Thinking Theater NYC

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...

ExtraO1dinary Aliens! Written by Carolina Ðỗ Directed by Vas Eli Presented by BETTERFLY Productions , Leviathan Lab , and JACK in association with  The Hearth Supported Productions and The Sống Collective  at  JACK 20 Putnam Ave, Brooklyn, NYC March 7-14, 2026 Be it a design flaw or feature, immigration systems have a peculiar talent for turning human lives into scorecards. Carolina Đỗ’s ExtraO1dinary Aliens! , now running at JACK in Brooklyn, seizes that bureaucratic absurdity and stages it as something akin to a cosmic game show. Written as what the playwright calls an “absurd romantic comedy,” the play refracts the contemporary immigration process through satire, sf-fueled defamiliarization, and flashes of real emotional intimacy. Yet in this spirited production, directed by Vas Eli, some of the evening’s most vivid achievements emerge not from the script’s deft conceits, but from the remarkable vitality of the ensemble of performers. From the outset, the production ...

Paul Shearman / The Last Audition Banjo & Bongo Productions, an independent theatre and screen production company dedicated to developing original, character-driven work, will present The Last Audition , written and performed by Paul Shearman and directed by David St John. The production will be presented as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival with FRIGID New York at Chain Theatre Mainstage (312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018) with performances on Wed April 1 at 7:40 pm, Sun April 5 at 12:20 pm, Thu April 9 at 6 pm, Wed April 15 at 6 pm & The Fri April 17 at 7:40 pm.  Under the glow of a single ghost light, a once-renowned Shakespearean actor rehearses for a final audition for King Lear . As memory falters and reality intrudes, the stage becomes both refuge and reckoning. The Last Audition is a darkly funny, deeply human solo play about identity, legacy, and the quiet, complicated love between those who perform and those who care for them. The creative...

Footnotes Created, designed, and directed by Theodora Skipitares Music and lyrics by Sxip Shirey Presented by La MaMa and Skysaver Productions at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club 66 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC February 27-March 15, 2026 A trio of philosophers. Photo by Victoria Forbes. Anyone who goes to see veteran artist and theatermaker Theodora Skipitares's world-premiere play Footnotes at La MaMa will have had to walk (which, as the play reminds us, might be defined in different ways) at least a little bit to reach a seat inside the theater. What emerges from the punningly titled Footnotes is a sort of wide-ranging collage that highlights the foot and walking as fundamentally binding humans–and non-human animals–together across time, place, and experience. This sweeping scope of this visually remarkable production stretches as far back as 3.6-3.7 million year-old footprints, through Classical Era myths, and all the way to contemporary academic disability studies and the curr...

Extraterrestrial Conscience will present Lunatic , written and directed by Elina Kaplun and performed by Elina and Uliana Kaplun, as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival with FRIGID New York at Chain Theatre Mainstage (312 West 36 Street, 4 th Floor, New York 10018) with performances on Sun April 5 at 5:20pm, Mon April 6 at 7:40pm, Sat April 11 at 5:20pm, Sat April 18 at 2pm &; Sun April 19 at 5:20pm. Lunatic is a delightful mix of poetry, music and physical theatre (clowning). Absurdity and surreality, visions and images, despair and hope, sadness and happiness all come together in this performance as in our life. Lunatic is based on Russian poetry of the early 20th century: Daniil Harms, Alexander Vvedensky, Osip Mandelshtam, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Sasha Chorny, and Alexander Vertinsky. The hundred years' gap, the half planet of distance, the different languages do not matter, as we all go through the same things n...

A Baby For Me? No Thank You, Please! , written and performed by Bailey Swilley and directed by Desmond Thorne, 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 8:10pm, Mon April 6 at 6:30pm, Tue April 14 at 9:50pm & Thu April 16 at 9:50pm.  When everyone in her life pressured Bailey to have a baby, she spent a lot of time questioning, researching, and agonizing over what was wrong with her—until she found the answer, inside her guts—at the gyno’s office. This solo comedy explores what it means to sift through the gunk and finally trust your inner voice! Swilley is a writer and comedian based in Brooklyn, whose stories have been featured on RISK! , Story Collider , Love Hurts ,   and more. She is a Moth StorySLAM winner and her solo shows, Gimme a Sign! and Don’t Tell Our Bosses , were both critically acclaimed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Swil...