Thinking Theater NYC

Dario Fo © Archivio Fondazione Fo Rame Kairos Italy Theater along with Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU and the Italy-based KIT Italia will present the United States premiere of the documentary Dario Fo: The Last Mistero Buffo (90 minutes, Clipper Media, 2022) as part of their In Scena! Italian Theater Festival with exclusive screenings at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011) on Tuesday, May 5th at 6:30pm and Wednesday, May 13th at 8pm. The film will be presented in Italian with English Subtitles. The film centers on the final staging of Mistero Buffo in Rome—the farewell to the stage of its author and performer, Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo, who passed away just two months later. It tells the story of a journey that begins in Dario Fo’s dressing room, with his most famous show, and unfolds into a kaleidoscopic voyage that takes us from Turkey to Argentina—places where his works, with their powerful and critical dramaturgy, still challenge the stat...

Dreamcats! Written and directed by Charlotte Lily Gaspard Music by Nebraska ( FKA Jessie Davis ), Sabrina Chap , Zera Bloom , Doc Frost, and Malik Work Presented by Midnight Radio Show at The Gene Frankel Theatre 24 Bond Street, Manhattan, NYC April 23-May 3, 2026 Puppeteer Laurynn Starkey. Photo by Richard Termine. Cats, as anyone who lives with them knows, spend a lot of time sleeping. But what if all that shuteye were not merely relaxation but research? In Dreamcats! , the family-friendly world-premiere puppet musical from Brooklyn-based science-fiction fairy-tale theater company Midnight Radio Show, the eponymous Dream Cats are an ancient race who live cloistered from the rest of "the fantastical galaxy" on the planet Dicee One-I, where they collect and study dreams in pursuit (or purr-suit?) of "understanding all the riddles of existence." Written and directed by Midnight Radio Show creative director Charlotte Lily Gaspard, Dreamcats! fuses live action, diffe...

The Door Slams, A Glass Trembles Written and directed by Paul Zimet Music by Ellen Maddow Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in association with Talking Band at La MaMa's Downstairs theater 66 East 4th Street, Manhattan, NYC April 24-May 10, 2026 The cast of The Door Slams, A Glass Trembles . Photo by Maria Baranova. In the preface to his book The Clock Mirage (Yale University Press, 2020, Kindle ed.), Joseph Mazur describes time as "partly mathematical, partly conceptual, and significantly imaginary" (loc. 90). He adds that time, rather than something independent and absolute, "is often personal" and has "to do with our cells and brains, things that update memories to tell our bodies that we are in the rhythms and beats of being alive" (loc. 105, 148). Time as Mazur characterizes it is integral to the rhythms and ruminations of The Door Slams, A Glass Trembles , written and directed by Talking Band co-founder and Artistic Director Pau...

Labyrinth Written by Julieta Timossi Adapted and translated by Isabel Criado and Martina Demaio Directed by Zoé Zifer Presented at The Newtown Stage at the Hellenic Cultural Center 25-02 Newtown Ave, Astoria, Queens, NYC March 20-22, 2026 Martina Demaio, Juan C. Ortiz, and Isabel Criado. Photo by Ramathillai Photography. The mythological Labyrinth has a clear monster stalking its passageways, but when it comes to the maze of human love and attraction, who is in the right and wrong becomes less cut and dried. The title of the play Labyrinth recently produced at The Newtown Stage refers to a night club in the play's New York City (perhaps the actual club Labyrinth in Manhattan), but it also functions as a metaphor for the romantic lives of its trio of characters and hints at the polyvocal structure of the narrative. Labyrinth is a new adaptation of Julieta Timossi’s Argentinian play, translated into English by Isabel Criado and Martina Demaio and featuring an all-immigrant Latinx ...

I Am Nobody Music and libretto by Greg Kotis Directed by Avery Rose Pedell Music direction and vocal arrangements by Stephen Anthony Elkins Presented by Theater of the Apes and Monday Night Musicals at The Magnet at The Magnet 254 W 29th St, Manhattan, NYC April 6-May 11, 2026 L to R: Ayun Halliday, Madeline Glave, Piatt Pund (rear), Emilio Cuesta, Greg Kotis. Photo credit: @sambrinkleypics Who among us hasn't felt at least some ambivalence about the amount of time that we spend with various screens, not to mention how those screens are shaping the world? As waitress and unsigned musician Naomi ( Madeline Glave ) says at the beginning of I Am Nobody , a comic play with music from Greg Kotis, "It's been a hard couple of years," and the world is "in a weird place." If this sentiment was true when the Covid-19 pandemic prematurely ended the original run of Kotis's guitar-driven musical in March 2020, it is arguably even more true now. With the world in at...

The Last Audition Written and performed by  Paul Shearman Directed by David St John Presented by Banjo & Bongo Productions at Chain Theatre 312 West 36 Street, Floor 3 & 4, Manhattan, NYC April 1-17, 2026 A STAN IS BORN! Written and performed by Alexis Sakellaris Presented at Chain Theatre 312 West 36 Street, Floor 3 & 4 Manhattan, NYC April 14-19, 2026 Paul Shearman. Photo by Eric Moore. It may be an old question, but in an age of struggling arts organizations and the dismantling of funding institutions, it’s one that still merits some reflection: why do we need theater? What does it do for society that cannot be achieved in other ways? Although wildly different, The Last Audition and  A STAN IS BORN! , presented as part of the 2026 NYC Fringe Festival , answer these questions with stunning clarity: theater helps us to make sense of the most fundamental aspects of human existence in community with others. Written and performed by Paul Shearman,  The Last Aud...