Thinking Theater NYC

A Probably Disastrous Experiment Created and performed by Rachel Weekley Directed by Nazlah Black Welcome to My UNAverse Created and performed by Una Aya Osato Presented by FRIGID New York at The Kraine Theater 85 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC June 26 and 30, 2023 (*masks required) This year's annual Queerly Festival, a "celebration of all things artistic and LGBTQIA2S+" presented by FRIGID New York at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks from June 15th through July 3rd, includes in its mix of plays, storytelling, comedy, drag, and more (visit FRIGID New York for the full schedule) a double feature of short works that both, in different ways, explore the juxtaposition of humor and tragedy. And although A Probably Disastrous Experiment stars a giant dinosaur while Welcome to My UNAverse focuses on a human New Yorker who comes in at well under 100 feet tall, both shows also offer perspectives on bodies that violate hegemonic boundaries. ( The second performance of the dou

The Lady of the Camellias Written by Alexandre Dumas fils; new adaptation by Billie Andersson Directed by Geoffrey Horne Presented by Shakespeare Downtown  at  Castle Clinton National Monument The Battery (Battery Park), Manhattan, NYC June 15 - June 25, 2023 Billie Andersson. Photo by Amy Goosens The tragically fated love of the consumptive courtesan Marguerite Gautier (Billie Andersson) and the young bourgeois Armand Duval (Zack Ignoffo) takes center stage amid the bucolic setting of the open-air Castle Clinton in the Battery in Shakespeare Downtown’s free production of The Lady of the Camellias . Combining dialogue from Alexandre Dumas fils’ novel with text from the libretto of La Traviata , the new adaptation chronicles the brief but intense love story of Marguerite and Armand, doomed from the start by Marguerite’s illness and then later on by Armand’s father. While the believability of the lovers’ relationship is occasionally hampered by overly long speeches that seem

Spent. Written and directed by Mikaela Berry Presented by FRIGID New York at The Kraine Theater 85 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC June 18 and June 20, 2023 Image courtesy of Emily Owens PR Another Pride Month means that it's time for another installment of the annual Queerly Festival, presented by FRIGID New York at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks from June 15th through July 3rd. The 2023 edition of the festival, founded in 2014, features a full slate of plays, storytelling, comedy, drag, and more (visit FRIGID New York for the full schedule). Among them is Spent. , a compelling indictment of worker exploitation in the harm reduction sector specifically and the "helping" professions more broadly. Written and directed by Mikaela Berry based on her own experiences working at a particular harm reduction center in New York City, Spent. unsparingly highlights the abuses facilitated by workers' good intentions and asks where the line is past which helping others begins

The Real Black Swann: Confessions of America’s First Black Drag Queen Written and performed by Les Kurkendaal-Barrett Presented by FRIGID New York at the Kraine Theater 85 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC and via livestream June 18, 19, and 24, 2023 Les Kurkendaal-Barrett. Courtesy of Emily Owens PR Pride month means that it's once again time for the annual Queerly Festival, presented by FRIGID New York at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks from June 15th through July 3rd. The 2023 edition of the festival, founded in 2014, features a full slate of plays, storytelling, comedy, drag, and more (visit FRIGID New York for the full schedule). Writer, actor, podcaster , and storyteller Les Kurkendaal-Barrett joins this year's celebration of queer artists with his award-winning solo show The Real Black Swann: Confessions of America’s First Black Drag Queen , which illuminatingly interweaves episodes from Kurkendaal-Barrett's own life with the story of former slave, "queen of dr

Sierra Nelson, Anthony White, and Emily Upton Photo credit Carlos Bido Maestro’s Magical Music Box Live! , an educational children's show for kids 3-10 years performed in English and ASL and based on the popular YouTube series, has launched a Give a Kid a Seat Program for kids battling cancer to receive free tickets to the show. Currently running at The Kraine Theater (85 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003) with FRIGID New York, the production has so far raised over $900, which is enough to send 60 kids and their families battling cancer to Maestro's Magical Music Box Live! : 40 kids from A Free Bird, a 100% volunteer-based, arts education 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to inspiring, encouraging and nourishing the artistic passions and abilities of children who are battling cancer, and 20 from the Ronald McDonald House. For every $15 donated, you can sponsor a kid who is battling cancer and send them to Maestro’s Magical Music Box Live! For more information on the program and to donate

Blurring Boundaries 2023 Plays: Fragile , written by Dana Leslie Goldstein and directed by Brandon M. Weber; Settings , written by John Peña Griswold and directed by Jennifer Downes; The End of Society , written by Ben Scranton and directed by Claire Shiell; Prewritten , written by Erin Moughon and directed by Sydney Burtner; Wednesday in the Park with Blake , written by Nancy Hamada and directed by Perryn Pomatto; In the Garden of the Hesperides , written by David Adam Gill and directed by Marie Elèna O'Brien; and Podunk , written by David Taylor Little and directed by David Adam Gill. Presented by New Ambassadors Theatre Company at The Hudson Guild Theater 441 W. 26th Street, Manhattan, NYC June 14-18, 2023 (left to right, top) John Peña Griswold, La Veda Davis, Helene Galek, William Franke, Jeff Checkley, Josh Hemphill, Chase Naylor, Maya Rosewood, Saadiq Vaughan, Sandra Parris (left to right, bottom) Todd Butera, Claire Shiell, Mandy Murphy, E. B. Hinnant. Courtesy Ne

As You Like It Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Katie Willmorth; assistant directed by Toni Kwadzogah Presented by Smith Street Stage at Carroll Park 245 Carroll St., Brooklyn, NYC June 7-25, 2023 L to R: Theo McKenna, Jonathan Minton, Mary Cavett, Jeffrey Brabant, Ben Horner, & Zoe Dongas. Courtesy of The PR Social If you've been looking to mix a little Elizabethan drama with your Pride month festivities, then Brooklyn's Smith Street Stage has you covered. In its twelfth year of free summer performances in Carroll Park, Smith Street brings audiences William Shakespeare's As You Like It (?1599) — with a few tweaks. These tweaks play satisfyingly with the play's dynamics around gender and sexuality (seventeenth century performances, it seems obligatory to note, would have had an undercurrent of queerness, with a female protagonist who would have been played by a boy and is just as attractive to women when presenting as a male youth as she is to men when p

Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re

After an award-winning run at the 2023 FRIGID Fringe Festival (Best Solo Comedy, Top Grossing at The Kraine Theater, EstroGenius Award - you can read our review here ) and performances raising $6000 for her hometown theater, Claire Ayoub’s solo show The GynoKid is back with FRIGID New York as a monthly show at The Kraine Theater (85 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003).  As the child of small-town gynecologists, comedy writer Claire Ayoub ( Empire Waist , Amy Poehler’s  Smart Girls ) experienced an untraditional and often mortifying adolescence destined to end in therapy—and comedy. (And you thought YOUR parents were up in everyone’s business.) Join Ayoub for a delightfully cringeworthy walk down memory lane and learn what being a GynoKid is all about.  Claire Ayoub takes a bow with her parents. Photo courtesy Emily Owens PR In addition to her delightfully cringeworthy tale about growing up as the child of small-town gynecologists, Claire will be moderating a Laugh + Learn Q&A after each

The Shylock and the Shakespeareans Written and directed by Edward Einhorn Presented by Untitled Theatre Company No. 61 at New Ohio Theatre  154 Christopher St., Manhattan, NYC (also available on demand) June 1-17, 2023  Jeremy Kareken and Yael Haskal. Photo by Richard Termine With the storied New Ohio Theatre slated for an August close, this summer, Untitled Theatre Company No. 61 (UTC61) takes to its stage to provide us with a pointed and timely look at the influence of theatre and the tropes therein on our own current cultural moment. The Shylock and the Shakespeareans is something like a retelling or reimagining of the Bard’s universally regarded and deeply problematic The Merchant of Venice . Writer and director Edward Einhorn updates the setting, while still keeping us deeply rooted in Shakespeare’s familiar climes. The action of the play undulates familiarly back and forth between the cosmopolitan world of Venice and gentile Belmont. Costumes blend the old and the new: smart co

Brace for Impact! Written by Maia Nikiphoroff Directed by Devon M. Schwartz Presented by Always Wild Content at The Tank 312 W. 36th St., Manhattan, NYC May 19-June 10, 2023 Maia Nikiphoroff. Photo credit: Luigi Morris Working as a flight attendant might be seen as a kind of constant, non-teleological journey that is in many aspects out of one's control but which will invariably encounter pockets of turbulence. In the new play Brace for Impact! , one can arguably perceive symbolic resonances between flight attendant Shiva's (Maia Nikiphoroff) work and her life. Written by Maia Nikiphoroff, who has worked as a full-time flight attendant herself, and currently in a workshop run at The Tank, Brace for Impact! represents the exciting first stage production from Always Wild Content, a theater, film, and television production company co-founded by Nikiphoroff and partner Austin Iredale with roots in the U.S. and Paraguay and a partnership with Women in Film Paraguay, a non-profit f

Billie Andersson. Photo by Amy Goosens. Lower Manhattan’s Shakespeare Downtown , now in its seventh season of producing quality classical theatre accessible to everyone including, including Romeo and Juliet (2016), Richard III (2017), A Midsummer Night's Dream (2018), Hamlet (2019), The Three Sisters (2021), and Saint Joan (2022; read our review here ), will present a new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas fils' The Lady of the Camellias this June. Adapted by Billie Andersson, The Lady of the Camellias combines dialogue from Dumas’s novel (considerably different from Dumas’s stage play) with text and structural concepts from the libretto of the opera La Traviata .  Set in mid-19th century France, this new adaptation, directed by Geoffrey Horne, sees a courtesan suffering from consumption named Marguerite (Billie Andersson) and nicknamed “The Lady of the Camellias" because she wears a red camellia when she is indisposed, and a white camellia when she is available to her l