Thinking Theater NYC

David Copperfield. Photo by Steve Gregson 59E59 Theaters (Artistic Director Val Day and Managing Director Brian Beirne) has announced the return of Brits Off Broadway, its acclaimed annual festival celebrating the breadth and vitality of independent British theater. The 2026 festival will feature eight productions and run April 14 through June 28, presented across all three of 59E59 Theaters’ stages. This year’s lineup showcases work from a dynamic range of UK writers, performers and producing companies, spanning genres from new musicals and solo storytelling to classic literary adaptations and contemporary dramas. “59E59 Theaters remains a home for artists from across the Atlantic to share bold work with New York audiences,” said Val Day, Artistic Director of 59E59 Theaters. “Every production in Brits Off Broadway reflects the curiosity and creative risk-taking that defines independent UK theater. We are proud to provide a space where artists can collaborate and present work that cha...

Hold on to Your Butts Created by Recent Cutbacks Directed by Kristin McCarthy Parker Performed by Nick Abeel , Kerry Ipema , and Natalie Rich (cast performing in rotation) Foley by Blair Busbee and Kelly Robinson Presented at  SoHo Playhouse as part of the International Fringe Encore Series 15 Vandam Street, Manhattan, NYC February 7–March 15, 2026 Natalie Rich and Nick Abeel. Photo by JT Anderson. Few contemporary films (or film franchises) are as synonymous with spectacle as 1993’s Jurassic Park , the legacy of which (perhaps ironically) rests on the promise that maximum technology, budget, and scale are how we fill cinemas, VOD streaming queues, and a couple of strategically-located theme parks. This is how we entertain the masses. Hold on to Your Butts , now playing at SoHo Playhouse, takes that premise and promise seriously, only to invert it. What emerges is not a simple skewering of bloated budget blockbuster culture, but something warmer and more revealing, a reminder th...

Theater of the Apes , an East Harlem-based company dedicated to presenting original, affordable, comic work, has announced casting for its remount of Greg Kotis ’ pandemic-clobbered original guitar musical I Am Nobody . Original cast members Emilio Cuesta (“Nathaniel) and Ayun Halliday (“Miriam") will be joined by Greg Kotis (“Mr. Charles”), Madeline Glave (“Naomi), and Eric May Liu (“Lucas”). The creative team includes Avery Rose Pedell (Director), Stephen Anthony Elkins (Music Director), Piatt Pund (Assistant Music Director) and Katie Walenta (Producer). From Tony Award-winner Greg Kotis ( Urinetown , The End of All Flesh ) comes a tuneful 21st-century parable about the myriad technological devices holding us prisoner that feels even timelier now than it did in March of 2020. In I Am Nobody , Lucas’ phone has seized control of his mind. It gives him no peace!!! His only recourse is to abscond with a batch of super-charged microchips, intent on unleashing a powerful cyber vi...

Closed for the Holiday . Photo by Azzurra Primavera The New York City-based Kairos Italy Theater along with Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU and the Italy-based KIT Italia will present the 13th season of the In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater, taking place in all five boroughs of NYC, from May 5-19, 2026. Admission to all shows and events in the festival is completely FREE. All shows will be performed in Italian with English supertitles, unless otherwise noted. Participating venues and the full schedule of performances will be announced at a later date. Each year In Scena! showcases some of the best Italian theater from Italy, in New York City. The festival features productions that have already toured in Italy as well as readings of Italian plays in translation, mentorships, and exchanges between Italian and International artists. The goal is to promote greater awareness of Italian theater and Italian artists among New York C...

Betterfly Productions, Leviathan Lab, and JACK, in association with The Hearth Supported Productions and The Sống Collective, will present ExtraO1dinary Aliens!,  by playwright Carolina Đỗ, directed by Vas Eli, at JACK (20 Putnam Ave, Brooklyn) from March 7- 14, 2026. Tickets ($45) are available for purchase at https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/extrao1dinary-aliens . ExtraO1dinary Aliens! features an immigrant/first-generation cast and creative team. Corneliu is an immigrant from Romania who is in love with Kay, a U.S. Citizen. Linh is Kay's best friend who might have let her student visa lapse?! David has dreams of opening his restaurant with his cousin Enoc. This play is a love story centered on immigrants and the ones who love them. How can love defy the dehumanizing machinations of the US Immigration system? What makes someone leave everything they've ever known to journey to a foreign land? What makes someone stay despite the hostile env...

The First Line of Dante's Inferno Written by Kirk Lynn Directed by Christian Parker Presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club at La MaMa's The Downstairs Theatre 66 East 4th Street, Manhattan, NYC February 5-22, 2026 The First Line of Dante’s Inferno,  featuring Kelli Overbey and Evan Sibley. Photo by Marina Levitskaya Inferno , the first of the three parts that make up Dante Alighieri's narrative poem The Divine Comedy (c. 1321), famously begins with its narrator's declaration that he has, in midlife, departed from "the straight road" to awaken lost in "a dark wood," in the words of the translation employed in the exceptional new experimental play The First Line of Dante's Inferno . The First Line of Dante's Inferno , written by Kirk Lynn, a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, educator, and one of the artistic directors of Austin, Texas, theater collective the Rude Mechs , finds multiple people, one specifically at that midpoint in l...