Thinking Theater NYC

Randy's Dandy Coaster Castle Written by Alexander Perez Directed by Rebecca Martínez Presented by Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective at A.R.T./New York Theatres 502 W 53rd St., Manhattan, NYC August 23-September 2, 2022 Omar Perez, Katherine George, and Adam Coy. Photo credit: Carol Rosegg Randy owns an amusement park in Florida that bears his name: Randy's Dandy Coaster Castle . Except Randy is actually Ramón (Nate Betancourt), who immigrated from Cuba with his family when he was younger but feels that it is better for business to use a different name (and a different voice) in its public-facing aspects. Ramón's park is facing some challenges, not least from a new Six Flags in the vicinity, and Alexander Perez's engrossing Randy's Dandy Coaster Castle , currently making its world premiere, takes us inside both the boss's office and the breakroom of the eponymous park for an important week in the lives of people who have different plans and aspirations but ultim...

Camille Thomas. Photo Credit: Peter Yesley Dixon Place will present paRenT PlUs LOaNs , a new play written and performed by Camille Simone Thomas, directed by Sierra B. Nicole, beginning on Friday, September 9, 2022 at 7:30 PM (with a panel discussion facilitated by Judy Tate). paRenT PlUs LOaNs follows Camille as she navigates a predominantly white institution in pursuit of an undergraduate degree through rising tuition costs, familial expectations, and her own personal aspirations. Simultaneously startling and funny, the show merges text, projections, slam poetry, and defining moments from her past to analyze the racket that is student debt and how it affects students of color. The play has been developed with BlackBoard, the National Women’s Theatre Festival, and American Slavery Project. Camille Simone Thomas is an associate artist with Sanguine Theatre company, and current cohort member of Moxie Arts Incubator as a producer. She is an alum of Broadway Advocacy Coalitions Artivism ...

macbitches Written by Sophie McIntosh Directed by Ella Jane New Presented by the Chain Theatre 312 W. 36th Street, 4th Floor, Manhattan, NYC August 19-September 10, 2022 Caroline Orlando (center), Morgan Lui (Right), Laura Clare Browne, and Marie Dinolan. Photo by Wesley Volcy In Macbeth , King Duncan says of a man who betrayed him and was killed by a second man who will betray him in turn, "There's no art / To find the mind's construction in the face" ( Norton Shakespeare , 1.4.11-12). How much more true would this observation be if everyone were also professional actors? Playwright Sophie McIntosh draws inspiration from the Scottish play for macbitches , which she sets in an environment that can be every bit as defined by hierarchy, factionalism, and vaulting ambition as any royal court: a university theater program. Currently making its world premiere at the Chain Theatre, macbitches takes a funny, piercing, and poignant look at a quintet of young women who are nav...

Macbeth Redux Written by William Shakespeare Adapted and directed by Kathy Curtiss Presented by Renaissance Now Theatre & Film at Theatre Row 410 W 42 St., Manhattan, NYC August 17-20, 2022 Zachary Ballard (Macbeth) and Adam Argyle (Macduff). Photo by Jonathan Slaff. Unlike many recent productions of Shakespeare's Macbeth , Renaissance Now Theatre & Film's Macbeth Redux , adapted and directed by company's Artistic Director Karthy Curtiss, not only preserves but leans into its medieval Scottish setting, including in some wonderfully atmospheric use of Celtic music and song (the hauntingly lovely vocal performance by Keely Conrad, who also plays one of the witches, deserves special mention in that respect). While this backdrop might seem more traditional, Macbeth Redux features no shortage of transformative choices in its vibrant re-envisioning of this oft-adapted play. The most prominent change, in some ways, is the addition of dialogue in contemporary prose. These...

Mom on Skype Based on the story collection Mom on Skype Directed by Oleg Oneshchak Director of U.S. tour: Mariia Oneshchak Presented by Irondale at The Space at Irondale 85 S. Oxford Street, Brooklyn, NYC August 13-14, 2022 Mom on Skype at the Irondale. Photo credit: Gerry Goodstein This weekend, The Space at Irondale hosts an extraordinary event featuring an extraordinary cast. Mama Po Skaipu was created by a group of young actors, none older than fourteen, from The School of Open-Minded Kids Studio Theater in Lviv, Ukraine, but the Russian invasion threw the nation into chaos not long before the play was meant to premiere. In the face of these overwhelming circumstances, the show made its delayed debut anyway, as documented in The New York Times , in April, in a bomb shelter. Directed by Oleg Oneshchak, a teacher at the Studio Theater who was now an active-duty soldier, the performance was one of the few events in what is normally a cultural center in Ukraine. Now, as Mom on Skype...

Blurring Boundaries 2022: Program B Plays: Iphis and Ianthe at the Courthouse , written by Aly Kantor and directed by Jonathan Wong Frye; Sons and Fathers , written by Mark Hofmaier and directed by Susanna Frazer; Prometheus Found , written by Michael Narkunski and directed by Perryn Pomatto; Building Blocks , written by Arielle Beth Klein and directed by Jennifer Downes; Shakespeare Recalibrated , written by Amanda Hanna and directed by Sydney Burtner; Ava Hearts Riley , written by Cris Eli Blak and directed by Syona Varty; and Redhead Only Orgy , written by Ruthie Rado and directed by Todd Butera Presented by New Ambassadors Theatre Company at TADA! Theater 15 W. 28th St., Manhattan, NYC August 10-21, 2022 Bryan Patrick Stoyle and Ruthie Rado in Iphis and Ianthe at the Courthouse . Photo credit: Ruthie Rado The plays included in the 2022 incarnation of New Ambassadors Theatre Company's Blurring Boundaries festival, which is dedicated to amplifying marginalized voices, apply th...

Romeo & Juliet Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Sam Stone Presented by Sister Shakes Productions at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC August 5-14, 2022 Everyone reading this probably knows at least one line of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet . But even in such an omnipresent cultural text, consider how much potential variation is latent in that line depending on who says it, how, and in what context. With its new production of Romeo & Juliet , Sister Shakes Productions, a company founded in 2017 that centers "female-identifying and non-binary stories and perspectives," offers yet another new experience of this familiar work. Sister Shakes presents its abridged version of the play, running about ninety minutes, with gender-blind casting, a choice which destabilizes and queers the work's heteropatriarchal underpinnings. No matter to what degree one may see the text itself as critical of those underpinnings, this production opens spaces...

Shut UP, Emily Dickinson Written by Tanya O'Debra Directed by Sara Wolkowitz Presented at Abrons Arts Center 466 Grand Street (at Pitt Street), Manhattan, NYC July 28-August 13, 2022 Tanya O’Debra as Emily Dickinson and Gregg Bellón. Photo by Molly Broxton. Not so long ago, television's Dickinson gave us Emily Dickinson the cool, rebellious, queer, feminist teen. Now, the stage at Abrons Arts Center gives us a new Emily Dickinson, and she is…mostly not those things; but neither is she the austere, reclusive genius of other imaginings. In Tanya O'Debra's wickedly funny Shut UP, Emily Dickinson , the poet would be quite happy if everything could just be how she wants it when she wants it that way; and just because she is correct that she should not be forced to conform to others' ideas of things such as love does not mean that she cannot at the same time be exasperating to those others–to be the kind of person, say, who assumes that her wealthy family's laborers ...

  Irondale , Brooklyn’s leading theatrical and artistically ambitious think-tank theater ensemble, has invited nine teens from Ukraine’s The School of Open-Minded Kids Studio Theater, located in Lviv, to present the United States premiere of Mom on Skype on August 13-14. Previously directed by an active-duty Ukrainian solider, Oleg Onechchak, and performed in a warehouse-turned-bomb-shelter in Lviv in April, the play features a range of stories about family separation as told from the perspective of children. The teens' time in NY will be a chance to tell their story without the threat and fear of war, and thanks to the Irondale Ensemble Project, they will have a safe theater to do it in and will spend time working alongside both the Irondale Ensemble and the Irondale Young Company. . The cast has arrived in the U.S. and are currently in Ivoryton, CT at a musical theater sleep-away camp with Young at Arts in partnership with Sing for Hope. When they return here to NYC, they w...