Thinking Theater NYC

The Exterminators Written and directed by Maxwell Eberle Presented in association with Center for Theatre Research at Center for Theatre Research 13 West 17th St., Manhattan, NYC March 17-22, 2026 Auryn Rothwell and Yousuf Shah.  Photo credit: Geve. Often what is most disconcerting is not that which is seen, but what transpires out of sight. The unseemly unseen. In The Weird and the Eerie , Mark Fisher describes the eerie as emerging from questions of agency, when something appears where it should not be, or is absent where it should be. Maxwell Eberle’s new play, The Exterminators , locates that specific brand of the uncanny in a subterranean extermination prep chamber where death is a constant, procedural and concealed. The question is not what is being killed, but how one learns how to participate in the killing. Eberle’s staging renders that process with stark visual economy: two lockers, two masks, two jumpsuits, and a single spraypack. From the outset, hierarchy is ...

Tempest Tossed Adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest Directed by Janina Picard Music Direction and original music by Flavio Gaete Presented by New Place Players at Casa Duse 16 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NYC March 5-26, 2026 L to R (foreground): Clara Tristan, Craig Bacon, Anna Bikales It can be challenging to convey to a contemporary audience the interactive, immersive nature of the early modern theaters where the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries were performed. The notion that the play is something taking place in a different universe from the audience, behind that “fourth wall” as it were, is deeply engrained. However, New Place Players’ chamber adaptation of The Tempest , Tempest Tossed , performed in the intimate townhouse parlor of Casa Duse, brilliantly bodies forth this key feature of the early modern theater in a production that is at once historical restoration and contemporary revision of what has often been regarded as Shakespeare’s farewell to t...

New Love Written by Adam Szymkowicz Directed by Christy Hall Presented by brooklynONE productions  at bkONE: The Tom Kane Theatre 51 35th St. Brooklyn, NYC March 5-15, 2026 Brianna Espinal and  Isaiah Rothstein One of the peculiar truths of theater is that intimacy is built not through grand declarations but through repetition. Lines are rehearsed, gestures repeated, rhythms discovered together until something like learned instinct begins to emerge. In Christy Hall’s deftly directed production of Adam Szymkowicz’s New Love , that hard-won instinctive connection becomes the play’s most persuasive argument about the rather grand conceit of romance itself. From the outset, the play toys with the notion that the audience will ultimately decide the fate of its central couple. Should they remain together? Should they part ways? Yet perhaps the most compelling moments of this two-hander suggest that such questions are beside the point. Love here ironically cannot be voted o...

Two-Way Glass Productions, an independent production company that seeks to emphasize the ever-shifting relationship between spectator and spectacle, will present Walter Schlinger’s Romeo and Juliet , written and performed by Sean Gordon and directed by Dixie O’Connell. The production will be presented as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival with FRIGID New York at The Rat NYC (68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201) with performances on Fri April 3 at 9:50pm, Sat April 11 at 8:40pm, Mon April 13 at 6:30pm, and Sun April 19 at 2:00 pm.  Former English undergraduate Walter Schlinger stands alone in a wide, infinite, green field. In this meta-theatrical solo performance, Walter reckons with the role our mentors play in our development and attempts to provide insight into the world's most famous love story. While desperately trying to share his work with anyone who will listen, he grapples with the notions of youth, tragedy, and validation. The creative team include...

The Sereys Company will present The Bear , the world-famous, wild and witty one-act by Anton Chekhov, translated by Paul Schmidt, from March 19th through 22nd at 124 Bank Street Theater (120 Bank Street, New York, NY, 10014). Doors open at 7:30pm, and the show starts at 8pm (runtime: 45-50 Minutes) Tickets ($23 and $30) available here . In The Bear , recently widowed Yeléna Popóva has sworn eternal devotion to her late husband, shutting herself away in mourning despite his well-known infidelities. Her rigid grief is interrupted by the abrupt arrival of Grigóry Smírnov, a hot-tempered landowner determined to collect a debt owed by her deceased husband. What begins as a tense financial dispute quickly escalates into a battle of wills between two fiercely proud personalities. The Bear skewers social conventions, exposes the theatrics of grief and masculinity, and proves that love can erupt in the most unlikely circumstances. Ana Radice-Morras plays Yeléna Popóva the faithful and passion...

Moonshiner Written by Lillian Mottern Directed by Danica Selem Presented by Adult Film at a private location in the Ridgewood area, NYC (address released upon RSVP) March 12-April 4, 2026 Annalisa Noel. Photo by Geve. Moonshine, as many theater fans know, is one of the characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream 's play-within-a-play, which is performed by a dreamer-led group hoping to impress its social betters. The young women in Lillian Mottern's play Moonshiner , though hundreds of years and a continent distant from Shakespeare's playacting laborers, share something with them as they engage in aspirational role-playing in a dreamlike setting. For Mottern's characters, that means the unreality-tinged environment of the 2019 Los Angeles wildfires, where moonshine meets firelight meets the Santa Ana winds, which one of the play's women notes, are supposed to (like the moon) "make you go crazy." Adult Film's enthralling production of Moonshiner '...