Thinking Theater NYC

Clay Mommy Written by Aviva Pearl Creation Directed by Jael Scott Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC July 1-2, 2025 As a monster, the golem, a humanoid creature in Jewish tradition commonly created from mud or clay and animated via a word written on its forehead or on paper placed into its mouth, destabilizes normative boundaries and categories. A golem occupies the eponymous role of Clay Mommy in Aviva Pearl Creation's play of the same name, adding a complementary supernatural layer to the show's concern with such destabilizations, as well as with self-fashioning and mothering. With an all-trans-femme cast, Clay Mommy presents a nuanced narrative of one young woman's struggles to define and enact what it means for her to be a daughter and granddaughter, a prospective mother, a trans woman, and Jewish after she returns from New York City to the West Coast and her estranged mother. Clay Mommy is part of FRIGID New York's 2025 Queerly Festiv...

King Lear Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Judith Jarosz  Presented by Theater 2020 at The Great Room at A.R.T./New York studios 138 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NYC June 12-29, 2025 L to R: Declan Hutcheon as Edgar, David Fuller at King Lear, & David Arthur Bachrach as The Fool. Photo by John Hoffman Power, aging, family dynamics—perennially-relevant topics and ones which Theater 2020’s astutely-acted production of King Lear presents in a fresh and compelling way. With the set comprised of just a few stools, one containing the crown Lear divests himself of during the play’s opening scene, an ever-present reminder of the stakes of this family feud, the production’s versatile, dynamic, talented cast creates a captivating new portrayal of this classic tale’s exploration of the relationship among power, authority, and legitimacy.  David Fuller’s Lear leads the cast with a truly dazzling portray of the titular Lear, fully capturing the character’s capricious...

Femme in Yellow Tombola: mystical queer italian bingo Written and performed by Summer Minerva Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC June 12 and 28, 2025 Numerous cultures have traditionally included–and often celebrated–third gender categories: a person might be, for instance, a bakla in the Philippines, two spirit or equivalent designations among various North American Indigenous peoples, or a femminiello in Naples, Italy. It is the femminiello  who is a central, structuring figure in Summer Minerva's punningly titled solo show Femme in Yellow Tombola: mystical queer italian bingo . Feminielli , while socially excluded in some ways—prompting them to queer certain traditions—are also considered lucky and, relatedly, have often called the numbers in the titular tombola, a traditional game comparable to bingo but in which the numbered squares have names and meanings attached to them (number 66, for example, is le due zitelle , the two spinsters, associated...

Tiger Tail Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Geoffrey Horne Presented by Shakespeare Downtown at Castle Clinton Battery Park, Manhattan, NYC June 12-22, 2025 Billie Andersson. Photo by Amy Goossens. One might associate Tennessee Williams, whose work is full of characters who are trapped–often in inadequate domestic spaces, relationships, or both–with claustrophobic enclosure rather than the openness, even expansiveness, of outdoor theater. However, in bringing Williams's rarely performed Tiger Tail to Battery Park's Castle Clinton, Shakespeare Downtown demonstrates that the work loses none of its sweaty intensity in the move to the open air. The forerunners of Tiger Tail are a pair of Williams one-acts, 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (1946) and The Long Stay Cut Short (1946), which provided the basis for the Williams-penned and Elia Kazan-directed film Baby Doll (1956), which itself Williams later adapted into Tiger Tail , published in 1978. This textual history introduce...

The Gay Social Network - A One Woman Show Written and performed by Seerat Jhajj Directed by Pearl Emerson With Maya O'Day Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC June 18, 2025 Seerat Jhajj (front) and Maya O'Day (rear). Photo by Marissa Moorhead Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, never a paragon of ethics, has really leaned into the role of insecure technocapitalist supervillain in recent years, joining peers such as Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, and Jeff Bezos as a prominent living reminder of why billionaires should not exist. In The Gay Social Network - A One Woman Show , Seerat Jhajj takes the 2010 film about the founding of Facebook, The Social Network , written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, as a jumping-off point for a thoroughly hilarious, inventive, and queer skewering of Zuckerberg and the mindset that he represents. This week's performance of The Gay Social Network , headed to Edinburgh Fringe Fest later this summer, was part of FRIGI...

Henry V  Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Jonathan Hopkins Presented by Smith Street Stage  at Carroll Park Court Street and Smith Street, between Carroll Street and President Street, Brooklyn, NYC Juhe 5-29, 2025 Smith Street Stage’s summer productions in Carroll Park are a beloved neighborhood tradition, and this year’s offering, Henry V , is a stunning way to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary season. While the production’s standout performances, led by McLean Peterson’s brilliant King Henry, are alone noteworthy, the staging, including fight choreography and original music, all contribute to this timely and timeless exploration of leadership and nation. The production features a truly rich range of performances from its entire cast. Oliver Palmer stands out as both the Archbishop of Canterbury and Fluellen, making the former’s long-winded justification of Henry’s claim to the French throne humorous rather than mind-numbingly boring and embodying the latter ...