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Review: "benevolent" Sorts Through Some of the Dirty Laundry of America's Past

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benevolent Written by Sophie McIntosh Directed by Nina Goodheart Presented by Good Apples Collective at IATI Theater 64 East 4th Street, Manhattan, NYC August 14-September 5, 2026 Chani Reese, Rachel Ravel, Livvy Marcus, and Mia Fowler. Photo by Nina Goodheart. Forcing unruly women into the custody of institutions such as jails, asylums, workhouses, and laundries has historically been a popular mechanism of (patriarchal, capitalist) social control, and it remains, albeit in more circumscribed form, an available lever of power today (e.g., the continued criminalization of sex workers). benevolent , a new play from Sophie McIntosh, takes audiences inside one such institution, at a time when there were substantially more avenues to confinement within its walls. Directed by Nina Goodheart, co-founder with McIntosh of Good Apples Collective, the perfectly paced and fittingly claustrophobic benevolent unfolds entirely in the basement of the "Inwood Benevolent Home," a fictional c...
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News: Solo Show “...but what if it rains?” Sept 12 -13 at FRIGID's Second Annual Neurotica Fest

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Vanessa Fleming. Photo courtesy of Zeider’s American Dream Theatre. ...but what if it rains?,  an award-winning, one-woman show written and performed by Vanessa Fleming, will have its NYC premiere at FRIGID New York's Neurotica Fest this September. The show will run September 12th and 13th at UNDER St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Pl, NY, NY 10009. In ...but what if it rains? , the carefree and unburdened Vanessa (Vanessa Fleming), finds herself clumsily stumbling through a different type of coming-of-age experience after the sudden and unexpected new role of becoming a caregiver for her mother, Diane (Vanessa Fleming). As she navigates the world she is now in that throws mammoth-sized curveballs at every turn, challenging her stamina and her wits as it reshapes her sense of self, she tries to meet the moment with humor and understanding, no matter how impossible everything seems. The show has been described as a "moving and well-crafted piece that strikes a ba...
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Review: A Celebrity Crush Doesn't Have to Mean Arrested Development in "Cerandipity"

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Cerandipity Written by Annabel McConnachie Directed by Helena Jost Presented at Chain Theatre 312 West 36th Street, Floor 3 July 12-30, 2026 Annabel McConnachie and Isabel Vann. Photo by Callee Egan (@calwithcamera). For people of a sufficient age, it can sometimes be tempting to feel nostalgic for our pre-Web 2.0, even pre-home-internet, relationship to celebrity, for days when we didn't know every off-putting opinion of the artists we liked, or even, in the cases of some bands, for example, what said artists looked like. At the same time, however qualitatively different today, the celebrity crush has been a phenomenon for far, far longer than today's information-saturated mediascape has existed. Annabel McConnachie's short two-hander Cerandipity takes an empathetic look at the significance for two contemporary young women of the celebrity crush that they turn out to share, with the play's title as perhaps a playful riff on the 2001 rom-com Serendipity , which takes a...
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News: Stairwell Theater Announces Return of Smash-Hit "The Comedy of Errors," with Free Admission, September 17th-27th

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Photo by Ellie Gravitte. Following a celebrated, sold-out run at the Pier 40 Picnic House in 2025, Stairwell Theater’s The Comedy of Errors returns to New York City by popular demand. Transferring this summer to the Battery Park Showbox Stage, Stairwell's production will run September 17-27, bringing its crowd-pleasing story of twins, mistaken identities, and miraculous reunions featuring a 4-part jazz band and an ensemble cast of 15 performers. Stairwell Theater has been awarded a 2026 Manhattan Arts Grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) in support of the remount. The grant will fund hundreds of FREE tickets for New York audiences. Directed by Sam Gibbs, Founding Artistic Director of Stairwell Theater, the production continues the company's decade-long commitment to creating immersive classical theater in surprising spaces. "One of the greatest joys of site-specific theater is letting the story feed the setting and the setting feed the story," says ...
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News: La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club Presents World Premiere of "Allegra & the Cello, in Movements" this December

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La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club will present the world premiere of Allegra & the Cello, in Movements , a new opera with story and libretto by Catherine Filloux and music by Julia Schwartz, directed by Elena Araoz. A High Hard Heat/Dominick Balletta production, this new opera runs December 10-20, 2026, at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City. Tickets are on sale at lamama.org. In a canon spanning more than four centuries, no opera has ever placed a woman doctor at its center until now. Allegra, the opera's protagonist, is believed to be the first female physician to serve as the lead character in the history of the art form, a milestone achieved not through an institutional commission but through an act of artistic will. Filloux, an established playwright and librettist whose career spans three decades of work centered on human rights, women's voices, and the capacity of art to bear witness, conceived and developed the opera entirely on her own initiative, o...
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News: Thinking Theater NYC Among Feedspot's 50 Best NY Theatre Blogs to Follow in 2026

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We're happy to share that Thinking Theater NYC has been included on Feedspot's list of  50 Best New York Theatre Blogs to Follow in 2026 , a list which includes a mix of review, news, and artist blogs from and about New York theater, conveniently collated in one location.  Feedspot is an RSS Reader that lets you subscribe to blogs, news sites, and any website you want to keep up with. Its aim is to categorize global media outlets and content creators to make them easy to discover, follow, and contact, so there's plenty to discover in and beyond the theater world as well! 
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News: Amoeba Productions’ “The Tempest” August 28th-29th at Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park

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Amoeba Productions , a new performing arts nonprofit in New York City, is excited to announce  The Tempest - this time RIDICULOUS! The Tempest will take place on Friday, August 28th at 6pm and Saturday, August 29th at 2pm & 6pm at Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park’s Mainstage area, featuring an incredible lineup of artists. Amoeba’s The Tempest is a reimagining of Shakespeare's classic play — A magician says goodbye and has one last wacky, zany, shenanigan-filled adventure. BUT, before he goes out with a bang, he learns to forgive others and himself. Inspired by Charles Ludlam’s campy theatre of the ridiculous, this production seeks to fill-in the cultural gaps of the Shakespeare in the Park legacy. This non-union, outdoor developmental production is directed by Steven San Luis. The show's production staff includes: Steven San Luis as Director, Francie Brewster as Assistant Director, Morgan Haney as Dramaturg, Louisa Nickel as Costume Designer & Technical Director, A...
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