays the announcement until a boutique advertising agency can devise a suitably “positive” rebrand for the calamitous space rock. In a culture obsessed with optics, messaging, and spin, did you charge your phone for the end of the world? skewers the absurdity of image management in the face of existential threat, blending sharp satire with Infinite Monkey’s signature absurdist edge.

Apr 4th-Apr 19th

House of Waffle

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25-pay what you can

The Chain Mainstage, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

Some traditions are sacred, born of those most important moments in our lives. Some are worth FIGHTING FOR. Bringing Reddit's viral Waffle House “Runny Eggs Incident" to life in all its epic and outrageous glory, Brooklyn Action Theater invites you to enter..."HOUSE OF WAFFLE"

through Apr 5th

Henrik Ibsen's Doll House

Tickets $15-$20

Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, New York, NY 10003

In Ibsen's 1879 drama, Nora Helmer, a devoted mother and wife of a bank manager, has secretly borrowed money to save the life of her husband, Torvald, by forging the signature of her dying father on a loan guarantee. When the lender, a man named Krogstad, threatens exposure, Nora confronts the fragility of her marriage and Torvald’s patronizing attitudes toward her. As Torvald reacts with anger, sanctimony and self-interest, Nora realizes she has been treated like a “doll” her whole life. Determined to understand herself and the world independently, she makes the shocking choice to leave her husband and children, walking out in search of autonomy.

through Apr 5th

Monte Cristo

Tickets $29-$79

Theatre at St. Jean's, 150 East 76th Street, New York, NY 10021

Monte Cristo tells the epic story of a man wrongfully imprisoned who returns richer, wiser, and bent on vengeance. But as his carefully orchestrated plan unfolds, he must face the ultimate question: is justice enough without love?

Apr 5th-Apr 14th

Echoes of My Silence

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Chain Mainstage, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

On a flight from Germany to the U.S., a female pilot triggers Azadeh’s reckoning with a life shaped by patriarchal norms. Through her memories, she confronts the silence that has defined her beliefs about gender, power, and herself. The play was praised by critics at the 2025 Toronto Fringe Festival. Written and performed by Azadeh Kangaran.

Apr 5th-Apr 15th

Portia and Ellen

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

Under St Marks Theater, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

Real life cousins play real life wives, Portia and Ellen, in a fictional imagining of the final days of Ellen's daytime talk show. A theatrical fever dream about marriage, cancel culture, and the limits of personal growth. Part of NYC Fringe.

Apr 5th-Apr 17th

CHIP ON HER SHOULDER

New York City Fringe

Tickets $18-$30

The Chain Studio, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

Single, Snacking, and Struggling: A Play About Chips, Comfort, and Coping. Angela has just moved to New York, chasing Broadway dreams between double nursing shifts. She’s messy, funny, and painfully self-aware. She's salty at life, love...and herself. Spiralling through sex, grief, ambition and a chip for every crisis, this is a sharp, heartfelt exploration of how we cope. If you’ve ever turned to carbs instead of people, welcome home.

Apr 5th-Apr 17th

Extra Dry

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

Under St Marks Theater, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

MJ dives headfirst into a chaotic and destructive romance with alcohol, driven by a deep need for validation. As her nights spiral and the blackouts escalate, the stories she collects become her legacy – memorable to others, but hazy or even nonexistent to herself. Join Michelle Renee Johnson as she takes us into these dark and sometimes dangerous moments, leaving us to question: is it better to be remembered, even if the memories are unflattering? Or is it best to fade into obscurity? Directed by O’Neill finalist, Lila Rachel Becker.

Apr 5th-Apr 18th

Crushed Velvet

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Crushed Velvet is a camp-soaked, razor-sharp satire set on the crumbling set of Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. Part backstage farce, part cultural autopsy, it revels in glittering spectacle while exposing the messy underbelly of celebrity, queerness, and the absurd pursuit of perfection.

Apr 5th-Apr 19th

Lunatic

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Chain Mainstage, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

"Lunatic” is a delightful mix of poetry, music and physical theatre (clowning). Absurdity and surreality, visions and images, despair and hope, sadness and happiness all come together in this performance as in our life. Inspired by Russian poetry of the early 20th century. Although written a century ago, this poetry is absolutely present-days and reflects our lives perfectly: search for destiny, the pain of not fitting in society, the desire to connect with the universe, the fear of being honest, and the courage to be ourselves.

Apr 5th-Apr 19th

Off the Record: Acts of Restorative Justice

Tickets $10.50-$126

HERE, Mainstage Theatre, 145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013, US

The world premiere of Off the Record: Acts of Restorative Justice is a participatory theatrical intervention aimed at the American Criminal Justice System, and an offering for those with active criminal records to have a free consultation with criminal justice attorneys.

Apr 6th-May 11th

I AM NOBODY

Tickets $25

The Magnet Theater, 254 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001

Apr 7th-Apr 15th

The Sexiest Man Alive

New York City Fringe

Tickets $15

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

The Sexiest Man Alive is a musical-comedy tale of intrigue, betrayal, journalism and very, very sexy men. Once you see the real sexiest man alive, you'll wonder why John Krasinski was ever born.

Apr 7th-Apr 18th

White as Snow

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

The Chain Studio, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

Blending spoken word, music, and storytelling, White As Snow charts the journey of a Queer eldest immigrant daughter coming home to herself. Rose-Ingrid Benjamin's powerful solo performance charts their journey from altar to aftermath, inviting us to reckon with who we become after all our idols come crashing down.

Apr 7th-Apr 19th

Slut Liturgy

New York City Fringe

Tickets $7.50-25

The Chain Mainstage, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

Slut Liturgy is a one hour solo show written and performed by Hope Brannon and directed by Max Kantor. It follows both Hope’s time in an intensive outpatient program and with religious bipolar mania. Crude and genuine, funny and chaotic, Slut Liturgy invites you to crash out with the manic Antichrist, smoke cigarettes with she-god, and do whatever else Hope’s delusions want.

Apr 8th-Apr 11th

THIS USED TO BE GAY/below 14th Street

Tickets $30-$45

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St, New York, NY 10002

A historically personal sit-down walking tour written & performed by Moe Angelos of The Five Lesbian Brothers & The Builders Association. This new work traces a Lower Manhattan daisy chain from the 1960’s secretive twilight world of the 'introvert' to the 21st century’s married-with-children 'legit' queer lifestyle by examining places past & present that used to be gay.

Apr 8th-Apr 19th

The Startup

Tickets $15

The Flea Theater, 20 Thomas St, New York, NY 10007

The Startup is a comedic musical about a tech CEO scrambling to save his company while exploring social media, data, and hustle with an interactive kazoo app experience by OutSnapped.

Apr 9th-Apr 12th

Origami Night

Tickets $15 with code ORIGAMI; $50 full price

Target Margin Theater, 232 52nd St, Brooklyn, NY 11220

A multidisciplinary journey through a woman’s life, from working-class Navy brat to radical feminist to mother. At its core lies the poetry of Pamela Annas, a Boston-based writer and educator. Co-created by the poet’s son Christopher Annas-Lee and Oregon-based choreographer Graham Cole, performed by Elenaluisa Alvarez.

Apr 9th-Apr 18th

1 Small Lie

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

In a knuckle-biting story of humor, horror, & suspense, a family man robs a thief of a ton of money. Set to music.

Apr 9th-Apr 26th

FLO

Tickets $15-$20

Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue, New York, NY 10003

Can you double-cross the devil? The question is answered in “Flo” by Toby Armour, a fantastical, philosophical comedy that follows the restless journey of an elderly widow, Flo Weinberg, who lives alone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Feeling that her life has amounted to little, she confides her regrets to a mysterious longtime companion, Max, who offers her a Faustian bargain: if she sells him her soul, he will grant her youth, beauty, fame and any desire she can imagine. But when the time comes to pay up, Flo has other ideas.

Apr 10th-Apr 18th

How I Learned (NOT) To Drive

New York City Fringe

Tickets $25-pay what you can

Under St Marks Theater, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

This solo show, directed by Indie Theatre Hall of Fame director Padraic Lillis, deals with the very true story of a 40-year-old Florida man overcoming his lifelong fear of the open road and getting his driver’s license in a desperate attempt to save his marriage. It’s like a live-action version of the Fast & Furious, but funnier, more anxious, and only 60 minutes.

Apr 11th-Apr 19th

The Village Cidiot

New York City Fringe

Tickets $20

The Chain Studio, 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018

In The Village Cidiot a dyed-in-the-wool Manhattanite loses her big corporate job and moves, reluctantly, to a tiny upstate town where there’s no Chinese take-out, no dry cleaner, and the nearest Starbucks is an hour away. Will her city skills be any match for rural reality, or will marauding bears, a bad septic, and hostile locals who call her a “Cidiot” finish her off first? A heartfelt journey about navigating life’s disruptions with humor, compassion, and tick repellant.

through Apr 12th

PLAN C

Tickets $28-$53

The TANK, 312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018

PLAN C is a darkly funny, time-collapsing caper of resistance, relationships, and rebellion. In 1620 Brussels, imperial postmistress Alexandrine Von Taxis moves more than mail through the empire’s hands during The Thirty Years’ War. In present-day West Virginia, Charley Gibson runs her family’s hardware store, where lockers conceal more than tools. As 17th-century espionage collides with a small-town network, PLAN C exposes how rebellion takes shape. PLAN C flips between two eras to bring history and the present into dynamic conversation with movement, original music, and ensemble-driven storytelling. This nine-person ensemble uses Hook & Eye’s signature devising style, to bring to life a story that reflects the urgency of the present moment.

through Apr 12th

Uncle Vanya, scenes from country life

Tickets $10-$100

La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 E. 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

Krymov has never staged Uncle Vanya. But now, as the world burns with despair, longing, and betrayal, it is time for the Lab to take up Chekhov’s masterpiece, transforming it into a grotesque elegy, a wasteland vaudeville. An international collective of actors, designers, musicians, puppeteers, and producers, Krymov Lab NYC is a new American company led by Dmitry Krymov and a Resident Company of La MaMa ETC, dedicated to creating dynamic, heartfelt, visually stunning theater that breaks traditional theatrical boundaries with every surprising turn.

Apr 13th-Apr 19th

Four Stupid Terrorists

New York City Fringe

Tickets $18 (streaming)-$25 (in person)

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

A new political comedy by Emily Andrews is making its debut as a part of FRIGID New York’s 2026 Fringe Festival. “Four Stupid Terrorists” follows chemistry students and friends Emily, Tyler, Lydia, and Dylan who are all fed up with commiserating about the world around them. The four band together to save the world and decide that terrorism is the best way to do it. The only problem is they’re all easily distracted and have no idea what they’re doing.

Apr 15th-May 3rd

CUMULO

Tickets $30

MITU580, 580 Sackett St Unit A - Ground Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Apr 17th-Apr 25th

Angelic Architectures

Tickets $21.80-$53

Abrons Arts Center, Experimental Theater, 466 Grand Street, New York, NY 10002

Angelic Architectures is a powerful dance play, developed by Symara Sarai during their Abrons Performance AIRspace residency, that showcases the inner anarchy of Black queer femininity. Featuring three dancers and a musician, the show blends movement, sound, and improvisational scores to explore desire, autonomy, and one’s full range of emotion.

Apr 18th-Apr 29th

The Unusual Chauncey Faust

Tickets $20-$40

The Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012

Following a sold-out engagement last August as part of the playwrights’ competition 15 Minutes of Frame, THE UNUSUAL CHAUNCEY FAUST by New York indie theatre playwright Coni Koepfinger was selected from more than 100 plays and went on to win the final competition by popular vote, earning first place. The original 15-minute one-act was awarded the opportunity to be developed into a full-length work. Now, by popular demand, THE UNUSUAL CHAUNCEY FAUST returns to the Gene Frankel Theatre stage. Set in the present, THE UNUSUAL CHAUNCEY FAUST centers on Chauncey Faust, an actor who senses that time is slipping away. From the beginning of his career, Chauncey has felt driven by a purpose beyond ambition or recognition. His relationship to his work — and to his own life — carries a dreamlike quality, shaped by a persistent sense of calling that sets him apart.

Apr 20th-May 3rd

Fresh Fruit Festival

Tickets $23

wild project, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Apr 22nd-May 9th

You & Me

Tickets $30-$100

The Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at The A.R.T./New York Theatres, 502 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019

Chloe's twin sister Delilah was responsible for a school shooting. Delilah's girlfriend, Mackenzie, survived the attack. When Chloe and Mackenzie cross paths, an unexpected bond forms.

Apr 23rd-May 17th

Love Story

Tickets $28-$53

The Tank, 312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018

Apr 23rd-May 17th

The Bad Daters

Tickets $35-$55

Paradise Factory, 64 East 4th Street New York, NY 10003

Liam is looking for someone special, Wendy is looking for anyone but him. What happens when the last thing you’re looking for is exactly what you find?

Apr 24th-May 10th

The Door Slams, A Glass Trembles

Tickets $10-$40

La MaMa Downstairs, 6 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

Apr 29th-May 16th

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT

Tickets on sale March 31

The Bushwick Starr, 419 Eldert St, Brooklyn, NY 11237

through Jun 14th

Feltman: World's First Hot Dog

Tickets $40

The Chain, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY, 10018

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Calf Scramble: an Interview with Playwright Libby Carr, by Winter Miller

2026-03-22T17:01:00.012-04:00

Elisa Tarquinio, Marvelyn Ramirez, Gabriela Veciana, Maaike Laanstra-Corn and Ferin Bergen
in Primary Stages's CALF SCRAMBLE by Libby Carr. Photo by James Leynse

It’s very possible that you, dear reader, know more than I do about Texas SensationTM Libby Carr because I don’t know anything about Libby Carr. Permit me to backtrack to the fall of 2024. I don’t mean the fall of 2024 as in, this is the year that fell, but let’s face it, 2024 was a fallen year. I first heard of their play Calf Scramble over a year ago when a cool TA I had at Boston University, Shalee Cole-Mauleon said she was super into it, and I think Shalee has good taste. I’ve only seen them in photos, but I do like Libby Carr’s mullet and while that isn’t the most interesting thing about them it is a fine-looking cut. As their bio will tell you, they are a “writer and dance artist from Houston, TX who uses rhythmic specificity, movement spectacle, and visual imagination to celebrate queer and trans community.” I like to celebrate the queer and trans community, so this sounds like just the play for me. I like calves too. The ones on a farm and the ones behind our shins. What I am also very curious about is that Libby is an only child raised by three teachers. The three teachers part is cool, like, that sounds like 24/7/365 home school. I am hoping the play reveals if all three teachers lived in the same house (juicy), or if someone added a lover (also juicy), or if, like my parents, they divorced and a new person came on the scene. If this scenario was a high stakes poker game, I would lose, because I was raised by two therapists and an activist, and Carr trumps by being with a trio of teachers. This is also known as a full house of teachers outside of poker tourneys. The final piece of information I’ve learned that I’d like to share today is that their favorite part of the rodeo is mutton busting. I don’t know what that is, but I know that mutton chops are a beard style, so by deductive reasoning, mutton busting is when you shave your chops and people make fun of your underneath cheeks. Or what some people just refer to as cheeks. This is not relevant to the play, but I once waited tables at a fine dining establishment (Zagat #1 y’all, which was like an app for dining that came in a narrow book that people actually paid to own). My point is, the chef served beef cheeks and customers always thought they were being sly when they would say, “That’s the butt, right?” and I would say, “Wrong.” I am writing this before I see Libby Carr’s show, and were I writing it after I saw the show, I’d be a lot more focused on the topic at hand. But my first question is a spoiler so get psyched.

Winter Miller: Hi there, it’s nice to not have met you yet, but to be asking you some questions about yourself. If you want to skip one and write your own to ask yourself, I’m cool with that. A review on NPX celebrated the girls turning into calves. Is that a spoiler or do you want to shed some light on what that stage direction or dialogue is that indicates that change?

Libby Carr: Not a spoiler at all!

Before this play existed, when I had just started writing a single scene about a girl working on a project heifer in FFA, I knew I wanted weight and tension between two bodies — girl and calf. Because I come from a dance background, the most immediate answer to the question of what can look and feel like a calf that also has weight and tension was the body! It was also the option that provided the most space to explore metaphor (I love how any doubling in a play tells a new story on top of the story), and it didn’t involve any additional physical material (scrappy, scrappy).

Throughout the play, the calf/human shifts are marked like this:

VIVVY shoots out of the group and throws herself at ANNA LEE

As VIVVY wraps her arms around ANNA LEE’s torso, ANNA LEE becomes VIVVY’S CALF

VIVVY pushes the calf into the dirt

A note at the beginning of CALF SCRAMBLE, actually the very first words of the play, reads “The girls always become calves through movement — the human exercises power over the calf and transforms her.” CALF SCRAMBLE is a play that’s ostensibly about FFA, but it’s actually a play about power and punishment and what it means to be good. The calf/human transformations actualize a lot of that.

WM: What was the very first image you had come to you where you said, I think this is a play, I’m going to check out that hunch? Going as far back as you need to get to the source.

LC: Thinking again about tension and weight, images like this really started this play for me:

The “cow body” element of the play felt pretty clear to me from very early writing. It became very clear — and quite deeply felt — in collaboration with Caitlin, Hannah Garner (movement director) and Crista Marie Jackson (fight and intimacy director).

Ferin Bergen and Marvelyn Ramirez
inPrimary Stages's CALF SCRAMBLE by Libby Carr
photo by James Leynse

WM: Is your moniker of dance artist always engaged in your play making approach?

LC: If you were to ask “engaged” as in “does my work always involve dance” or “am I the one always building the movement in my work,” I would say no.

But I do feel like dance and being a dance artist is always engaged in my play making in the sense that my work feels very bodily — I write for theater because I am interested in language as action, in writing for embodiment. I like to write plays with a rhythm and musicality that I think came from dance. I like to contribute to the movement and staging in my work, and I think my brain works better when my body is engaged. I also believe making a play is a group project! Being engaged in a movement practice has helped me understand collaboration, and to know when to compromise and how to get creative towards a goal.

WM: If you could alter three aspects of contemporary American theater, where might you begin and do you have any solutions towards creating that change?

LC: Oh god. This is a question where I’m like, that’s huge, because the aspects of American theater I most want to change are completely interwoven with American racism and poverty and wealth disparity and climate disaster.

I feel lucky to know a lot of people who are very good playwriting community builders and have learned a lot from them. My tiny, tiny scale changes include:

● Trying to help more playwrights a month than help you (I got this from Emma Horwitz via Max Mooney, two amazing stewards of playwriting community)

● Continuing to lean away from institutional recognition as a marker of legitimacy

● Loudly, loudly supporting your friends

WM: Do you have a writing ritual or rituals, and would you care to share any of them?

LC: I have these little candles that burn for about one hour. I light one and write until it’s burned out. If I’m feeling good, I light another and keep going.

Gabriela Veciana and Maaike Laanstra-Corn
in Primary Stages's CALF SCRAMBLE by Libby Carr
photo by James Leynse

WM: What are your thoughts on content warnings? I appreciate them so audience members can make informed choices, but I get some pushback from artists saying, theater is supposed to make you uncomfortable, or it’s a plot spoiler, no signs please.

LC: I also appreciate content warnings and am game for any access tool that helps audience members feel excited, informed, and invited in. Personally, I prefer an opt-in version — like a sign folded in half that you can lift up or a QR code (though I don’t love QR codes).

My hot take is I kind of don’t believe in spoilers. I love going into things blind, but for me, a spoiler just makes time-based media (plays, movies, TV) less surprising. If I’m meant to be moved, I generally find I’ll be moved, regardless of the element of surprise.

WM: What is your preferred comment if your friend or colleague leaves the show and it wasn’t their cup of tea, if they feel they must address you, do you like a blunt opinion, is there a euphemism you hate, should they just dodge you? (I once was introduced to Nora Ephron by Cherry f*cking Jones in a stairwell immediately after seeing her play which was not my cup of tea and after we shook hands, I felt compelled to speak and unfortunately blurted, That was interesting!) I remind myself of that when someone approaches me after one of my plays; we’re all just doing our best.

LC: Wow, what a good question. This absolutely depends on the level of relationship I have with a person. It means a lot to me to talk to close friends and family about what they liked and disliked about my work and to talk about questions they had.

I generally like people who are direct and also kind. I would be totally happy to hear a friend say “congratulations, that wasn’t for me, and here’s why.” But I’ll also say — this is my Off-Broadway debut, and during early previews I felt even more vulnerable than I expected. So I don’t think it’s necessarily the kindest thing to have a “that wasn’t for me” conversation in the lobby with a new writer immediately after the play. I welcome it later, though!

I think I have a pretty thick skin, and I’m always trying to practice not reading into anybody’s reactions. But as I continue to develop that skill… if someone took the time to tell me they were coming to the play, or I’m there and they said hi beforehand, I don’t want them to dodge me after! I think a simple “congrats!” is a safe bet, and it doesn’t force them into a lie.

(My favorite post-show overheard for CALF SCRAMBLE was an elderly woman who walked out of the theater going “that was UNUSUAL!” I took it as a compliment lol)

Libby Carr, photo by Chelcie Perry

Libby Carr (Playwright) is a writer and dance artist from Houston. Their plays have been developed at Ojai Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Kennedy Center’s MFA Playwrights Workshop, and the Workshop Theater. Their plays include CALF SCRAMBLE (2024 Dr. Kerry English Artist Award winner from Ojai Playwrights Conference, 2024 O'Neill NPC finalist, Playwrights Horizons New Works Lab, Workshop Theater Lab), Roadkill (Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Bloodworks), and sad girl hours (Kennedy Center MFA Playwrights Workshop, Muhlenberg College Theater Association). Libby’s a proud member of EST/Youngblood and has been an artist-in-residence with Invulnerable Nothings’ Barn Lab and MOtiVE Brooklyn. They have a BA in Playwriting and a BA in Plan II Honors from UT Austin, where they won the 2021 Trice Prize for Creative Scholarship in a Thesis.

photo credit; laura bianchi

Winter Miller is an award-winning playwright and founding member of the Obie-winning 13Playwrights. She is playwright and librettist for the opera drama No One Is Forgotten with composers Paola Prestini and Sxip Shirey, adapted from her play No One Is Forgotten, which Winter produced and directed, “a profoundly devastating play” in The New Yorker.

Their award-winning play In Darfur premiered in a sold-out run at The Public, followed by an SRO performance at Central Park’s 1800-seat Delacorte, a first for a play by a woman. Winter traveled to the Sudan border with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. In Darfur has played theaters nationwide and the UK.

Select plays: 1973, When Monica Met Hillary, The Penetration Play, Animalia Arthropoda, The Arrival, and Colored. Their plays are published by Concord. NYFA award (2022, 2016), Fellowships: Sundance, Djerassi, Princeton, Bogliasco Foundation, Cherry Lane Mentor Project, Hedgebrook, Blue Mountain Center, Space at Ryder Farm, The Playwrights Center, Civilians R&D, NNPN, New Georges, SLAC. Nancy Dean Lesbian Playwriting Prize.

They have created theater with young people surviving in war-torn areas of Northern Uganda and Palestine, and in LGBTQIA communities in NYC. BA from Smith, MFA from Columbia. Affiliate: New Georges, The PWC, elected NYC’s first Dramatists Guild Rep.

Winter’s children’s book Not A Cat illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff is a Lambda pick and Winner 2023 Children’s Book Council Award, published by Tilbury/Penguin. A former journalist, Winter wrote 90+ articles for The New York Times and is featured in anthologies V’s A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, Pretty Bitches and Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. Eartha Kitt once held her left hand for five minutes.

Calf Scramble

By Libby Carr
Directed by Caitlin Sullivan

with Ferin Bergen, Maaike Laanstra-Corn, Marvelyn Ramirez, Elisa Tarquinio, and Gabriela Veciana

Scenic Design by Cate McCrea

Costume Design by Haydee Zelideth

Lighting Design by Barbara Samuels

Original Music and Sound Design by Daniela Hart, Noel Nichols, Bailey Trierweiler & UptownWorks

Props Design by Ned Cían Gaynor

Movement Direction by Hannah Garner

Intimacy and Fight Direction by Crista Marie Jackson

Casting by The Telsey Office, Karyn Casl, CSA

Production Stage Manager Esti Bernstein

Sammy Landau, Assistant Stage Manager

Feb 28th-April 12th

At 59E59th St

Tickets https://www.59e59.org/shows/show-detail/calf-scramble/

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Zack: An Interview with Britt Berke, by Aimee Todoroff

2026-03-20T07:48:00.001-04:00

Cassia Thompson, Jordan Matthew Brown, Grace Guichard in Zack. Photo by Todd Cerveris.

Like many of you, I’ve spent the last few weeks (months? years?) staring at my screens with increasing dread, wondering just how we got here, so far away from what I thought I knew. The world feels like it is creeping towards a baseline that is much more cruel than I thought possible. Sure, I was raised to be “Midwest Nice,” so perhaps I’ve been a bit naïve about the basic nature of civic life. But there’s a reason that certain phrases have been repeated as truisms as of late; phrases like “the cruelty is the point.” I’ve started to wonder if, in these ever-darkening days, one of the most radical acts of civil disobedience in a culture that revels in brutality is simply to be kind.

That is why I am so eager to see Zack, the latest production from The Mint Theater Company, currently running at Theater Row through March 28. We all need a dose of old-fashioned goodwill that can only come from a tale told with humor and wit, when an underdog gets a fair shot to come out on top, and kindness wins the day. How deeply, deeply exciting!

I was delighted to interview Britt Berke, the director of Zack, about this gem of a play.

Aimee Todoroff: OK, first question is a big one. You’ve done quite a bit of work on classic texts, and this is your second full production with Mint Theatre Company. What draws you to classic plays? Did you always want to direct the classics, or did you discover an affinity along the way to building an artistic life?

Britt Berke: I have always loved directing classic texts. I am going to risk sounding dramatic here: interpreting a classic play makes me feel like a tiny atom in the amazing cosmos of theatre history. I am incredibly moved when I laugh at a joke that was written 110 years ago. I think this feeling traces back to performing in musicals as a kid, to feeling viscerally, emotionally connected to words that were written long before I was born. I was very lucky to have mentors in high school and college who emboldened me to build a confident and personal relationship to classic work. For my thesis at Barnard, I directed one of Brecht’s earliest plays (that he wrote when he was 21 years old!), and used his later-established tenets of Epic Theatre to contemporize the piece. Research and historical context are very grounding for me. I feel equally passionate about directing new work; and every time I reimagine a classic text, I approach it with the same curiosity and openness that I would bring to a new work process.

AT: What was your first reaction to the idea of working with Mint Theatre Company on this production? Did you already know Zack, or was it a brand-new text for you, and how did you approach getting to know the story?

BB: Jonathan Bank (Mint Theater Company’s Artistic Director) shared Zack with me over the summer. On my first read, I was thrilled by the final scene of the play. It is contemporary, sexy, dangerous, and FUN. My work often centers on love and autonomy, so I was excited about the way romance threads through the story in surprising ways, and then culminates in something truly extraordinary and ahead of its time.

AT: Audiences might be most familiar with Harold Brighouse’s full-length play, Hobson’s Choice. While Hobson’s Choice is a lighthearted and warm comedy, it has some darkness in it, too, approaching themes of misogyny, alcohol-fueled depravity, bullying, and the tyranny of the capitalistic class system. Can audiences expect a similar light/dark dichotomy in Zack? How do the tone or character dynamics set Zack apart from Hobson’s Choice or from other works of the same period? What makes it unique?

BB: Zack is labeled as character comedy, yet we meet the title character in a genuinely tragic situation. His family neglects him and denies him the dignity of feeling like a valuable participant in the world. The light/dark dichotomy is present, and Zack’s superpower is his ability to transcend this tension. Zack includes a handful of surprisingly contemporary romantic comedy tropes, including a sweet moment when the protagonist simply takes off his glasses and is seen in a new light. There are farcical elements, and there’s some lazzi. But most importantly: the play is examining what qualities make a person able to love and be loved, and this question leaves room for both pain and for delight.

AT: Any surprises or revelations in the rehearsal process? What discoveries have you made during the run, which began on February 21, 2026? Has the audience reaction affected you in any particular or unexpected way?

BB: It took us over ten previews to find the ideal pacing for the show. There is so much exposition in the first act so there’s an impulse to create space for that, but what it REALLY needs is hyper-speed and hyper-focus. This precise tempo creates a springboard for the rest of the story, and dares the audience to jump into the silver-tongued quality of the text. Through our two-week preview process, our ensemble did an exquisite job at making small changes each day that have added up to a completely transformed experience of the play.

AT: What does a play about kindness written in 1916 – 110 years ago! – have to say about our times?

BB: Zack is a true bid for the power of kindness and authenticity! My tagline for the play is: authenticity is sexy. In a world where there is overwhelming pressure to perform and conform, here is a play that posits the value of being exactly who you are. Zack’s kindness reminds us that there is magic in empathy, in warmth, and in following your most vulnerable human impulses.

Zack runs at Mint Theatre, Theatre Row Stage 4, 410 West 42nd Street, February 21-March 28, 2026. Tickets and more information here.

Britt Berke returns to the Mint to direct Harold Brighouse’s character comedy, Zack. Britt made her Off-Broadway directorial debut with the World Premiere of Becomes a Woman by Betty Smith (author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) at Mint Theater Company. This six-week engagement at New York City Center Stage II was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Off-Broadway Play. In reviewing the production for The New Yorker, Ken Marks wrote: “It’s a rare play that can inspire applause from a line of dialogue and cheers as the lights go down on the final act, odder still for one getting its world première nearly a century after it was written. But that’s what’s happening at the Mint’s production of this remarkable 1931 drama by Betty Smith, directed by Britt Berke.“ Britt is a director of theatre and film. Her work interrogates love, power, and how these entities are intertwined and revolutionized; often staging delight and spectacle as a means of examining intimacy and taboo. Britt nourishes the development of new work, and reenergizes revivals of plays and musicals. Select past productions: I Don’t Trust Adults starring Ruby Karp (in a six-week Off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse); Anne Carson’s Antigonick with Torn Out Theater (a company that utilizes selective nudity to promote body autonomy, more via The New Yorker); Springtime (Chautauqua Theater Company); All My Sons (NYU Tisch Grad Acting); Promenade (The Public Theatre’s Fornés Marathon); watch me (New York Theatre Workshop retreat); DOGS (Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep); Scenes with Girls (TheaterLab); FLASH (a musical fundraiser for NourishNYC); Liberian Girl in Brooklyn (Mabou Mines); Round Room (Origin Theater - Best Director nom); and workshops with La MaMa, New York Classical Theatre, and Cherry Lane Theatre. Britt is currently a Directing Fellow at the NYU Tisch Department of Design for Stage and Film and a member of the WP Lab; she is an alumna of the Drama League Directors Project, Leon Levy Roundabout Directors Group, Mercury Store Directing Intensive, Manhattan Theatre Club Directing Fellowship, National Alliance for Musical Theatre Directing Observership, and 24 Hour Plays: Nationals. She is a recipient La Femme’s “Woman on the Verge” Award, A.R.T. NY’s Funds for Anti-Oppression Work, and a City Corps Artist Grant. Associate Member, SDC. Britt’s first short film, "Ships" by Caroline Festa, enjoyed its World Premiere at The SOHO International Film Festival in 2024. She is currently in post-production for The Skin of the Water, which filmed in London last year. As an associate director, Britt has worked with Lileana Blain-Cruz on The Skin of Our Teeth (Tony nomination), JoAnne Akalaitis on Mud /Drowning (Obie Award), and Simon Godwin on The Wild Duck. She is proud to have assisted Austin Pendleton, Jade King Carroll, Tamilla Woodard, Gabriel Vega Weissman, Portia Krieger, Katherine Wilkinson, Alice Reagan, Shannon Sindelar, Kara Strait, and Kara Feely.

Aimee Todoroff is a seasoned director with a signature style, creating intimate and muscular scenes within heightened realities. Originally from Ohio and now residing in NYC with her partner, actor and playwright Chris Harcum, Aimee is interested in exploring the dialog between performer and audience, and between theater and community. Indie Theater productions include the Brecht in the Park series, Echoes in the Garden, Trifles and The People with American Bard Theater, Richard II with Boomerang Theatre, and the Award Winning A Transcriber's Tale and American Gun Show, both presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, among many others. Other Regional/International credits include Hedda Gabler (Gilbert Theater, NC) and Pussycat in Memory of Darkness (ProEnglish Theater, Kyiv Ukraine). Off-Broadway, Assistant Director at Classic Stage Company. Multiple credits as producer of short films. Website: Aimeetodoroff.org

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PLAN C: An Interview with Carrie Heitman by Aimee Todoroff

2026-03-18T16:55:00.002-04:00

PLAN C Cast. Photo by Valerie Terranova.

When you go see a Hook & Eye production, you know you are in for something big. The indie theater stalwart has been creating bold productions since 2014, reaching across timelines and realities to bring audiences something that is ambitious in scale, delightfully profound, and always utterly unexpected. Through rigorous play, the devised theater company has honed their own brand of collaboration. While the company is led by Artistic Director Carrie Heitman, each production is created by the ensemble over the course of years. This collective generation allows for exploration of ideas that are as vast as nuns rocketing across space in an attempt to piece together family stories through digital ephemera in Space Nuns of the Rescue Mainframe, as specific as a New Deal era camp for women on Bear Mountain in SheSheShe, or as mysterious as the mind of Buckminster Fuller in God is a Verb. Realities often shift, meld, and evolve into stories that are interconnected and always, always reveal something about humanity.

Hook & Eye plays don’t just think big: they move big. Choreography breaks way for achingly personal scenes between characters that are unique and so specific that you feel like you know them somehow. You might witness a woman riding a cherry picker across space like a Valkyrie storming Valhalla. You might see a theater transform into a geodesic dome before your eyes. One thing is for sure: you will see something that leaves you in awe and connects you to something bigger than yourself.

It is my good fortune to interview the indominitable Carrie Heitman ahead of Hood & Eye’s run of their newest play, Plan C, running at The Tank through April 12^th, 2026.

Aimee Todoroff: Hiya, Carrie! We’ve known each other for a long time. In fact, you were an actor in one of the first full-length plays that I ever directed. I learned so much from you, especially in your clarity in playing the action of a text. Since those Rabbit Island days, you’ve really bloomed artistically as a specialist in devised theater. Can you tell us a little bit about what drew you to devised theater? What do you find satisfying or challenging about devising your own work?

Carrie Heitman: I began as an actor who loved the rigor of working with a script—tracking the action of a text, uncovering its architecture, and finding clarity within it. But over time I became increasingly curious about the moment before a script exists. How does a piece of theater take shape from raw ideas, research, and instinct?

Devised theater offered a way to explore that question collectively. Instead of beginning with a finished play, we begin with inquiry: historical research, improvisation, movement, questions, sounds, images, and long conversations. Slowly, patterns emerge and a structure begins to form.

What I find most satisfying is the sense of discovery. In a devised process, no single person holds the entire map. The ensemble has to invent the terrain together. An offhand improvisation can suddenly unlock a character. A small piece of historical research might reshape the structure of the story. The rehearsal room becomes a place where surprise is not only possible, it’s essential.

The challenge is that devising requires living with uncertainty for a long time. There’s no guarantee that the material you’re generating will ultimately belong in the final piece. You have to be willing to build something carefully and then dismantle it if it doesn’t serve the whole.

At Hook & Eye, we’ve spent years refining a process that supports that kind of exploration. We move through research, experimentation, and structured rehearsal phases so that the work can evolve organically while still moving toward a cohesive theatrical language.

AT: The latest Hook & Eye play is PLAN C, running through April 12, 2026, at The Tank. How long has PLAN C been in development? What was the initial spark that inspired this work, and what have you gained by having the ability to build a work over an extended period of time?

CH: PLAN C has been in development for about four years. It began with a question the ensemble kept returning to during a particularly turbulent political moment: What do people do when they don’t have the power to pass laws or write policy? How do ordinary citizens respond when formal systems fail them?

When we looked at history, we found the same answer appearing again and again. People improvise. They share information. They build networks. They find creative ways to help one another navigate systems that are hostile or indifferent.

From there, we began researching stories of women who operated informal networks—sometimes quietly, sometimes boldly—to protect one another and pass along vital knowledge. Those historical threads led us to the 17th century, while our contemporary storyline explores a similar spirit of improvisation in present-day America.

Having four years to develop the piece has been invaluable. It allowed us to research deeply, experiment with structure, discard entire sections, and rebuild them with greater clarity. Devised work benefits enormously from time because ideas have room to breathe. We could test different theatrical languages—comedy, physical storytelling, music, farce—and discover how those elements might coexist.

It also meant the ensemble could truly inhabit the material. The performers weren’t just learning lines—they were helping shape the logic and rhythm of the play.

AT: Tell us a little bit about the ensemble. What has the ensemble been able to bring to the work the is perhaps surprising or especially delightful?

CH: The ensemble is the beating heart of the piece. One of the joys of devising is watching performers bring their full creative intelligence into the room. In devising, performers are not just interpreters of a script—they are architects of the storytelling.

This production has a nine-person ensemble, and every actor moves between multiple roles across the two timelines. That structure has created some unexpected theatrical echoes. A performer who appears in one century may reappear in another in a very different context, which allows the audience to see surprising resonances between characters who are separated by hundreds of years.

One of the most rewarding discoveries has been how the ensemble leans into the mystery of the story. Rather than explaining every detail, the actors help construct a theatrical world where the audience gradually pieces things together. Small gestures, fragments of dialogue, or recurring images begin to accumulate meaning over time.

Because the actors have been involved in shaping the material from the beginning, they carry a deep understanding of the hidden architecture of the play. That shared knowledge creates a sense of precision and trust onstage that’s very exciting to watch.

AT: PLAN C is set in two distinct time periods. It’s billed as “a darkly funny, time-collapsing caper of resistance, relationships, and rebellion.” How do the time periods and locations – Brussels in 1620 and West Virginia in present day USA – connect? Without giving away too much of the story, what themes or commonalities were you able to explore by pairing these two moments in time?

CH: At first glance, the settings seem worlds apart: 17th-century Brussels during a period of political and religious upheaval, and present-day West Virginia in the United States. But as we explored them side by side, striking parallels began to appear.

Both storylines follow communities navigating systems that limit their autonomy. In each era, women begin quietly forming networks of trust—sharing information, protecting one another, and sometimes operating just outside the boundaries of what is officially permitted.

The historical storyline imagines an underground intelligence network during a moment of war and instability in Europe. The contemporary storyline follows people in Appalachia who are grappling with their own evolving legal and social landscape.

The play doesn’t suggest that the two moments are identical. Instead, placing them side by side allows us to ask how strategies of survival and resistance echo across time. The centuries begin to blur as the audience notices similar patterns emerging: secrecy, loyalty, moral compromise, and the courage it takes to act when the outcome is uncertain.

AT: Last question, and it’s the essential question we always ask ourselves as artists. What do you want the audience to take away from this production? What conversations do you hope the audience is having on their way home from the theater after seeing PLAN C?

CH: I hope audiences leave the theater with a sense of curiosity—about the characters, about history, and about the choices people make when they’re pushed into complicated moral territory.

The play isn’t interested in heroic myths about singular saviors. Instead, it celebrates small acts of courage: sharing information, offering support, taking responsibility for one another. Those gestures may seem modest, but collectively they can create powerful networks of care.

One of the guiding principles of the piece is that not every question needs to be answered neatly. The ending deliberately leaves certain things unresolved. Many of the characters in PLAN C face difficult ethical questions. We see the consequences of some of the characters’ actions, but we’re also left wondering about the longer arc of those choices: who was changed by them, what ripples they created, and what might happen next.

I hope audiences have a lively conversation about choices. Is it acceptable to bend or break a rule or law? What do we owe each other as members of a community? And how do we decide when the risk of action is worth it?

WHO: Conceived and Directed by Carrie Heitman
Written and Devised by the Ensemble of Hook & Eye Theater
Featuring: Parnia Ayari, Cynthia Babak, Vann Dukes, Rina Dutta, Meghan Grover, Jesse B. Koehler, Elizabeth London, Nylda Mark, and Daniel Olguin
Costume Design by Krista Pineman
Scenic Design by Anna Grigo
Lighting Design by Zack Saunders
Choreography by Leslie Galán Guyton
Original Compositions & Sound Design by Ian Scot Williams
Production Stage Management by Grace Porter
Production Management by Leah McVeigh
Assistant Direction by Kyle Abourizk
Assistant Choreography by Adrianna Di Liello
Produced by The Tank - Co-Artistic Directors; Meghan Finn & Johnny G. Lloyd and Hook & Eye Theater
WHEN:
7:00 p.m. Thursday, March 12 (Preview)
7:00 p.m. Friday, March 13 (Preview)
7:00 p.m. Saturday March 14
7:00 p.m. Monday, March 16
7:00 p.m. Thursday, March 19
7:00 p.m. Friday, March 20
7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 21
7:00 p.m. Monday, March 23
7:00 p.m. Thursday, March 26
7:00 p.m. Friday, March 27
7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 28
3:00 p.m. Sunday, March 29 (Post-show Panel Discussion)
7:00 p.m. Monday March 30
7:00 p.m. Thursday, April 2
7:00 p.m. Friday, April 3
3:00 p.m. Saturday, April 4 (ASL Interpreted Performance)
7:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 8
7:00 p.m. Thursday, April 9
7:00 p.m. Friday, April 10
7:00 p.m. Saturday, April 11
3:00 p.m. Sunday, April 12 (Free Childcare Matinee)
WHERE: The Tank, 312 W 36 St, NY NY 10018
HOW MUCH: $28-$53 (includes fees)
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes (no intermission)
TICKETS: https://tinyurl.com/PlanCTankTickets
MORE INFO: www.hookandeyetheater.com

Carrie Heitman is a multi-disciplinary theater artist. She has appeared Off-Broadway, regionally, the UK, Poland, Russia, Singapore and Malaysia. NYC: The Cherry Lane, The Pearl, The Women’s Project, DTW, The New Ohio, The Abingdon, Mark Morris, Dixon Place and many others. Film: A Piece of Cake, The Patriot, Everything’s Gonna Be Pink, What About Us? (w/Jasmine Guy). She is a co-founder and artistic director of Hook & Eye Theater, steering a devising ensemble that crafts absurdist new plays inspired by themes of history and science. Supported by A.R.T./NY, NYSCA, DCLA, Yip Harburg, Puffin, Brooklyn Arts Council. Nominated for Outstanding Ensemble performances by the Innovative theater awards. Semi-finalist for the National Theater Project Creation and Touring Grant. MFA: UNC/Chapel Hill; Louise Lamont award for Excellence. BA Philosophy: Kalamazoo College; Nelda K Balch Award. Member of AEA; DBAA; CIPA. Ensemble member at The Mercury Store.

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Kodi Lynn Milburn on Carolina Ðỗ & Vas Eli’s EXTRAO1DINARY ALIENS! as presented by JACK

2026-03-10T11:10:00.001-04:00

Cast of ExtraO1dinary Aliens!
Belle Le, Vas Eli, Julie Trần, Matthew Zimmerman, Marlon Xavier, Maria Müller. Photo by Tudor Cucu

It’s not often a show allows you to take what you’re witnessing outside the theater and bring it in without being asked to leave it at the door to escape. While I was watching Extra01dinary Aliens!, the voice of a protester in Minneapolis warning of ICE in the area echoed through my mind: “Stay inside! They’re here!” The lady in the polka dot dress in NYC; Alysa Liu dedicating her gold medal to her immigrant father — this play is incredibly timely, even down to the curated preshow playlist including “Stateside” (Pink Pantheress and Zara Lawson’s song to which Alysa Liu skated when taking home the gold for the U.S.). This play does not ask you to put on blinders to enjoy a laugh or be embraced into the community. This company and the theater that houses it don’t shy away from the here and now in America. Instead, they offer free “ICE Out” classes, a financial literacy course, and “Know Your Rights” workshops to their audiences. I love action-driven theater.

This piece is a vibrant, gutting, and surprisingly hilarious “fuck you” to the immigration systems in America. It’s a warm embrace of familiar lived experience for those victimized by it. As a descendant of Native Americans (Tsalagi, Eastern Band, Wolf Clan) and Czech immigrants, both sides of my ancestry felt seen. The irony of the descendants of European colonizers (only a few generations removed) now policing occupied lands was not lost on writer Carolina Ðỗ. The inclusion of historical revisionism and a well-designed projection of Manifest Destiny by projection designer Michi Zaya made me want to scream “No one is illegal on stolen land!” in solidarity.

Xerxes, played by Maria Müller. Photo by Tudor Cucu

The story follows a wide range of immigrant stories highlighting the spectrum of experiences, including an alien from Pluto visiting America — a clever jab at the dehumanizing term “alien”. The fantastic cast spoke to their personal lived experience through the characters. Their authenticity anchored the otherworldly and sometimes whacky aspects of the play. Vas Eli (director, actor, and sound designer) delivers a raw and moving scene with impassioned and evocative scene partner Julie Tran, in which a couple grapples with their very real love being tainted by the ever-present eye of the U.S. immigration system. Love has no borders. Matthew Zimmerman plays the omnipresent voice of USCIS that is satirical, horrifying, and even predatory. Zimmerman shows great range in this portrayal, spanning from righteous to diabolical. Belle Le and Marlon Xavier’s scenes together were touching and organic, presenting a beautifully grounded example of budding love complicated by immigration status. Neither of them have “papers” and they ask “what if we have kids and we get separated?" The two actors held the weight of these themes with grace and soft humor. Maria Müller plays multiple roles, including the Plutonian, making a role that could be silly into a thoughtful masterclass on satire. Müller is snappy and witty, skillfully buttoning scenes with impeccable comedic timing.

Julie Tran and Belle Le. Photo by Tudor Cucu

The use of gobo and emotionally evocative lighting by Jiahao “Neil” Qiu amplified the moments about love and fear very well. As a sound/projection/lighting designer myself, I particularly enjoyed the use of practicals on stage, lights emanating from unseen sources and vocoders masking the voice. Vas Eli’s use of musical detournement was brilliant and evoked a poem I heard recently by Hayley DeRoche in which she hijacks and reconstructs a “Drive to Target” ad to emphasize the horror of ICE and the ever-present American brand consumerism. One prop and set application that stood out to me as particularly impactful was Joaquim Stevenson-Rodriguez’s moon design.

All in all, I think the show technically could use some tightening up. There were a few missed language translation cues and some that gave away plot before it happened. That being said, the team recovered beautifully, and the actors were unphased. None of this took away from the enjoyment I felt while watching this piece. Personally, I am not a fan of excessive use of haze and the show uses a lot of it as well as real smoke. Just a heads up for those who may have asthma. The satirical gameshow vibe really drove home the inhumane moving goal posts and dehumanization that immigrants coming to this country must feel. I left the theater with more fuel and desire to abolish ICE.

BETTERFLY Productions, Leviathan Lab, and JACK present;

EXTRAO1DINARY ALIENS!

in association with
The Hearth Supported Productions and The Sống Collective

Written by Carolina Ðỗ
Directed by Vas Eli

Co-produced by Maria Müller
Line produced by Federica Borlenghi
Assistant Directed and Stage Managed by Isabel Criado

Lighting Design by Jiahao “Neil” Qiu
Projection Design by Michi Zaya
Sound Design by Vas Eli
Moon Design by Joaquim Stevenson-Rodriguez
Board Operated by Fernando Gregório

CAST

Corneliu - Vas Eli
Kay - Julie Tran*
Xerxes - Maria Müller
Linh - Belle Le
David - Marlon Xavier
Voice - Matthew Zimmerman*

Performance Dates & Times

Saturday, March 7 at 7pm

Sunday, March 8 at 7pm

Monday, March 9 at 7pm

Wednesday, March 11 at 7pm

Thursday, March 12 at 7pm

Friday, March 13 at 7pm

Saturday, March 14 at 7pm

Link to tickets https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/extrao1dinary-aliens

https://www.jackny.org/extrao1dinaryaliens

Kodi Lynn Milburn, dubbed as the "Swiss Army Knife of Theater," embodies a fusion of creativity and activism. As a mixed indigenous neurodivergent queer, Kodi’s artistry resonates with a commitment to justice, harmony with nature, amplifying lost voices, and reflecting contemporary issues, echoing the ethos of the Jester's Privilege. Kodi’s work has been described as “inspired” (Alix Cohen, Women Around Town), “amazing” (Travelanche), “sound designer, Kodi Lynn Milburn deserve(s) much credit for the show’s aesthetic” (David Shengold, Opera News), “lush compositions and evocative soundscapes…a fantastic collaborator: creative, proactive, generous, organized, versatile, and indispensable” (Nathan Davis, Drama Desk Nominated Sound Designer)

Cross-discipline credits include: Sylvia Milo’s The Other Mozart (Hong Kong, Edinburgh Fringe, NYC, U.S. Tour, Canadian Tour), Treaty (The Foundry), Funny Guy (59e59, London, Edinburgh Fringe), Manon (Irondale Theater), Talking With Angels (TheaterLab), Faust (Baruch Performing Arts), Salome (Irondale Theater), Orgy & Bess (Judson Church), AMP (HERE), Tussaud/Antoinette (IRT), Big Wave (TaDa!, The Tank), Enjoy your Meal (Edinburgh Fringe), Tiffany Caputo (Edinburgh Fringe), Anime-Zing Gameshow! (Edinburgh Fringe), Empty NeXt (TheaterLab), Vice & Virtue (NYTF), My Onliness (The New Ohio), Chess (American Theater for Actors), Bananas (The Rat), Uta Hagen Centennial Salon (Lincoln Center), Heart Strings (Atlantic Theater Co), 7 Magdalenes (Baryshnikov Arts Center, TheaterLab, HERE), Sparkle Spa (BMI), Ewalt & Walker (54 Below), Good Samaritans (The Tank), Ghost Shower (The Tank), Halalish (The Tank), Mary & Max (Bobby Cronin & Crystal Skillman), Voyage en Chanson (National Sawdust), L’autre Mozart (Fringe North, Halifax Fringe), Rhinoceros (Atlantic Acting School) and more. Kodi is a New York Foundation for the Arts Music Fellow. Kodi’s fine art has been featured in partnership with Arts Gowanus and Red Hook Art Project.

Kodi has an album available on all streaming platforms under Kodi the Composer called "Sound the Alarm"! kodilynnmilburn.com @heythereitskodi

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Emily Cordes on Claire Tumey’s we’re delinquents.pdf, as presented by MIDDLE SISTER and Brick Aux

2026-03-05T11:12:00.007-05:00

Performers Queen-Tiye Akamefula and Lexie Waddy in we’re delinquents.pdf. Photo by Geve Penn.

How do we stand for larger principles—especially those by which we ourselves may struggle to live? Artists and thinkers have grappled with this question throughout time, and in the face of systemic oppression and high socio-cultural stakes, it becomes all the more urgent, and complicated, to balance human frailty with the very real need to model and defend our ways of life. MIDDLE SISTER’s we’re delinquents.pdf explores the subject with honesty and irreverence as a college prank turns its heroines into unwitting spokespeople for ideals they’re still, frankly, figuring out.

Set at a small midwestern university, we’re delinquents.pdf pits three undergrads against their overlapping scholastic, legal, and cultural surroundings, as a cheeky email stunt becomes the center of a systemic crackdown on party culture and youth rebellion. Penalized for throwing a subversive, swine-themed dorm rager—and promoting it via campus-wide email—theater students V (Queen-Tiye Akamefula), M (Lexie Waddy), and W (Izabel Mar) struggle to defend their artistic and personal convictions amidst the scandal that follows. When the school’s administration (embodied by Ben Hard’s crusty “Mr. Professor Sir” and hapless campus officer “Ronald McDonald”) targets them for promoting lewd behavior, the women lobby to create a school-sanctioned play educating students on the threats of partying and need for self-control. Their academic futures resting on this gamble, V, M, and W hope to reclaim the punishment as a means of self-expression and a chance to fire back at the school’s hypocrisy. However, as the women’s diverging principles, fears, and histories collide, strife mars the process, further clouding the piece’s creative and ideological goals as deadlines close in. Poised between conviction, confusion, and compromise, each woman must determine just how much she, and the group, will sacrifice for integrity.

Akamefula, Waddy, and Mar lend compassion and wit to the central trio, blending awkwardness and zeal as they seek and speak truth in checkered scenarios. Conflict-avoidant and sexually frustrated, V buckles under directorial responsibilities and guilt-by-association as her crush on smarmy leading man Dunkirk (Hard, again) deepens the mess in which the group finds itself. M’s attempts to weave irony and subversion into the project, and crusade to bill it as a middle ground between the extremes of party culture and censorship, could just as easily be read as aquiescence to toxic systems as efforts to disrupt them from within. When their piece’s contrived emphasis on individual agency calls up memories of her own sexual assault, W’s rage at her colleagues’ complicity belies a deeper guilt over her own reticence and struggle to face past trauma.

Writer Claire Tumey and director Luis Feliciano leaven the show’s content with ample absurdity and self-aware humor. Past and current drama students will relish nods to the performance art tropes, theater-department politics, and rampant typecasting that shape the students’ world, but anyone who’s survived academia or other small-scale bureaucracies can appreciate the show’s mockery of the arbitrary rules on which they rest. (Hard in particular nicely embodies such systems, both as their bumbling beneficiaries and enforcers who can barely uphold what they preach.)

The show’s design elements, and Maddie Hopfield’s choreography, add to its comic scrappiness: coffee-cup-shaded flashlights preside over student interrogations; campus police wield pink-glitter baseball bats; the women don handmade flowered headdresses for a final dance to Lambrini Girls’ “C*ntology 101.” A runway stage configuration, paired with the Brick Aux’s intimate studio setting, highlights the grassroots creation process and presentational pressures which drive the show, giving an immediacy that keeps us, like its characters, continually making meaning from the limits and ambiguity around us.

Like the characters themselves, we’re delinquents.pdf is delightfully strange, tartly subversive, and above all, human, speaking to our notions of justice and artistry, and our determined but flawed efforts to model the change we wish to see. In the absence of neat conclusions, it honors the creativity, ideals, and people that fuel us–and the hindsight to learn from, and laugh at, our shortcomings.

we’re delinquents.pdf

Written and Co-Produced by Claire Tumey

Directed by Luis Feliciano

Cast:

Queen-Tiye Akamefula

Ben Hard

Izabel Mar

Lexie Waddy

Co-Production, Production Management, and Scenic Design by Hannah Bird

Sound and Projection Design by Cat Ashley

Lighting Design by Michael Fiebig

Costume Design by Nina Lucia Rodriguez

Choreography by Maddie Hopfield

Intimacy Choreography by Alexandra Haddad

MIDDLE SISTER is Claire Tumey & Hannah Bird. Find them at @middlesister.thtr.

CW: we’re delinquents.pdf features brief discussions of rape culture, homophobia, and sexism, and depictions of mild sexual content and campus policing.

Emily Cordes is a Brooklyn, NY-based actress, writer, theatre-maker, and arts marketer/fundraiser. She hails from Pittsburgh, PA and is a graduate of Smith College and Columbia University. She has performed in various plays, films, and web productions throughout the tri-state area, and co-created devised theatre with such groups as No Dominion Theatre Company and The Laboratory of Soul. As a founding member of the feminist theatre group Tapestry Collective, she develops, produces, and performs in original devised plays, most recently 2022's "#SoSadSoSexy," about the fetishization of mentally ill women. Her poetry collections "Queen of Swords" (2023) and "Armful of Poppies" (2021) were published by Read or Green Books, and she performs spoken word live in NYC and on Zoom screens across the country and globe. IG: @postmodern.psyche; http://bit.ly/EmilyCordes

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Emily Cordes on Philip Kenner’s THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL, as presented by Twin Fruit Productions and The Tank

2026-03-05T11:11:00.008-05:00

Performers Mahayla Laurence, Trent M. Williams, and Ellena Eshraghi in THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL. Photo by HanJie Chow.

The mall holds an iconic place in Millennial and Gen-Z memory: if you were a bored suburban youth, Friday nights could always find you, besties in tow, within its shining corridors, full of teen angst, disposable income, and Panda Express takeout. Concurrently, as early Internet nerd culture fed the streams of global consumerism, buying into a brand or fandom could be a powerful source of self-identity—and an outlet for our best or worst human instincts. True to these inspirations, Philip Kenner’s THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL celebrates late ‘90s/early ‘00s mall culture with unabashed zeal and nostalgia, as its young heroes embark on an epic quest to save their beloved hangout.

THE MALL follows a group of nerdy teens—ringleader Naomi (Ellena Eshraghi), brainiac Viv (Mahayla Laurence), and beta-male Charlie (Trent M. Williams)—as their weekly mall crawl becomes a battle for the fandoms and friendships they hold dear. Determined to nab the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer gear before “fake fans” and Tumblr trolls claim it, Naomi and her friends descend on their local Hot Topic, only to find that thieves have ransacked the store, leaving only a shocked sales associate (Mikey Fiocco) and cryptic ransom note behind. Armed with just their wits and a mall directory, the teens set out to solve the robbery, but find themselves dogged by a mysterious supervillain (Fiocco), his wily henchwoman (Mia Wurgaft), and their legions of mall staff, all bent on thwarting the group’s mission and enacting revenge. As their journey unfolds, the friends face Genius Bar zombies and Build-A-Bear cults, dodge shrewd salespeople and addictive tech, and confront greed and corruption at every kiosk. When evil forces put their loyalties to the test, Naomi, Viv, and Charlie must conquer their fears and claim their power to keep the mall safe for nerds everywhere.

THE MALL’s strength lies as much in its gleeful satire and high-res cultural references as in its appeal to the simpler times and deeper truths they represent. With neon-lit, potted-plant-bordered sets, Funko Pop and SkullCandy accessories, and impressive nods to obscure Pokemon and early-gen Apple trivia, the show’s creative team evokes and amplifies mall culture in all its mass-market glory, forming a perfect canvas for the zany coming-of-age tale that ensues. Spoofs of sexualized Hollister ads, miasmic self-care products, cliquey fandoms, and tempting aspirational buys (Brookstone massage chairs, anyone?) elicit knowing laughs, but also probe the insecurities and loneliness we share, and the consumerism, social toxicity, and hyper-independence we adopt to ease this pain. Reminiscent of the video games or action cartoons of our youth, its hero’s-journey plot tropes, campy villains (played with relish by Fiocco and Wurgaft), and didactic lessons on friendship, integrity, and self-love enhance this familiarity: as Naomi, Viv, and Charlie face the pressures of growing up and the reworking of identities they’ve come to know, we’re reminded of our own capacity to embrace our quirks, defend our convictions, and access a humanity beyond the reach of dogma or exploitation.

Though its subject’s golden age and the monoculture it encompassed have since passed, THE MALL stands as an homage to our shared imagination and a love letter to our awkward and passionate teenage selves. In its capitalist fever dream, we recall a time when morality seemed simple, friends were family, and the right pair of sneakers—and an Orange Julius—could fix anything.

THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL

Written and co-produced by Philip Kenner

Directed by James Wyrwicz

Cast:

Ellena Eshraghi

Mikey Fiocco

Mahayla Laurence

Trent M. Williams

Mia Wurgaft

Presented by Twin Fruit Productions & The Tank

Christian & Eliza Lange as Co-Producers

Production Manager is Liz Coulter

Stage Manager is Ellie Berry

Set Design by Benny Pitt

Lighting Design by Vittoria Orlando

Costume Design by Patricia Marjorie

Sound Design by Kurt Cruz

Fight Choreography by Daniel Light

Performance Schedule:

Thursday, February 26 at 7pm
Friday, February 27 at 7pm
Saturday, February 28 at 7pm
Monday, March 2 at 7pm
Thursday, March 5 at 7pm
Friday, March 6 at 7pm
Saturday, March 7 at 7pm
Sunday, March 8 at 3pm
Thursday, March 12 at 7pm
Friday, March 13 at 7pm
Saturday, March 14 at 7pm
Monday, March 16 at 7pm
Thursday, March 19 at 7pm
Friday, March 20 at 7pm
Saturday, March 21 at 7pm
Sunday, March 22 at 3pm

The Tank

312 W 36th St

New York, NY 10018

Tickets ($28-$53) are available at https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2026/2/28/the-mall-the-mall-the-mall.

To learn more about the show, visit @twinfruitproductions on IG.

Emily Cordes is a Brooklyn, NY-based actress, writer, theatre-maker, and arts marketer/fundraiser. She hails from Pittsburgh, PA and is a graduate of Smith College and Columbia University. She has performed in various plays, films, and web productions throughout the tri-state area, and co-created devised theatre with such groups as No Dominion Theatre Company and The Laboratory of Soul. As a founding member of the feminist theatre group Tapestry Collective, she develops, produces, and performs in original devised plays, most recently 2022’s "#SoSadSoSexy," about the fetishization of mentally ill women. Her poetry collections "Queen of Swords" (2023) and "Armful of Poppies" (2021) were published by Read or Green Books, and she performs spoken word live in NYC and on Zoom screens across the country and globe. IG: @postmodern.psyche; http://bit.ly/EmilyCordes

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March 2026 Listings Guide

2026-02-23T13:30:00.000-05:00

through Mar 1st

Puppetopia 2026!

Tickets $10.50-$126

HERE, Mainstage Theatre, 145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013

A winter review of HERE’s puppetry state of mind; Dream Music’s annual celebration of imagination, possibility, exciting techniques and community creation. Featuring the World Premiere of PARCHED by Official Puppet Business, RUBY & CHARLIE by Jessica Simon & Co, and THE MAGNIFICENT MS. PHAM by Puppetual Motion. Puppetopia is presented with the support of The Jim Henson Foundation.

through Mar 1st

we're delinquents.pdf

Tickets $25-$50

The Brick Theater, 579 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

we’re delinquents.pdf is a live-in person email attachment come to haunt the prefrontal cortex. it’s a goofball parade of mistakes and celebrations and self-doubt and punishment. download the pdf and join us in unpacking the time when you didn’t know what you needed, but you were beholden to an administration that thought they did.

through Mar 1st

Richard III

Tickets $20-$34

WILD PROJECT, 195 East 3rd Street, New York, NY 10009

Three months ago, Henry VI was murdered. The new king, Edward—dangerously suggestible, self-destructively decadent, and irrevocably shattered by the recent civil war—is still trying to drink his way out of depression. And, in the shadows, his youngest brother Richard is counting down the minutes until the sun finally sets on the endless party. Come meet Richard III: Shakespeare's first great villain. He wants the crown. He knows exactly how many people are in his way. And he’s already looking forward to killing them all. Henry VI was just the warmup.

Mar 5th-Mar 8th

Otto & Astrid: The Stages Tour

Tickets $30

Under St. Marks, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

A lipstick-smeared sonic collision between The B-52s, The Pixies, Kraftwerk and early Ramones, Otto & Astrid are the dysfunctional sibling duo you didn’t know you needed. Their shows are fast, loud, and strangely heartfelt; their chemistry is impossible to look away from. Expect ridiculously infectious songs, dead-on satire, and a full-tilt live show that rewires the classic rock gig into something gloriously unhinged and joyfully theatrical. One of the most irreverently side-splitting gigs you’re ever likely to see. Otto & Astrid are truly one of a kind.

Mar 5th-Mar 29th

Liberty Scrap

Tickets $35

Culture Lab LIC, 5-25 46th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101

In Liberty Scrap, cash is tight, and the goings are tough, but Katya has managed to eke out a living in a scrap metal warehouse by day, and as an artist by night, fashioning sculptures out of debris. When her Uzbek father falls ill, she attempts to return home to care for him, only to discover her dubious immigration status is much more dangerous than she ever imagined, threatening to keep her separated from her family forever.

Mar 6th

Jerry Palooza

Tickets $15-$20

South Oxford Space - Garden Studio, 138 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Come celebrate the admission of Jerry Polner to the 27 Club! No, not the club for rock stars who tragically die at the age of 27, but the exclusive club for playwrights who have written 27 (ACK almost 28!) plays! Jerry Palooza is a unique reading event mixing scenes from a selection of six Polner plays; Strauss's Houses, Don't Try Anything Funny, I Showered With Preston, What I Would Do If I Were a Better Person, Like Money in the Bank and Never Go to Bed Tired. Two of these scenes will be cast and rehearsed in advance and four scenes will be read by audience volunteers!

Mar 6th-Mar 14th

A Brief History of the Telephone

Tickets $24.20-$28.40

Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002

Deb insists that when a young person’s phone rings, they call the police, because they never heard that sound before. Is that you? Let’s chit chat and chew the fat, as Deb explores a lifelong passion for the sexy, disembodied possibilities of talking with friends and strangers on the phone. At this show, not only can you leave your hat on, you can leave your phone on! You can call Deb during the show if you want! Let’s bring talking to people back in fashion! Live and in-person, Deb Margolin…she’s a smooth operator.

Mar 6th-Mar 19th

Dear John

Tickets $10.50-$92.40

HERE Arts Center, Dorothy B. Williams Theater, 145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013

Dear John is a solo show based on a true story created and performed by Rachel Lin. It's 2011, and for a certain recent graduate and actor-hopeful, things are not going...well. When a Facebook message from a mysterious stranger named John arrives, she's forced to reckon with a past that comes hurtling back. Weaving together Facebook DMs, hand-written letters, recorded interviews, and anecdotes of living as an undocumented immigrant kid in NYC's Chinatown, Dear John is documentary theater about the ways we try (and fail) to reach each other, over and over again.

Mar 6th-Mar 29th

Dust of Egypt: The Story of Sojourner Truth

Tickets $25-$60

The Frank Shiner Theater @ The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, 18 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012

Years before her legendary "Ain't I a Woman" speech (as it became known, though she never spoke those words), the Black activist Sojourner Truth was a young mother determined to rescue her 5-year-old boy Peter after he was sold and illegally taken down South. Dust of Egypt dramatizes this remarkable, little-known true story and its poignant aftermath. At a time when slaves and women had no power or voice, she spoke out and confronted injustice. She became the first Black woman to sue a slave owner in court, and she won. The play explores the price of injustice, faith and forgiveness, resilience and releasing the past. It is a moving story of loss and triumph.

through Mar 7th

Anonymous

Tickets $20-$50

Tiny Baby Black Box Theatre, 115 MacDougal St #3c, New York, NY 10012

This deeply intimate play brings you front and center to witness an addiction support group. When support group leader Charlie is a no-show, a nervous Richard steps up to take control. Addiction, hope and sobriety are all at stake when the group must face their biggest threat so far - a challenge from within. Anonymous is a truly unique theater experience: the audience sits in the circle with the actors and experiences first hand what the characters are going through.

Mar 7th-Mar 14th

EXTRAO1DINARY ALIENS!

Tickets $45-$400

JACK, 20 Putnam Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Corneliu is an immigrant from Romania who is in love with Kay, a U.S. Citizen. Linh is Kay's best friend who might have let her student visa lapse?! David has dreams of opening up his restaurant with his cousin Enoc. ExtraO1dinary Aliens! is a love story centered on immigrants and the ones who love them. How can love defy the dehumanizing machinations of the US Immigration system? What makes someone leave everything they've ever known to journey to a foreign land? What makes someone stay despite the hostile environment? What is the promise of the American dream and can it ever be a reality?

Mar 10th-Mar 19th

Rough Draft Festival

Tickets $0-$18

LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, 45-50 Van Dam St, Long Island City, NY 11101

Rough Draft is a festival featuring new workshop performances by an incredible line up of artists at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center. This year features kanishk pandey, Libby Carr, Nadiya Atkinson & Sammy Grob, Simon Tam & Joe X Jiang, Lester Mayers and Scout Davis.

Mar 11th-Mar 28th

ENTANGLED: 12 SCENES IN A CIRCLE K OFF THE I-40 IN NEW MEXICO

Tickets $10.50-$126

HERE Arts Center, Mainstage Theatre, 145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013

Off the I-40 in the American southwest sits a Circle K gas station where something strange is happening: Time and space shift, happy couples suddenly break up, and people disappear for days after stepping into the tiny bathroom. Is this place a portal, tied to the decades of deathly scientific research just a few miles away? In this play – born from ensemble research, debate, and playwright-driven improvisation – theories of free will and quantum science play out in massive dance parties and micro emotional exchanges.

Mar 12th-Mar 22nd

ACTUA 1

Tickets $15

The Collapsable Hole, 155 Bank Street, New York, NY 10014

ACTUA 1 is a live-film performance piece by Brooklyn-based company Object Collection that constructs an event that both happened and did not. An exercise in futility and concentration, the piece is named after Actua One, a lost film from the May ‘68 uprisings in Paris.

Mar 12th-Mar 29th

Chasing Grace

Tickets $45-$55

A.R.T./New York Mezzanine Theatre, 502 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019

When a writer’s musical about her experience in treatment is co-opted by a powerhungry producer, Chasing Grace becomes a meta-theatrical exploration of who gets to tell our stories, what it costs to stay true to your voice, and the constant, courageous process of recovering out loud.

Mar 12th-Apr 5th

Monte Cristo

Tickets $29-$79

Theatre at St. Jean's, 150 East 76th Street, New York, NY 10021

Mar 12th-Apr 12th

PLAN C

Tickets $28-$53

The TANK, 312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018

through Mar 14th

Queens Short Play Festival

Tickets $15-$27

Secret Arts, The Secret Theatre, 10-10 44th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101

The Queens Short Play Festival is back, and it’s bigger, bolder, and more electrifying than ever! This year’s festival celebrates the power of storytelling through short plays that pack a punch, offering audiences an unforgettable journey of drama, comedy, and creativity.

Featuring emerging and established playwrights, the festival showcases diverse voices and perspectives that reflect the vibrant cultural tapestry of Queens. From laugh-out-loud comedies to thought-provoking dramas, each performance promises to captivate and inspire.

Mar 14th-Mar 22nd

Starkid's The Trail to Oregon

Tickets $32.25

WILD PROJECT, 195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009

Pack your bags, round up your wagon party, and join this dysfunctional family on their journey to Oregon. This interactive, musical retelling of their story is not only fun, it’s also educational, and totally 100% without a doubt historically accurate! *WINK* Will all five members of the family make it across the country or will the Bandit King, also a totally real but all too forgotten figure in the history books, get to them first? The family’s fate lies in YOUR HANDS!

through Mar 15th

The Giggling Granny

Tickets $15-$20

Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003

Written specifically for Ms. Chris by Marsha Lee Sheiness, directed by Jim Semmelman, this riveting solo play brings to life the unsettling true story of Nannie Doss--an irresistibly charming grandmother and America’s most unlikely serial killer--in a performance that drew cheering audiences and glowing reviews last season. Nannie Doss was an American serial killer responsible for the deaths of four husbands in Alabama, North Carolina, Kansas and Oklahoma between 1927 and 1954. She died in prison in 1965, but has been brought to life again in this solo play, whose premiere TNC presented last January.

Mar 18th-Jun 14th

Feltman: World's First Hot Dog

Tickets $40

The Chain, 312 W 36th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY, 10018

through Mar 22nd

THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL

Ticket $28-$53

The Tank, 312 W 36th StNew York, NY, 10018

THE MALL THE MALL THE MALL is an adventure comedy about a group of teenagers who uncover an evil conspiracy at their local shopping mall and must fight their way – video game style – through Hollister, Hot Topic, Build-A-Bear, and more to save their beloved mall. An unapologetic love letter to nerd culture and food courts, THE MALL^3 is both a laugh-packed nostalgia fest and an earnest meditation on what it meant to grow up at the dawn of the digital age.

through Mar 22nd

SPREAD

Tickets $25

INTAR Theatre, 500 West 52nd Street, 4W, New York, NY 10019

At a high school in Austin, Texas, four ninth-grade boys gather at lunchtime to make “spread,” or “Texas prison brick” from their snacks – dry ramen, hot chips, beef jerky, beans, hot water, all cooked in a bag.

Jeffrey, Andrew, Chris, and Jordan play fight,tease, talk shit, and try their absolute best to be friends to each other on the brink of adulthood. Spread offers a glimpse inside the fullness of all a ninth-grade lunchtime might contain: all the brutal, sweet ways we might try to be with one another.

through Mar 28th

ZACK

Tickets $39-$95

Theatre Row Stage 4, 410 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036

Zachariah Munning has a natural sweetness that is unappreciated by his family. They long ago decided he was just lazy and dim. Zack’s calculating mother and cold-blooded brother are scheming to take advantage of a rich relative who is coming to visit. They believe her wealth might solve the problem of their failing business and are ready to sacrifice Zack for their own aims.

Spoiler alert, Zack comes out on top. “There is something here about the importance of kindness and the underdog winning that makes the audience exude sighs of contentment…It’s a preposterous happy-ever-after tale, but one that should melt the most cynical heart,” says Lyn Gardner of The Guardian.

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Ria T. DiLullo on Roman Freud’s Beneath the Ice of the Vistula, as presented by Five Evenings Theater and New Wave Arts

2026-02-16T16:01:00.001-05:00

Roman Freud and Cady McClain. Photo by Alexandra Vainshtein.

I go into all plays rooting for the actors and elements that make up live theater. Especially in the indie scene, I am open to the enchantment of unexpected staging or design as teams discover creative solutions to budget challenges in order to meet the demands of a text. I am ready for my willing suspension of disbelief to set in and be transported.

Upon entering the opening night of Beneath the Ice of the Vistula, this process began before the opening scene. The drama of the high circular ceiling housed within a church building nestled on West 86th Street, the audience seats hugging the stage, and the patrons buzzing with friendly chatter—mostly in Polish—was a set up in and of itself.

Before the lights go down, I take in the playing space. The stage is a mix of living room realism and impressionism. The wrought-iron shelves feel contemporary and commonplace (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them in many a friend’s apartment), whereas the couch feels more like something one would find in this well-off composer’s home in Warsaw in early 1940s Poland. The floor is given a treatment of white paint looking like scattered pages. In front of the circular upstage wall are Edison bulbs hanging at various heights. Beneath the bulbs is a bunched-up clear plastic tarp lining the floor. I will shortly come to discover that, in this production, plastic is meant to be a stand-in for water (although this particular plastic will never be acknowledged or utilized… nor will the meaning of the title).

The play opens with a bit of a slapstick-style pantomime from Adam (opening night performed by playwright Roman Freud) before settling into its dominant rhythm of late 19th century-style realism (think your Ibsens and Chekovs). The dialogue is the star, performed deftly in the hands of the actors with a particularly noteworthy performance in Cady McClain as Lydia, the Polish cook. Her groundedness, sense of humor, and ability to earn beats as the stakes are raised moved the arc of the show along beautifully.

Freud’s performance is charming and engaging, albeit erratic. His character’s bursts of outrage, while necessary to advance the plot, often feel manufactured due to a lack of a build into the moment. This is not helped by his costume, a well-fitting suit that feels out of step with the circumstances of the play. While he looks fantastic, the wardrobe feels incongruous with the fact that he is choosing to be locked in his home, an artist working tirelessly to complete a new creation. He always presents as a man ready to go out into the world, when in fact he never leaves his apartment. The longer he is locked inside, the more his dreams rise to the surface, as does the growing intensity of whether he will complete his cello composition or not. Despite these changes in his interior state, his external appearance does not change.

Freud’s scenes with Brad Fryman as a series of composers that appear in Adam’s dreams are entertaining, with Fryman’s performance offering a certain largess that leads to delight. Unfortunately, he is only in three scenes and the delight of his underutilized characters is mitigated by the poor quality of the transitions, done in blue-outs after blackouts, with the actors dropping character to move set pieces.

This juxtaposition between strong performances and lackluster staging choices is on particular display through the use—or lack thereof—of a cello. I believe the actors when they tell me Adam is a composer working on a cello suite. I do not need to see a cello onstage only to be used as a prop and never played. The effect is that of a gun waved about but never fired. The treatment of the cello would have been better off if the director had taken the same approach to it as to the cookery; the cooking itself is offstage, but the food is real, brought on stage by the cook and set before the composer, to be eaten in front of us. The choice to use real food offers a particularly sensory payoff when a cabbage pie Lydia makes for Adam is available for purchase at concessions during intermission. (My plus one and I shared one, and it was delicious.)

The play takes great care in establishing that, while cut from different cloth, the cook and the composer are not so different in their creativity and desire to share their talents. As Adam says to Lydia after a spoonful of carp soup, “It’s not simple putting your soul into what you do. Here is the work, here is the soul. But how do you combine them?”

If it weren’t for the advancing of Hitler’s army on Poland, it could be easy to believe that this play is about the unlikely union of two people who have forged a path away from their upbringings and towards their own fate, and each other. Alas, it isn’t meant to be. The final sequence of the play offers up a heartbreaking distance between Adam and Lydia as the world, and the stage, fall apart. The technical capacity of the final sequence, leading into an original cello composition by Innessa Zaretsky piped through the speakers, quite actually leaves the audience silently captivated. I would have liked to sit in the final blackout together longer.

Beneath the Ice of the Vistula

By Roman Freud
Directed by Eduard Tolokonnikov

Performed by Cady McClain, Brad Fryman, & Roman Freud/Lev Grzhonko (alternating nights as “Adam”)

Jenya Shekhter (scenic design), Natalia Danilova (costumes) Denis Zabiyaka (sound design), Hunter Lustberg (lighting), Karli Fisher (stage manager) and Marina Philidor (producer)

Runs February 12 - 28, Wednesday - Friday at 7pm, Saturday at 2pm and 7pm & Sunday at 2pm.

The West End Theatre at St. Paul & St. Andrew UMC (263 West 86th Street)

Tickets: $55 - $70

www.beneathiceofvistulaplay.com

Ria T. DiLullo is a native New Yorker, director, playwright, and actor. They are also the founder/artistic director of The Skeleton Rep(resents), a 10-year old indie theater company with a mission statement to explore modern myth through the development and production of new works. Keep up with Ria and TSR - @dilulloria / @skeletonrep / www.dilulloria.com / www.skeletonrep.org

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Our House: An Interview with Playwright Barry Boehm, by Ekemini Ekpo

2026-02-10T17:40:00.001-05:00

Photo by Kyle Froman

The events of Our House, receiving its world premiere at TOSOS, precede Obergefell v. Hodges—the Supreme Court case which legalized same-sex marriage—by about a year. Also preceding Obergefell are the police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and another 857 people in 2014 alone.

It’s been over a decade since then, plus we’re coming up on America’s semiquincentennial. In all that time, a lot has changed, and a lot has stayed the same. Even though Obergefell is safe (for now), we continue to face a gluttonous death machine—it has a particular taste for marginalized communities, but it’s not a picky eater. We saw the machine in action in the recent killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis, and the less-recent murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the same two square-mile area. We also saw it in action when President Reagan refused to take any concrete steps to mitigate the AIDS epidemic for the better part of the 1980s, leading to the preventable deaths of tens of thousands and necessitating activist organizations like ACT-UP. Suffice it to say, if this country is a house (almost) 250 years in the making, then it’s always been a precariously-built one.

Playwright Barry Boehm has a certain interest in houses. And in his play Our House, he turns to the Midwest, his first home, to explore intergenerational connection and conflict, the distinction between facile comfort and true safety, and the work that’s required to make a community truly welcoming. All valuable inquiries in times like these—unremarkable and unprecedented in equal measure. In our interview, I asked him to dig into these themes, and into the setting of his play.

“In Iowa, the year before marriage equality is recognized by the Supreme Court, Andy, an ACT-Up NY veteran and his husband are to host the wedding of their nephew Brendan to Eugene, who is African-American. The happy occasion is threatened when the young couple venture out into the neighborhood and a confrontation with locals force this modern family to face some hard facts about what it takes to make everyone feel safe in ‘our house.’”

Our House is written by Barry Boehm, directed by Mark Finley, produced by Ken Goldman, and features Christopher Borg, Tim Burke, CJ DiOrio, Jalen Ford, Nancy Slusser and Jon Spano, with set design by Evan Frank, costume design by Ben Phillipp, lighting design by David Castaneda, sound design by Morry Campbell, stage management by Abby Fry, associate production from Nicholas Reilly, and assistant direction from Reesa Graham. It will run from February 26 to March 21 in the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at The A.R.T./New York Theatres on 502 West 53rd Street. Tickets start at $45, and can be purchased at www.tososnyc.org.

Ekemini Ekpo: What was your strategy for tackling the theme of generational difference in Our House?

Barry Boehm: I’m lucky in having many young(er) queer friends who are willing to let me nose around in their lives a bit and answer my questions. I love the research part of artistic creation—the reading, listening and observing. I have my generational critiques of the younger generation, but also a lot of faith, empathy, and respect for them. I remember being a young Gen X-er listening to older gays grouse about us. We were either too cynical about politics and not active enough or we were too militant—too impatient with the process and not willing to “earn” our political rights. What I’m really interested in is less generational difference and more the ways in which we can connect intergenerationally in order to keep queer culture alive and thriving.

I’m a strong believer in the idea that there is such a thing as Gay/Queer culture. I’ve often said that the queer generation gap is about a span of five years. This is reflected in my play in the ways two different generations depicted by an uncle and nephew, both gay, who grew up in the same house, same town, and went to the same high school have radically different experiences growing up in the town. Political, social, and technological changes have accelerated the differences between the queer generations in so many ways.

One of the biggest being in the way we connect physical spaces—the loss of the bar culture, queer spaces like coffeeshops, neighborhoods, bookstores, etc. replaced by a dependence on social media. It has allowed many to find communities who once felt isolated by geography. Social media has changed dating, courtship, sex, and activism for our community. Activism can easily be relegated to a tweet or Tik Tok dance; courtship takes place online governed by a different set of customs and rules. And in exchange for the connectivity social media promises, we have lost physically defined queer spaces where we are obliged to deal with each other’s stink in a direct way. I think every generation craves connection—but social media offers the fantasy of a hundred other choices and promotes blocking or swiping left if you aren’t completely satisfied. Social media gives us 135 pride flags for the present generation (and how wonderful to see such diversity recognized), but there is something to be said for a community that can rally around one.

So how do we connect and share the culture we have built with the next generation? I’d like to think that theatre might play a part in that—the sharing of our stories through the greatest tool for empathy-building we have—live theatre.

EE: Another theme that’s present in your play is the notion of white people coming face-to-face with the violence that Black people in particular (and people of color more broadly) have always experienced in America. Especially in the wake of ICE’s increasingly indiscriminate violence, how do you feel that your play speaks to the current moment?

BB: Our House has had a long gestation. It began as a play exploring the difference of experience between gays in the Midwest and those in the big coastal cities. As I got older, generational differences shaped the play. And behind all of that there was this growing concern about guns in America (from growing fears of US militias to Columbine) and an insane trend of police willing to use increasing deadly force against citizens, especially those of color, AND get away with it. We’d see charges either dismissed or not pursued by our justice system. And I watched Americans become more and more afraid to challenge law enforcement, being sold a bag of goods about lawlessness and the thin blue line, etc. Our sense of self-reliance and security has been undermined by the war on terror, stranger danger, and other social changes that have bred mistrust between us as neighbors and citizens. It was around the time of the murder of Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin that the “incident” in Our House took shape.

Stand Your Ground Laws: a most un-American thing disguised as the most American thing.

My play deals with the tension between wanting comfort and safety and the need to stand one’s ground. Midwesterners have a strong sense of property—their land, their house, and their right to defend it. But ask that same Iowa gun owner if it would be okay if someone else, a stranger or a police officer pulled out a gun on their property and you’re likely to hear, “Not in MY HOUSE!” I thought this might be a way of reaching those good people who are fed a diet of Fox News and cop shows that portray American life as being constantly under assault, if I could dramatize the feeling of helplessness one experiences when power asserts itself through a badge or a gun and is able to do so in the place you feel should be your sanctuary, your home. What has brought us to the place where we accept police getting a slap on the wrist for entering a private home and shooting people roused from their beds?

What has made us okay with cops and security guards pepper-spraying kneeling protesting students? Shooting at priests from the rooftop of an American concentration camp for stateless undocumented people? Back during the ACT-UP protests, the use of that kind of extreme force was not common—you were more likely to get into an altercation with a counter protester or some homophobic bystander. I sincerely believe that if cops had pepper-sprayed or gassed ACT-UP protesters at any of the big demonstrations, we would have been outraged. The right to peacefully protest even to the extent of civil disobedience was sacred. The right to yell at a cop or film their activity or try and help a fellow protester from being harmed was not a death sentence.

It doesn’t surprise me that strong resistance to this violent new normal is coming from a great midwestern city like Minneapolis. Folks there don’t want strangers bringing guns into their “house” and threatening their families and neighbors. There’s the line that many sides can find common ground.

I am more than a little saddened that Our House continues to grow in timeliness and relevance due to the outrageous events of the current administration. I hope my play reminds people that when a community under siege and fighting for its life faced a heartless and corrupt administration, the answer was to organize, act up, and fight back!

EE: Why does this play take place in Iowa, and why is that important?

BB: I was born walking distance from the Mississippi River and now live walking distance from the Hudson. My fictionalized Iowa town in Our House draws heavily on my own hometown, as my fellow Quad-Citians (a cluster of cities in Illinois and Iowa situated around the East/West bend in the Mississippi) will no doubt recognize.

Living in NYC and growing up in the Midwest, I was keenly aware of the ways heartland gays experienced our political progress compared to the way it felt in NY or DC. I also found it ironic that for all the posturing of New York and California queers fighting for gay rights, it was an “Iowa Stubborn” (to use a Music Man reference) Supreme Court who correctly and in a very American way concluded that the State had no business denying same sex marriage—you couldn’t get that done in Albany or Sacramento. Also, I wanted to write about a gay couple living in a community, having a history connected to a place. The family in Our House is connected to the house through five generations going back over a hundred years.

At one time in our history, coming out for many queer folks meant leaving family and hometown to move to the coasts, or at least a big city. In Our House we have the reverse: a gay man returning to his hometown because he believes it belongs to him and he doesn’t want to give it up. And why should he? The “elite” abandonment of our communities in the middle of the country, economically and socially, has played a part in the situation we find ourselves in today. A few years back I learned that over 60 percent of the kids in my high school alma mater lived below the poverty line. That same high school is an Art Deco masterpiece, built during a time when our country took pride in education and a small city could thrive with a unionized manufacturing base, small businesses, and more diversity than many New Yorkers might imagine.

Queer folk live everywhere. We belong everywhere. Our roots are deep.

EE: Relatedly, many people on the coasts consider Iowa a “flyover state” (and it’s a view that Andy [one of the characters] alludes to in the play). Given this dismissive, arguably pejorative view of the Midwest, what thoughts were going through your head while working to put this quotidian Midwest story in front of a New York audience?

BB: Many of the most interesting New Yorkers came from the Midwest! The Provincetown playhouse that gave us Eugene O’Neill was founded by Iowans from my hometown. And that is no accident that such cultural figures would come from such a place. I grew up in the Quad Cities which could proudly point to an exceptional symphony orchestra, several community theatres, a decades-old children’s theatre company, a free Shakespeare in the park, and a well-known boys’ choir that routinely toured the world. When my character Andy alludes to “flyover country! Sarah Palin’s real America” he is being sarcastic and dismissive of these pejorative terms that due to incidents in the play, he feels will ring true to those involved. It hurts him to say those things about his hometown.

I very much consider myself a New Yorker, even though I proudly live in Jersey City! I eat, work, socialize, and kvetch like a New Yorker, and I’ve now lived here longer than anywhere else. One of the earliest discoveries I made about New York life was how one could find community here—how tribal its neighborhoods felt. I loved becoming a regular at certain restaurants or bodegas. It all felt very small town and not that different from life in the Midwest. All America is real America.

EE: What do you want audience members to take away from the show? And does that answer change based on who the audience is? For example, do you hope for white viewers to take away something different from Black viewers?

BB: At an earlier point in writing Our House I used to describe it to Black friends as a play that exposed how nice white people talk about race. “If you want a glimpse of what your most non-racist, decent white friend is worried about when you aren’t in the room, read my play!” I hope that still rings true and that Black audiences will find that interesting.

Recently, I have noticed a trend in theatre-writing that deals with interracial interactions that I believe works to coddle progressive, middle-class audiences. It takes about five seconds to “spot the racist aggressor.” They are often women (Karens! Even women like to hate them!), and they make it easy for a white audience to say, “Well, that’s not me! Whew! No need to feel anxious about this play that is talking about race stuff!” We also often get the extremely reasonable and nearly perfect-in-every-way Black character. They are extremely patient, always right mostly because they are facing such obvious racist nonsense that one need do little more than offer an eye roll to defeat any conflicting viewpoint. This too works to make audiences feel comfortable. After all, if we found ourselves really disagreeing with the Black character, might that make us uninformed, a “micro-aggressor,” not woke, or OMG racist? In Our House, I try to portray characters who don’t fall into these condescending categories, who are trying their best to be good, and who often fail when they are trying their hardest.

I think a good play should raise questions more than provide answers. What if all the characters in the play are right? What if they disagree and can’t reassure each other of complete and total acceptance? Do we go our separate ways? Do we give up on someone we love because they may disappoint us, even hurt us at times? We all have different answers to these questions.

It’s interesting that in this discussion we have often talked about racial differences, a strong theme in the piece certainly, but it is mirrored by another difference—between queer folk and their allies. My two young lovers, an interracial gay couple, grapple with challenges to the way their race makes their experience of history and events different. The same thing happens between my main character Andy and his sister. Andy as a gay man lived through the AIDS crisis and the homophobia in our country in a way that will always be different from his fierce and loving ally sister. And it shouldn’t go unnoticed that the sister’s experience of living as a single mother in America will never be fully comprehended by her adoring brother. But is that a reason for us all to quit each other? It’s said in the play that life is a “dark, dangerous walk in the park, for all of us,” to which another character replies, “That’s why we oughta try and walk together. Bring some light. Make some noise.”

EE: Is there any single piece of information that would deepen an audience member’s understanding of the play, if they had it beforehand?

BB: Interesting question. Do I want audiences to go out and buy Sarah Schulman’s book Let the Record Show on the history of ACT-UP, or Ron Goldberg’s Boy with a Bullhorn? Should they search YouTube to view for free the documentary How to Survive a Plague? That would be marvelous! But I think the thing I’d most like them to know is The Strangler’s song, Let’s Tango in Paris. Listen to it a few times, and when you come to see the show, you’ll understand.

EE: What qualities allow this play to have enduring relevance?

BB: Hope! We can talk about how the current younger generation has lost faith in institutions or no longer believes that our world is getting better, but I don’t think they have abandoned hope.

Our House is a play about people who love each other and want desperately to make each other feel safe and welcome, and that is not an easy task. The play found its present shape over four years ago and I have worried whether some of the issues the play deals with would lose their timeliness. It’s rather bittersweet that they haven’t. Sadly, same sex marriage rights are under renewed attack, law enforcement still gets away with murder, both literal and figurative, and we still struggle with issues of race and difference—language and dogma developed to help us deal with these issues gums up communication as much as it clarifies.

Our House will remain relevant as long as we need hope. A hope that we can love each other and live together, happily under the same national roof, even if that means fighting to be loved, understood, and heard.

EE: Who needs to see this show?

BB: Our House is a “gay” play in that it aims to reflect the lived experience of gay people where they are at the center of the story. And I was extremely lucky to find a connection to an LGBTQ+ theatre company, TOSOS, the oldest such company of its type in New York, who were willing to give my play a home and a life onstage. But I don’t think its appeal or relevance is limited to our community. Our House is about family: brothers and sisters, uncles and nephews, the long-time married and the soon-to-be married. Without giving away too much about the events of the comedy, it deals with many tough issues that affect the way we all live in our community, from guns and police enforcement, to economic blight and coexistence with neighbors. We are facing a period in our national history that is going to call on many of us to become activists, and Our House deals with the joys and sorrows of taking such a stand—that fear we all have of not doing enough balanced with the very human desire to live a life of peace and security. So…everybody!

Barry Boehm has been active in the theatre and performing arts since his professional debut as an actor at age nine. He has worked as both an actor and director in the Midwest, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. He holds a BFA in Drama from Illinois Wesleyan University and did his Ph.D. in theatre arts at the Graduate Center of City University in New York. His full-length plays include Naptime at Polly’s and The OGGs in Hoboken. His short play Mates in Space! was produced as part of the Baltimore Comedy Festival.

Ekemini Ekpo is a writer (often), theatre-maker (sometimes), and southerner (always). She’s a resident actor at Mercury Store, and has performed with the Huntington Theatre Company, on the Boston Common, in various dimly-lit studios, and elsewhere. Her scribblings about the stage can be found both in theatre publications like Howlround Theatre Commons and 3Views, and in non-theatre publications like Common Edge and TheBody. Ekemini’s an alumna of the BIPOC Critics Lab, the New City Critics fellowship program, the Vox Media Writers Workshop, and Harvard College.

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Cameron Page on Time Passes as presented by The Goat Exchange as part of The 2026 Exponential Festival

2026-02-04T21:49:00.005-05:00

photo by Abbie Sage

To get to their seats for Time Passes, the audience must walk around a large net draped between the stage and the viewers. It is not immediately apparent who is supposed to be inside the net, and who is outside.

The show opens in darkness, with a female voice reading from the lyrical second section (titled “Time Passes”) of the novel To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. When the lights come up we see a young woman, twenty feet in the air, wearing a housewife get-up and a blonde bouffant. This is Ellen Brody (Chloe Claudel), wife of the main character in the movie Jaws. Over the next 75 minutes we hear more passages from To the Lighthouse and we hear every line spoken by Ms. Brody in Jaws.

If you’re thinking this seems like a hard premise to succeed with, I would have agreed. But somehow they pull it off. Time Passes works because at the surface it is visually and linguistically engaging, while underneath it offers a puzzle to ponder: why these two? What is it that draws the creators to juxtapose these two women?

The easiest, least satisfying answer is feminism. The killer shark might be terrifying, but in 1970s America at least Police Chief Brody has agency. He’s a white man and can fight the shark, whereas Ellen Brody must experience the terror of it without any ability to affect the outcome. I could picture Virginia Woolf nodding along to how reminiscent that is to being a talented ambitious woman in 1920s America.

Still, there are literally hundreds of films in which a woman in a scary situation feels trapped by her societal circumstances. Why choose the movie about a shark? (One simple reason is that it allows for great sight gags, like the guy in the shark mask (Mateo Lincoln) playing live piano, which the sold-out crowd loved on the night I visited.)

Another thematic parallel is the wildness and unpredictability of nature. The middle section of To the Lighthouse describes a passage of years in which an elegant country estate is taken over by the natural world. In a similar way, it has been said that Jaws was intentionally set in quiet suburban Long Island so the shark could highlight the eons-long battle between chaos and control.

Police chief Brody is clearly arrayed in opposition to the chaos of nature…but is his wife? On stage, our Ellen Brody bakes for the shark, flirts with it, and even snuggles with it. Perhaps Ellen would be happier if she embraced the chaos of nature? Is that where her true happiness might lie?

Ms. Claudel, playing Ellen Brody, is on stage for the entire show. She puts in a winning performance and transitions smoothly between her Woolf persona and her Ellen Brody character. She and her co-director (Mitchell Polonsky) move the action around the stage nicely with the help of choreography by Lena Engelstein. The show requires a number of technical elements by scenic designer Forest Entsminger that were quite inventive and went off without a hitch the night I attended. Lighting Designer Abigail Sage perfectly captured the 360-degree feeling of a swooping lighthouse beam, and the costumes by Olivia Vaughn Hern have nice little details to remind us that this is, in the end, a period piece.

You don’t have to sink five rows of teeth into themes of nature, feminism, or chaos-versus-control to get something out of this show. There’s plenty of light-hearted silliness on stage, whether it comes in the form of a shark-masked piano player, a giant inflatable shark that rumbles and puffs, a stuffed animal shark, or a simple Roomba taking a deserved moment in the spotlight.

Time Passes

By The Goat Exchange

Directed by Chloe Claudel and Mitchell Polonsky

Cast: Chloe Claudel (Ellen Brody)

Mateo Lincoln (accompanist/musical director)

Sound and Media by Mitchell Polonsky

Lights by Abigal Sage

Scenic Design by Forest Entsminger

Choreography by Lena Engelstein

Costumes by Olivia Vaughn Hern

Public Relations by Theresa Buchheister

Performance Schedule:

January 22-24 at 8pm

January 25 at 2pm and 6pm

January 26 at 8pm

January 28-29 at 8pm

January 30 at 4pm* and 8pm

January 31 at 3pm and 7pm

Tickets:

https://www.theexponentialfestival.org/timepasses

The Goat Exchange can be found @thegoatexchange

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Rachel Kerry on Hillary Gao’s I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty as presented by The Exponential Festival at the Brick Theatre

2026-02-03T18:05:00.006-05:00

photo by Walter Wlodarczyk

It may be grey and cold in NYC, but The Exponential Festival at The Brick Theatre is lively with experimental theatre this winter.

I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty, written & directed by Hillary Gao performing as part of The Exponential Festival, is an abstract ASMR workplace fever dream. At the start it feels like a contemporary mashup of Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theatre and the TV show Severence. A chorus of five performers, all dressed in stylized office-casual grey, weave through the stage while delivering a nonstop stream of consciousness office-related jargon. They swerve from introspective ASMR monologues (complete with fingernails clicking on filter coffeemakers) to Gertrude Stein-esque spoken word repetitions. A common refrain deconstructs the all-too-familiar invitation to work happy hour with delightful cheek.

But as the show unfolds, it shifts into something much more surreal and strange. The mundanity of the office is just a pitstop on the way to exploring familial expectations, Chinese heritage, and female beauty standards. There’s also a sprinkle of body horror thrown in for good measure. The cast works hard with the wild content. Isabel Ebeid shines as the menacing clown manager, hovering at the edges of the action. Nikkie Samreth deftly balances monologues both grotesque and intimate. Emma Hasselbach’s sound design admirably supports the ASMR sequences. And Forest Entsminger’s set design of interlocking grey frames perfectly evokes stylized grey office cubicles.

Gao’s piece is deeply satisfying when it fully embraces the absurdity of workplace banality. It is both cathartic and fun to pick apart the nonsense phrases of “I’ll Slack you!” And “Two-step verification!” There are some big punchlines to be had involved “Sephora” and “Shein.” Just when one thinks the show has nowhere else to go, there is a surprising and engaging scene inspired by C-dramas. But there are some sequences that feel more like digressions than asides. Gao has crafted an ambitious exploration of ideas that would benefit from a few darlings discarded here and there.

I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty sits within a very distinct genre of non-linear experimental theatre. Much like Richard Foreman and Gertrude Stein’s work, it isn’t for everyone. This genre of performance requires a patience and depth of thought that is in opposition with the superficial office culture Gao is mocking. It reminds us how important it is to investigate and challenge the workplace language we now take for granted. But challenging work can also be a lot of fun. Much like an ASMR video, if you sit back, relax, and let the show wash over you, you will enjoy this wild and weird ride.

I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty
Written and directed by Hillary Gao

Cast
Nikkie Samreth
Isabel Ebeid
Miranda Kang
Sam Xu
Ring Yang

Design team
Movement direction by Celine Abdallah
Costume design by Hannah Bird
Se design by Forest Entsminger
Sound design by Emma Hasselbach
Music Composed by Miguel Lorenzo
Light design by Connor Sale

Tickets

at The Brick Theater — 579 Metropolitan Ave
January 30 – February 7, 2026

RACHEL KERRY is an award-winning filmmaker & theatre director who specializes in horror comedy, musical theatre, and interactive storytelling. Her work has been hailed as "unabashed extravagance" by Time Out, "triumphantly weird" by io9, and "uncompromising parody" by The Scotsman. She received her MFA in directing from Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art and graduated Cum Laude from the University of Southern California. Her theatre directing has been featured in FlameCon NYC, Perth's Fringe World, Bondi Feast, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, FringeNYC, FRIGIDNY, and Sydney’s Old Fitz Theatre. Her filmmaking has been featured in ABC Rage, Midsummer Scream’s Screaming Room Film Festival (audience award winner), the Queer Fear Film Festival, the Fargo Film Festival, the Inwood Film Festival, and the NY Latino Film Festival.

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The Anti-fascist Underground: An interview with Ife Olujobi and Garrett Allen by Jody Christopherson

2026-01-28T21:19:00.007-05:00

Director Garrett Allen and Playwright Ife Olujobi

After days of watching another execution online (again) via Instagram, of going from rallies to work to doing the dishes and trying to remember to shower to what do I make for lunch (I could have sworn we had some leftover Chinese food I guess I'll just eat some chocolate chips and popcorn) I'm thrillled to be talking with Ife Olujobi (the Obie Award winning playwright of Jordans at The Public Theater) and Garrett Allen (performer/ director, Mother Courage at Trinity Rep and would you mind?... at HERE Arts Center). Because, we all are not ok and WE ALL NEED A PLACE TO PROCESS THAT. I was planning to quote Emma Goldman to describe Olujobi and Allen's latest work, but I think we are beyond that whole dancing/ revolution paradigm. (Unless, Emma was a rave-y witch dancer? I don't know I wasn't there.) Where are the places we can collectively scream? Melt down while finding euphoria? This is where third places come in: the spots we gather outside of work and home to be human together. Olujobi and Allen are creating a third place within a third place- a club within a theater- a space for community release as a form of resistance.

Their production, down & out, staged at Brooklyn Art Haus as part of The Exponential Festival, runs Jan 28-29 at 730pm and 930pm. It serves up (per the production) "a new performance series about feeling bad at the club. How do we hold despair, conflict, disconnection, disappointment, panic, and ennui actively in a space where we’re meant to be dissociative and euphoric? If the dancefloor can't be an escape from our personal, social, and political realities, can it still be a release? Written by Ife Olujobi, directed by Garrett Allen, performed by a rotating cast of actors and club kids alike, and live-scored by a professional DJ, down&out aims to bridge the gap between nightlife and the capital-T Theatre by exploring the kaleidoscopic and spontaneous ways we perform for and with each other on a night out, and to examine what the hedonism of the club can offer us in these trying times."

down &out is written by IFE OLUJOBI, directed by GARRETT ALLEN, features AJA DOWNING, CANDICE SAINT WILLIAMS, DEVANTÉ MELTON, LINDSAY RICO, MARIYEA, MAYA MARGARITA, MAXWELL VICE, NANA XOXO, PARIS ALEXANDER, YEELEN COHEN with Sound by DOULA and Lighting by WILDBLUR

tickets and more info here

NYTR: What makes a club a good club?

IFE OLUJOBI: Excellent DJs, spacious and plentiful bathrooms, a good seating/cool-down area, free and easily-accessible water, and expert audience curation at the door. There are certain venues that are better at these things than others, but in reality a good night out is less dependent on the venue than it is on the party being hosted there and the organization, vibes, and crowd that they bring in.

GARRETT ALLEN: I’ll also add the importance of the underground and how the warehouses, basements, forests, beaches, train tracks, offices, etc make for some of my most activating and memorable nightlife experiences. I always think that the underground impacts the overground and the clubs always want what they sometimes can’t actually have, what is ephemeral, transgressive, and not based in capital.

NYTR: What was Vol 1? How did this work begin and how has it evolved? What are you discovering in the process? Has it changed you and the group in any way?

IO: The project of down&out began as a outgrowth of some exploratory writing I had done about the intersections of theater, the club, and performance, which manifested in some imagined monologues and dialogues inspired by the kinds of conversations that I was having and overhearing on my own nights out. I was interested in attempting to capture the social aspect of the club—specifically the black, brown, and queer club—that is so important to my nightlife experience, but which I didn’t necessarily see represented in other nightlife or nightlife-inspired performances that were more centered on music, dance, and design. Trying to blend a more theatrical, text and dialogue–based performance with the rhythm, sounds, and atmosphere of the club has been logistically challenging but artistically exciting!

The first down&out (full title: down&out vol. 1: estranged) was a site-specific play-performance that took place at Jupiter Disco in Bushwick, and was made up of social exchanges that, to me, exemplified feelings of estrangement, missed connections, and the fleeting intimacies that can be formed in a nightlife environment that may not last elsewhere. down&out volume two’s theme is crisis, and that word is meant to hold both the escalating geo- and sociopolitical crises we’re living through, but also the ways that a night out can unexpectedly devolve into chaos. Writing to this theme feels representative of the mission of down&out as a whole, which is to try to depict honestly the reality of engaging with nightlife—traditionally a space for euphoria and dissociation—when you are very much not okay emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially, and what the dissonance between the joy and eroticism and the club vs. the anxiety and despair of modern American life can conjure.

Doing this project has taught me a whole new way of working as a playwright and theater artist, specifically in the sense that these shows materialize within a matter of a few months rather than the years-long development process it typically takes to put up a play. Mounting the volumes quickly and with very little money can be really stressful, but life is stressful! And I value being able to make something that can respond in real time to the world around me, because it really does feel so rare to be able to do that as a playwright.

NYTR: You have actors and artists of the club coming together to create this piece. How have you brought people into this work and what is the process like?

IO: For volume one we had four actors: two of them we knew more from the theater world and the other two I knew through nightlife. For volume two we have 10 actors, which is crazy!! But I’m really happy that we have a cast of folks, all of whom have their own unique relationships to the theater, and whom are all doing such incredible work. Some went to school for theater or have more extensive acting backgrounds, and some are brand new to theater, or have engaged in other kinds of drag or solo performance but haven’t acted in an ensemble before. The most interesting people to me, though, are the ones who I knew or had heard of exclusively in a nightlife context and then later find out that they’re also trained actors or have BFAs in theater. I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising? But doing this project has revealed to me that there are actually so many theater kids and theater professionals hiding in plain sight in nightlife communities, and I feel honored that this project has activated some of them enough to contribute their immense talents to something as theoretically corny as doing a play about the club. It’s awesome and I’m so grateful.

GA: I see the club very much like the theater. We gather collectively to experience. There is absolutely drama, liveness, story, design, spectacle, intimacy, and catharsis. A good night out can often feel like a good play. Or a bad night out can feel like a bad play…

Bringing together collaborators who are steeped in nightlife world in some way is the least we can do to honor the material and ethos. We won’t and don’t try to represent everyone or everything, that is impossible. But this collection of actors and designers brings an honesty in experience and community that can be lacking in theater about specific communities and experiences. And in that way, we get to bridge worlds. And the process is easier when we have shorthand of references and vocabulary.

NYTR: Are clubs anti-fascist? What role do they play in the current moment?

IO: The club, specifically the black queer club, is a site for organizing, scheming, fundraising, political rallying, and liberatory sabotage in addition to the music, dancing, spiraling, and ki-king. It’s not simply a coincidence that the people I see at protests, organizing meetings, and mutual aid distros are the same people I run into on the dance floor at 3am on a Thursday night. Partially, that’s because the parties I’m attending at these venues are often staking a political claim: raising money for Palestine or Sudan, for incarcerated elders and trans folks, for victims of the latest climate-change disaster, for someone’s rent payments, etc. But the other part—and this is my own conjecture—is that when you are a person of conscience, someone who sees the country and the world and all it’s injustices clearly, someone who dedicates your time and energies to liberatory struggle, you need release. You need the fantasy that nightlife can give. You need to be around likeminded friends and comrades who remind you that you’re not fucking crazy for caring about the survival of others, and the club is a space that can provide that if it’s curated with intention, principle, and care.

When you’re out all night at the club you get to access a new experience of time that isn’t colonized by our technocratic overlords or spent figuring out how to make it to the next day. You can really live, and come into the fullness of yourself in a way that, in my experience, reorganizes your priorities around life, community, release, and sustainability. There is a clarity that comes with a good night out that makes you want to reshape the rest of the world in its image. Sometimes—not always, don’t come for me!—some of the biggest club rats are are the most dedicated organizers when the sun comes up. Those are the black and brown, queer and trans people who put the life in nightlife. My friends, my comrades, my sisters, my teachers, my lovers, my role models, my inspirations!

GA: Again, the underground feels crucial to mention in thinking and reflecting on movements and moments, now and always. Part of that is also from different communities being pushed into or choosing to be in spaces that are outside of the public eye. The club may be a space of escape in some lenses, but it also has been a site of organizing, resisting, collectivizing, sharing information, and practicing new ways of being. Fascism is generally defined around suppression and control. I don’t think that is inherent in clubs. Clubs spaces can be very suppressing and very controlling, but they also can be liberating, challenging, and releasing. Part of that is the freedom to be in ways one might not feel able to in day to day living. Queer and trans spaces, black and brown spaces, experimental spaces, and more have so much importance in this moment and all moments. We learn and grow from experimenting, playing, and learning from and with one another."

NYTR: What’s a thing you would make/do if there were no limitations?

IO: A film version of down&out. Call me!

IFE OLUJOBI is a Brooklyn-based, Nigerian American playwright, editor and filmmaker from Columbia, Maryland. They are the recipient of a Steinberg Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for playwriting, a special commendation from the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, an Advocacy Award from the Dramatists Guild, and an Obie Award for her play Jordans.

GARRETT ALLEN is a performance based artist and director of live work. Their interdisciplinary practice employs liveness, embodied inquiry, and conceptual experimentation to produce impermanent, excavating, and synergistic experiences. Recent directing includes Mother Courage And Her Children by Bertolt Brecht (Brown/Trinity Rep), down&out vol 1 by Ife Olujobi (Jupiter Disco), Cleansed by Sarah Kane (Yale Drama), and an original adaptation of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (Yale Drama). Recent performances include would you mind?... (HERE Arts Center) and CRASH CONSCIOUSNESS (Public Assistants). garrett-allen.com

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February 2026 NYTR Listings Guide

2026-01-26T15:12:00.002-05:00

through Feb 1st

Any Minute Now

Tickets $10.50-$73.50

HERE Arts Center, 145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013

The world is burning. An innocent man sits in jail. The laws of physics are unraveling… But it’s when the Campbells are suddenly reunited after 40 years that things get really weird. "Any Minute Now” is an 80-minute, mind-bending, dark comedy that explores what happens when one American family is brought face-to-face with past mistakes and a future that’s irreversibly doomed.

through Feb 1st

Falling Out

Tickets $35

UNDER St. Marks, 94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009

In a downtown New York music bar the ballads of lost loves and missed opportunities float on the air. Worlds collide when a melancholic transplant meets a musician with a past. Together they create a discordant harmony that will uncover the truths they both need to face to reshape their lives. This immersive production marks the world premiere of acclaimed musician and songwriter Josée Weigand-Klein’s musical of heartbreak and redemption.

Feb 4th-Feb 21st

Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure

Tickets $22.75-$43.50

The Bushwick Starr, 419 Eldert St, Brooklyn, NY 11237

A new puppet musical about an orphaned sorta mermaid living in Newtown Creek in her search for family. Amidst the backdrop of a near apocalyptic Brooklyn bought by entertainment and tech giant G’wond’rLand Inc., Gooey spends each day escaping her putrid reality into a world of her own creation: a world in which she’s perfect, beautiful and loved. But when her radio sends her on a journey to G’wond’rLand Theme Park, Gooey comes face-to-face with a streetwise rat, a severed arm, anthropomorphised toxic sludge, and a couple’a wiseguys who confront her with the truth about her dreams and how she came to be. Situated somewhere between Sweet Charity, The Sopranos, The Wiz, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and 80's body horror, GOOEY disgusts and delights in equal measure as it examines the difficulty of finding true belonging in a gentrifying New York City.

Feb 5th-Feb 15th

Mia M.I.A.

Tickets $10-$30

La MaMa, The Club, 74A East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

Mia M.I.A. is a science fiction fairytale about grief, love, the role of imagination in healing, and the transformative power of embracing the shadows.

Feb 5th-Feb 22nd

The First Line of Dante's Inferno

Tickets $10-$30

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, The Downstairs, 66 E 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

The First Line of Dante’s Inferno tells the story of Ann Espinoza, who sets off into the remote corners of a state forest in search of her missing sister Carol. Carol left her whole life behind, but seems not to want to be found. Two eager park rangers want to help. There are strange noises in the woods. Is someone out there? Told in shifting perspectives, the play takes Ann and the audience on a surprising, funny, feral path into nature and reveals what can happen when you really let yourself go.

through Feb 7th

I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty

Tickets $25-$50

The Brick Theater, 579 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

One sexy office siren- performed by 4 performers – is trying to answer her daily email. As she hits reply all, she keeps being whisked away into more and more absurd worlds.

through Feb 8th

King Lear

Tickets $10-$75

Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003

Compagnia de’ Colombari’s KING LEAR is a primal, physical, and potent “paper crown” Lear that strips the Shakespearean classic to its essence. Coonrod utilizes her signature “multiplicity” to shift and deepen audiences’ connection with the characters. Ten diverse actors, ranging in age and gender, embody King Lear at the beginning and conduct a radical takeover of the text and space. Their unity fractures as they tear off their paper crowns and assume other roles, competing for influence and diminishing the legion of Lears. Through a vigorous exploration of the characters’ egos, motivations, and power dynamics, the actors delve deeply into the internal and external journey of a stubborn, fractured soul who must lose everything to find himself. Transformation takes place in the apocalypse. Coonrod’s immersive production commands us to, as Kent demands of King Lear, “See better.”

through Feb 8th

Missed Communications

Tickets $20-$30

The Beckmann Theatre, ATA Complex, 314 W 54th St, New York, NY 10022

A Story of Reconciliation and Secrets. Missed Communications follows the journey of David, who returns to his family home after five years of total estrangement. As the family navigates his sudden reappearance, the play delves into the circumstances of his departure and the shifting dynamics of those he left behind. Through a series of revelations, long-standing "missed communications" are exposed and corrected, ultimately leading to the startling truth behind his return.

Feb 12th-Feb 28th

Fog and Ice

Tickets $38-$48

Theatre Row, Theatre 2, 410 W. 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036

An evening of drama featuring two early Eugene O'Neill one-act plays, set against the backdrop of the sea and the lives of those inextricably linked to its unforgiving power, followed by a companion piece from Esther E. Galbraith, set in Antarctica. This evocative triple bill delves into the raw emotions and fatalistic struggles of sailors, captains, and their families, exploring themes of hope, despair, and the inescapable pull of the ocean.

Feb 12th-Feb 28th

without mirrors

Tickets $25-$50

The Brick Theater, 579 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

without mirrors is an experimental solo play written and directed by Jerry Lieblich (The Barbarians, Mahinerator) and performed by 6x OBIE winner David Greenspan. In 60 minutes of gleaming shadow, a lone character speaks a jagged poetry from what they think is a cave — though in truth they aren’t sure. Without light, without sensation, without context, reference, or clear memory, their isolated mind runs at full throttle, asking: what am I?

Feb 12th-Mar 29th

You Got Older

Tickets $59-$149

Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St, New York, NY 10014

After losing both her job and her boyfriend (comes with the territory when you're dating your boss), an unmoored and unsettled Mae (Alia Shawkat) returns to her small Washington hometown to take care of her ailing father. When she unexpectedly meets a mysterious stranger, she has the startling realization that maybe the intimacy she’s been craving is easier with the unknown, rather than with her own family. Blending reality and fantasy, You Got Older reunites Obie Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Clare Barron with Obie Award winner and Tony Award nominee Anne Kauffman for this tender and darkly comic play about family, illness, and cowboys — and how to remain standing when everything you know comes crashing down around you.

through Feb 15th

MANON!

Tickets $28.32-$116.75

The Space at Irondale, 85 S Oxford Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

MANON! follows Manon as she is rescued from her fate in a convent and finds herself pulled between two suitors: Power and True Love. Opera's original "it-girl," she deftly invents and reinvents herself throughout the work, transforming her circumstances even when the stakes turn deadly.

Feb 17th-Mar 1st

Puppetopia 2026!

Tickets $10.50-$126

HERE, Mainstage Theatre, 145 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10013

Feb 17th-Mar 1st

Richard III

Tickets $20-$34

Wild Project, 195 East 3rd Street, New York, NY 10009

Feb 18th-Mar 14th

Queens Short Play Festival

Tickets $15-$27

Secret Arts, The Secret Theatre, 10-10 44th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101

through Feb 21st

Midwest Porn

Tickets $31.99-$51.99

The 14Y Theater, 344 East 14th Street, 10003

In Midwest Porn, students at St. Mary’s Elementary School are preparing for Confirmation, but fourth-grader Beatrice and her coterie threaten to boycott the ceremony due to their beef with Catholicism. At the same time, low enrollment, a nascent adult entertainment industry, and an infestation of turtles threaten the very survival of the school.

Feb 21st-Mar 22nd

SPREAD

Tickets $25

INTAR Theatre, 500 West 52nd Street, 4W, New York, NY 10019

Feb 21st-Mar 28th

ZACK

Tickets $39-$95

Theatre Row Stage 4, 410 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036

Feb 21st-Mar 29th

Cold War Choir Practice

Tickets $25-$90

The Newman Mills Theater at The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space, 511 W 52nd Street, NY 10019

In this celebrated play directed by Tony Award nominee KNUD ADAMS (ENGLISH), a young girl is embroiled in intrigue when her estranged uncle, a prominent Black conservative, brings his mysteriously ill wife home for the holidays. A fugue of Reaganomics, espionage, roller disco, and cults—underscored by the cryptic Syracuse, NY chapter of the Seedlings of Peace Children’s Chorus.

Feb 26th-Mar 1st

we're delinquents.pdf

Tickets $25-$50

The Brick Theater, 579 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

through Feb 28th

ANONYMOUS

Tickets $20-$50

Tiny Baby Black Box Theatre, 115 MacDougal St #3c, New York, NY 10012

through Mar 1st

ULYSSES

Tickets $109

The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003

Following last fall's sold-out encore of Gatz—“The most remarkable achievement in theater of the decade” (New York Times)—Elevator Repair Service (ERS) takes on the Mount Everest of twentieth-century literature. James Joyce’s ULYSSES has fascinated, perplexed, scandalized, and/or defeated readers for over a century. In this New York City premiere, seven performers sit down for a sober reading but soon find themselves guzzling pints, getting in brawls, and committing debaucheries as they careen on a fast-forward tour through Joyce’s funhouse of styles. With humor, pathos, and a richly layered design, ERS stitches together verbatim passages from Joyce’s epic masterpiece into a two-and-a-half hour tour de force.

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