Thinking Theater NYC

Titus Andronicus Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Jesse Berger Presented by Red Bull Theater at The Pershing Square Signature Center ’s Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre 480 West 42nd Street, Manhattan, NYC March 18-April 19, 2026 [extended through May 3, 2026] Anthony Michael Lopez, Anthony Michael Martinez, Patrick Page, Zack Lopez Roa. Photo credit: Carol Rosegg. William Shakespeare's early-career revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus (George Peele is a popular candidate for the argument that parts of the play were written by a second playwright) drops the audience immediately into the midst of a dispute over who will succeed the deceased Emperor of Rome, his eldest son, Saturninus ( Matthew Amendt ), or younger brother Bassianus (Howard W. Overshown). The opening stage direction specifies that the two brothers and their followers enter at opposite doors, while Tribune Marcus, shortly to provide a third option–the titular Titus, the people's choice–enters with others ...

Plan C Devised and written by the ensemble of Hook & Eye Theater Conceived and directed by Carrie Heitman Presented by Hook & Eye Theater and The Tank at The Tank 312 W 36 St, Manhattan, NYC March 12-April 12, 2026 The cast of Plan C . Photo by Valerie Terranova. In The Invention of News (Yale University Press, 2014), Andrew Pettegree notes, "Women ... played an active role in the print industry virtually since its beginning, almost certainly a more active role than in any other craft industry," and he supplies as one example of this activity "the achievement of the redoubtable" Alexandrine von Taxis, a German countess who "effectively ran the Taxis postal network for eighteen years after her husband's death, and steered the company through the notably turbulent decades of the latter part of the Thirty Years War" that devastated seventeenth-century Europe (pp. 281, 218, 282). Plan C , the new play from Hook & Eye Theater Company, takes t...

Entangled: 12 Scenes in a Circle K off the I-40 in New Mexico Written by Mona Mansour and Emily Zemba Directed by Scott Ilingworth Conceived by SOCIETY Presented by SOCIETY at HERE Arts Center 145 6th Ave, Manhattan, NYC March 11-29, 2026 Entangled , featuring Joshua David Robinson, Shpend Xani, Hiram Delgado, Caroline Grogan, Meredith Garretson, Christy Escobar. Photo by Ashley Garrett. If everything in the universe (or multiverse) is predetermined, an incalculably immense and complex cascade of cause and effect down to the subatomic level, does that mean not only that there is no free will but also that there is no such thing as true randomness? If humans typically experience being as unidirectional temporal movement, what would it mean to accept the concept that all points in time exist simultaneously? What might prompt someone to make (or "make") an important life decision in the aisles of an interstate-adjacent chain convenience store? These are the sort of questions y...

The Exterminators Written and directed by Maxwell Eberle Presented in association with Center for Theatre Research at Center for Theatre Research 13 West 17th St., Manhattan, NYC March 17-22, 2026 Auryn Rothwell and Yousuf Shah.  Photo credit: Geve. Often what is most disconcerting is not that which is seen, but what transpires out of sight. The unseemly unseen. In The Weird and the Eerie , Mark Fisher describes the eerie as emerging from questions of agency, when something appears where it should not be, or is absent where it should be. Maxwell Eberle’s new play, The Exterminators , locates that specific brand of the uncanny in a subterranean extermination prep chamber where death is a constant, procedural and concealed. The question is not what is being killed, but how one learns how to participate in the killing. Eberle’s staging renders that process with stark visual economy: two lockers, two masks, two jumpsuits, and a single spraypack. From the outset, hierarchy is ...

Tempest Tossed Adapted from William Shakespeare's The Tempest Directed by Janina Picard Music Direction and original music by Flavio Gaete Presented by New Place Players at Casa Duse 16 Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, NYC March 5-26, 2026 L to R (foreground): Clara Tristan, Craig Bacon, Anna Bikales It can be challenging to convey to a contemporary audience the interactive, immersive nature of the early modern theaters where the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries were performed. The notion that the play is something taking place in a different universe from the audience, behind that “fourth wall” as it were, is deeply engrained. However, New Place Players’ chamber adaptation of The Tempest , Tempest Tossed , performed in the intimate townhouse parlor of Casa Duse, brilliantly bodies forth this key feature of the early modern theater in a production that is at once historical restoration and contemporary revision of what has often been regarded as Shakespeare’s farewell to t...

New Love Written by Adam Szymkowicz Directed by Christy Hall Presented by brooklynONE productions  at bkONE: The Tom Kane Theatre 51 35th St. Brooklyn, NYC March 5-15, 2026 Brianna Espinal and  Isaiah Rothstein One of the peculiar truths of theater is that intimacy is built not through grand declarations but through repetition. Lines are rehearsed, gestures repeated, rhythms discovered together until something like learned instinct begins to emerge. In Christy Hall’s deftly directed production of Adam Szymkowicz’s New Love , that hard-won instinctive connection becomes the play’s most persuasive argument about the rather grand conceit of romance itself. From the outset, the play toys with the notion that the audience will ultimately decide the fate of its central couple. Should they remain together? Should they part ways? Yet perhaps the most compelling moments of this two-hander suggest that such questions are beside the point. Love here ironically cannot be voted o...

Two-Way Glass Productions, an independent production company that seeks to emphasize the ever-shifting relationship between spectator and spectacle, will present Walter Schlinger’s Romeo and Juliet , written and performed by Sean Gordon and directed by Dixie O’Connell. The production 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 9:50pm, Sat April 11 at 8:40pm, Mon April 13 at 6:30pm, and Sun April 19 at 2:00 pm.  Former English undergraduate Walter Schlinger stands alone in a wide, infinite, green field. In this meta-theatrical solo performance, Walter reckons with the role our mentors play in our development and attempts to provide insight into the world's most famous love story. While desperately trying to share his work with anyone who will listen, he grapples with the notions of youth, tragedy, and validation. The creative team include...

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...

Moonshiner Written by Lillian Mottern Directed by Danica Selem Presented by Adult Film at a private location in the Ridgewood area, NYC (address released upon RSVP) March 12-April 4, 2026 Annalisa Noel. Photo by Geve. Moonshine, as many theater fans know, is one of the characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream 's play-within-a-play, which is performed by a dreamer-led group hoping to impress its social betters. The young women in Lillian Mottern's play Moonshiner , though hundreds of years and a continent distant from Shakespeare's playacting laborers, share something with them as they engage in aspirational role-playing in a dreamlike setting. For Mottern's characters, that means the unreality-tinged environment of the 2019 Los Angeles wildfires, where moonshine meets firelight meets the Santa Ana winds, which one of the play's women notes, are supposed to (like the moon) "make you go crazy." Adult Film's enthralling production of Moonshiner '...

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...