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Review: "The Song of Lip and Tarantula" Deserves a Spot on Your Playlist

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The Song of Lip and Tarantula Written by Aviva Pearl Ocean Creation Directed by Sasha Gheesling Presented by FRIGID New York NY, Big Beef Productions, and Kelley-Marie Van Dilla at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC February 4-8, 2026 Raising a child is a hefty responsibility, especially within the attenuated care networks of heteropatriarchal capitalism. So just imagine what it would be like to raise 26 of them. That is the number mothered by the title characters of The Song of Lip and Tarantula , a new play from writer, comedienne, and educator Aviva Pearl Ocean Creation. While this number may sound like something from Greek mythology (or Titus Andronicus ), the more dreamlike elements of The Song of Lip and Tarantula are imbricated with verisimilar details rooting the play in the current political landscape, lived queer experience, and a granular, unsentimental evocation of New York City. When the play opens, Tarantula ( Airen Guevara ) is sitting, eyes closed, in ...
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News: Jesse Bradley-Amore’s "How I Learned (NOT) To Drive" Makes Its NYC Fringe Premiere This April

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Jesse Bradley-Amore will present 2025 Philly Fringies Frontrunner Pick How I Learned (NOT) To Drive , written and performed by Jesse Bradley-Amore and directed by Padraic Lillis. The production will be presented as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival with FRIGID New York  at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place. New York, NY 10009) with performances on Fri April 10 at 8:10pm, Sat April 11 at 2pm, Sun April 12 at 3:40pm, Fri April 17 at 9:50pm & Sat April 18 at 8:40pm. New York City Fringe Festival is an open lottery-based theatre festival presented by FRIGID New York that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in a venue that values freedom of expression and artistic determination and gives 100% of box office proceeds go directly to the artists whose work is being presented. How I Learned (NOT) To Drive , directed by Indie Theatre Hall of Fame director Padraic Lillis, deals with the very true story of a 40-year-old Florida man overcoming his lifelo...
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Review: “Waiting for C-Row” Swaps Bowler Hats for Stiletto Heels

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Waiting for C-Row Written and directed by Aaron J. Stewart Presented at Teatro LATEA 107 Suffolk Street, Manhattan, NYC January 27-31, 2026 Ndeye Daro Niang and Precious Omigie Two people wait on a deserted stretch for a third, who has power over their lives. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Aaron J. Stewart’s Waiting for C-Row share this basic situation, the latter drawing inspiration from the former while transposing the action to a less abstract, more contemporary setting. In place of Godot ’s country lane, Waiting for C-Row unfolds on an urban street abutting the water; in place of a leafless tree, a single lamppost rises from center stage, simultaneously Godot ’s tree and moon; and rather than a pair of everyman tramps, our protagonists are a pair of female sex workers. Having begun life as a ten-minute play and later developed and adapted into a short film in 2021, Waiting for C-Row made its premiere this January as a new, full-length one-act play at New York Theater F...
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Review: "Anonymous" Immerses Audiences in an Eventful Support Group Meeting

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Anonymous Written by Nick Thomas Directed by Sara Fellini Presented by spit&vigor at spit&vigor's tiny baby blackbox theatre 115 Macdougal St, Manhattan, NYC - Studio 3C January 29-February 28, 2026 Sara Fellini and Daliah Bernstein. Photo courtesy of spit&vigor. Despite the massive weight of evidence and ethics against treating addiction as a criminal rather than a public health matter, this approach continues to dominate in United States, one of the nation's seemingly innumerable metaphorical "wars"; and that approach, along with the stigmatization that it both feeds into and feeds upon, were arguably even more pronounced in the 1990s, when Nick Thomas's play Anonymous takes place. Unfolding over the course of a single addiction support group meeting in 1992, the engrossing Anonymous develops a striking snapshot of the paths that brought its characters to the group and the challenges they confront in maintaining sobriety. By seating the audience ...
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News: Darkly Comic One-Act "Catatonic" Plays New York Theater Festival Jan. 28-Feb. 1

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Photo courtesy of Ana Radice-Morras Catatonic , a darkly comic new one-act by Baltimore-born, D.C.-raised, and NYC-based playwright Diego Rio Ortiz, will be presented at Teatro LATEA in Manhattan as part of the New York Theater Festival (see the full list of shows for the 2025/2026 winter festival  here ). In this surreal and unsettling short play, a desperate man responds to a Craigslist ad to become a cat for a man and his daughter. The production runs 35 minutes and is presented alongside another one-act in a 90-minute program. It is directed by Chris Grubb and features Diego Rio Ortiz, Ana Radice-Morras, Patrick T. Feeney, Ruby Rodgers, Peter Hart, Sammy Schwartzman, and Kyle Douthy. Photo courtesy of Ana Radice-Morras Performances of Catatonic  are: Wednesday, 28 January 2026 at 4:00 PM Friday, 30 January 2026 at 6:30 PM Sunday, 1 February 2026 at 1:00 PM Tickets are available at:  https://innovationtickets.com/product/catatonic/ .
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Review: With Season 17, The Fire This Time Festival Remains Undimmed in Dark Times

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The Fire This Time Festival With plays by Preston Crowder , Donathan Walters, Teniia Micazia Brown, Mo Holmes, Naomi Lorrain , and DeLane McDuffie Directed by Ken-Matt Martin Presented by FRIGID New York and The Apollo at the Jonelle Procope Theater at The Apollo Stages at The Victoria 233 West 125th Street, Manhattan, NYC January 23-31, 2026 Malik Childs (foreground), Naomi Lorrain, and Victor Musoni in Goose . Photo by Maya Jackson. The Fire This Time Producing Artistic Director Cezar Williams ended his preface to the performance of the festival's annual 10-Minute Play Program that we attended with James Baldwin's assertion, "There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform." As the current federal government openly suppresses and attempts to disappear certain types of representation, Baldwin's words hold as true as ever, and work like that ...
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Review: "Cimino's Defeat" Is the Audience's Victory

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Cimino's Defeat Written by Eric Faris Co-directed by Sam Cini and Ryan Czerwonko Presented by Adult Film at Torn Page 435 W 22nd St., Manhattan, NYC January 20-February 14, 2026 Gia Bonello and Tad D'Agostino. Photo by GEVE. It's no great insight to observe that many (overwhelmingly male) "geniuses" in the arts are controlling perfectionists prone to mistreating those around them, including their collaborators. In the history of modern cinema, Stanley Kubrick arguably represents the most prominent example of this type. Michael Cimino, director and co-writer of 1978's The Deer Hunter , is another; and, in 1980, both men released films notoriously produced with an obsessive dedication to their respective directors' visions: The Shining and Heaven's Gate . The former debuted to mixed reviews, while the latter destroyed Cimino's career, although he would direct a handful more films before his death in 2016. While Kubrick's film is now considered ...
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