Thinking Theater NYC

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...

CUMULO Created by Emily Batsford Presented by Emily Batsford and Concrete Temple Theatre at MITU580 580 Sackett St Unit A - Ground Fl, Brooklyn, NYC April 15-May 3, 2026 Photo by Ken Pao Studio If the image of a person riding a candy-studded cloud like a bucking bronco as they freefall from some unimaginable height sounds like your cup of creatively inspired, visually spectacular tea, CUMULO brews up a perfect storm of such moments. A world premiere from Brooklyn-based theater artist and access consultant Emily Batsford, CUMULO is a wordless puppet play that drops its protagonist into an unpredictable–and often vertical–journey through a preternatural world of candy floss clouds. CUMULO 's consistently inventive set mechanics and an expressive score by composer David Leon flawlessly complement exquisite work by puppeteers Emily Batsford, Camille Cooper , Gaby FeBland , Takemi Kitamura , and Justin Otaki Perkins for a captivating and enchantingly unique experience. Photo by Ke...

  Hamlet/The Furies Adapted from William Shakespeare and Aeschylus Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by  Irondale Ensemble Project  at The Space at Irondale 85 S. Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NYC April 10-May 16, 2026 As is well-attested, the problem with seeking revenge is that, no matter how justified it might be, it almost always perpetuates seemingly never-ending cycles of violence. In pairing two classic plays centered on revenge, Shakespeare’s  Hamlet  and the final play of Aeschylus’s trilogy  The Oresteia ,  The Eumenides  or  The Furies , the Irondale Ensemble presents a fresh take on the bleakness and tragedy of revenge and the promise of renewal that may follow. Staged in the unique Space at Irondale, formerly the Sunday school for the adjacent Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, this production brings the audience into their creative process, underscoring that breaking generational cycles involves all of us. The somewhat slimmed-down...

Crushed Velvet Written by Andrew Trimmer Directed by Sam Perwin Presented at wild project April 5-18, 2026 Kate Delacruz. Photo courtesy of Austin Ruffer. Tonight at wild project, everything is semi-homemade. The food gleams under studio lights, pristine and untouchable; the kitchen is immaculate but weightless; the life on display is both carefully constructed and rather unraveling. In Andrew Trimmer’s Crushed Velvet , presented as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival , the question is not simply how to stage Sandra Lee, but how to stage the system that made, sustained, and ultimately consumed her. What emerges is less a biography than a kind of hagiography, Aunt Sandy rendered with ambition and real relish. The production’s central instinct is a deeply compelling one. Rather than settling into a single mode, Crushed Velvet effortlessly moves across genres, backstage naturalism, media parody, documentary reconstruction, and sketch-inflected interludes, as if no one form can...

How I Learned (NOT) to Drive Written and performed by Jesse Bradley-Amore Directed by Padraic Lillis Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC April 10-18, 2026 Jesse Bradley-Amore. Courtesy of Emily Owens PR Living in most parts of New York City makes it easy to forget how difficult it is to live in the vast majority of places in the United States without a car. In solo show How I Learned (NOT) to Drive , playwright and performer Jesse Bradley-Amore not only lacks his own car at 40 years old but could not drive it if he had one, since he never got his driver's license during the nearly quarter century after he got his learner's permit. This lack, as he discusses, caused him various problems, some quite a bit larger than others. But this particular lack also indexically signals other lacks, other issues, stretching back to childhood. Bradley-Amore's autobiographical storytelling play, his first solo show, steers into self-examination with humor and hon...

Playwright Marco Di Stefano In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater happening in all five boroughs, has announced Via Crucis by playwright Marco Di Stefano as the winner of their 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award (formally the Mario Fratti Award). The play, translated by Caterina Nonis, will receive a reading as part of the closing ceremony of the 2026 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY on Tuesday, May 19 at 6pm at the Italian Cultural Institute of NY (686 Park Ave, New York, NY 10065). Admission to the awards ceremony and reading is FREE.   Via Crucis is a solo show in free verse structured in 14 scenes. The speaking character is a 30-year-old man living on the margins. Arrested for drug possession, he is subjected to torture and violence by the police until he dies from it. The text unfolds over the course of a single day—from 5am until midnight—and is set in various locations: the street where the young man is taken, the pol...