Thinking Theater NYC

Billie Andersson, Juan Pablo Toro, Evan Olson, Scarlett Strasberg. Photo by Amy Goossens. Lower Manhattan’s Shakespeare Downtown  is celebrating its 10th season of free performances with Geoffrey Horne’s translation of Uncle Vanya - Anton Chekhov’s timeless tragicomedy of longing, frustration, and fading dreams, performed within the open-air stone walls of Castle Clinton National Monument June 11–21, 2026. Free tickets are available at the door beginning at 5:45 p.m. on the day of each performance.   In Uncle Vanya , love, regret, and the quiet ache of unrealized lives simmers beneath the surface of a crumbling 1800s Russian country estate. As a family and their restless visitors collide over long-held frustrations and unexpected passions, this timeless masterwork unfolds with dark humor and piercing heartbreak. Uncle Vanya is directed and translated by Geoffrey Horne, who studied acting and directing with Lee Strasberg, became a member of the Actors Studio, and is influenced ...

Clay Mommy Written by Aviva Pearl Ocean Creation Directed by Lili Rosen Presented by FRIGID New York  at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Pl, Manhattan, NYC June 4-7, 2026 When Hana, the titular Clay Mommy appears, clad in brown bodysuit with אמת ( emet ) written across her forehead, she looks less like a miracle than a wish that has gone too far. The hardest thing about family, Clay Mommy suggests, is that the people we need most can never fully become what we need them to be. Written by Aviva Pearl Ocean Creation, directed by Lili Rosen, and presented by FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks, Clay Mommy is a funny, painful, and deeply Jewish meditation on care, dependency, and the risks of trying to shape another person into an answer for our loneliness. The production uses the stripped-down confines of UNDER St. Marks to fine effect. A backpack, a sparkling dress, and a sculpture in progress do much of the visual storytelling. The minimalism works because the play's real landscape is...

As part of The Tank’s PrideFest 2026, The Late Night Radio Fest invites you to two listening parties of highly acclaimed radio plays with decidedly queer subplots. Friday is a night of suspense: Drew Pisarra’s The Strange Case of Nick M. concerns a podcaster  who stumbles upon recordings of some questionable medical experiments conducted on a concert pianist with a memory disorder. Saturday night is pure comedy as Pisarra’s Price in Purgatory follows the late, great, camp horror icon Vincent Price as he goes on a Dantesque journey with a lookalike spirit guide. Both shows are pre-recorded. Strictly audio. Eye masks provided. Oregon ArtsWatch said of The Strange Case of Nick M. : "Pisarra & company keep things playful, speculative, entertaining, tickling the audience around the edges of consciousness." And  Arts Independent  said of Price in Purgatory : "The play is both hysterically funny and intensely thought-provoking...." ...

Foosball , by playwright Sean Czarnecki and directed by Claire Siebers, will play at Arts On Site (12 St Marks Pl New York, NY 10003) from July 16 through August 1. Previews begin July 16 for a July 18th opening, and tickets ($30) are available for purchase here . Caught between small-town Michigan drama and an abusive father, JJ Janson has to navigate an impossible love triangle on his 16th birthday. Foosball begs the question: Can we overcome our trauma or do we learn to live with our wounds? The cast includes Will Ehren, Alice Jokela, Gideon Klapow, Anthony ‘Ant’ LoGrande, Forrest Malloy, Mia Vallet. Playwright Sean Czarnecki is based in New York. As a journalist, he covers leveraged finance. Foosball , his debut play, was a quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition 2024, advanced to the second round of the 2025 Austin Film Festival in the Stage Play category, and won the Scriptwriters & Co International Festival 2025’s best full-length play award. Foosball ...

Metal Soul Mercy Written by Maci Zakarin Directed by Hana Lauer Ensemble Choreography by K-A Nassoura Duet Choreography by Maci Zakarin Fools Rush In Choreography by Mariama Condé Presented at The Slipper Room 1167 Orchard St., Manhattan, NYC June 2, 2026 Before Metal Soul Mercy reveals its showgirls to be machines, it gives the audience a chance to fall in love with them. In its one-night-only production at The Slipper Room, that proves enough. The evening begins with Olive (Mariama Condé) peeking through the curtain, unable to resist the gathering gaze. It is a small gesture, playful and inviting, but it encompasses the entire production in miniature. The Ladybugs want to be seen; they need to be seen. And soon enough, we meet the girls – performers who have only ever known life under the spotlight, “born in fishnets and a bustier.” Maci Zakarin’s Carolina jokes that she was born addicted to applause, and the line lands as comedy, but it also announces the play's central concer...

In the Devil's Hands Written and directed by Helen Banner Original Music by Joshua Dumas Presented by A/Park Productions at Zoopraxic 11-51 44th Rd, Long Island City, Queens, NYC May 20-June 14, 2026 Rory Greenwood and Umer Khan. Photo by Diego Quintanar. There is something undeniably attractive about the idea of removing oneself from society to live in independent solitude, and, unlike the protagonist of new play In the Devil's Hands , most of us don't even have as compelling a motivation for such fantasizing as being suspected of murder. In the Devil's Hands , by Helen Banner, Creative Director of Zoopraxic, a new arts space in Long Island City, takes inspiration from the story of Alphonse Le Gastelois (1914-2012), a resident of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands and a British Crown Dependency. In 1961, Le Gastelois exiled himself to an island in the Écréhous reef, six miles from Jersey, after having been targeted as a suspect in a series of sexual assaults ...