Thinking Theater NYC

Dirty Bird Written and directed by Whit Flint Adapted from Anton Chekhov Presented by Twenty Somethings Productions and Riot Act at ErF Gallery 1 Ingraham St, Brooklyn, NY 11206 September 4-20, 2026 AJ Molder and River Knight. Photo by Matt Street. Anton Chekhov's works may seem to us now as the epitome of canonical, but, Svetlana Evdokimova reminds us, in own time, he "questioned the certainties that sustained traditional modes of social organization and morality as well as traditional ways of conceiving of the human self" and "sought to break out of tradition and convention through experimentation with new literary forms and a new kind of theater" ( Staging Existence , 2023, pg. 239). As Whit Flint more succinctly puts it in the director's note for Dirty Bird , his adaptation of The Seagull , Chekhov was a "rebel." Dirty Bird , a joint presentation of NYC-based Twenty Somethings Productions and UK-based Riot Act, channels that rebellious spirit...

Billie Andersson, Juan Pablo Toro, Evan Olson, Scarlett Strasberg. Photo by Amy Goossens. Lower Manhattan’s Shakespeare Downtown  is celebrating its 10th season of free performances with Geoffrey Horne’s translation of Uncle Vanya - Anton Chekhov’s timeless tragicomedy of longing, frustration, and fading dreams, performed within the open-air stone walls of Castle Clinton National Monument June 11–21, 2026. Free tickets are available at the door beginning at 5:45 p.m. on the day of each performance.   In Uncle Vanya , love, regret, and the quiet ache of unrealized lives simmers beneath the surface of a crumbling 1800s Russian country estate. As a family and their restless visitors collide over long-held frustrations and unexpected passions, this timeless masterwork unfolds with dark humor and piercing heartbreak. Uncle Vanya is directed and translated by Geoffrey Horne, who studied acting and directing with Lee Strasberg, became a member of the Actors Studio, and is influenced ...

Stupid Fucking Bird Written by Aaron Posner Directed by Jorden Charley-Whatley Presented by City Gate Productions at The Secret Theatre 10-10 44th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, NYC  May 1-10. 2026 The ensemble. Courtesy of City Gate Productions. Before a line is spoken in City Gate Productions’ urgent staging of Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird , directed by Jorden Charley-Whatley at The Secret Theatre, the audience is already inside the play’s unstable cosmos. Smoke hangs not only over the stage but through the entryway itself, a low sonic thud pulses through the theatre, and actors drift through the space before the performance has officially begun. When the audience is finally instructed to yell “start the fucking play,” the moment lands with both comic force and uncanny uncertainty. The evening does not begin for us so much as with us. That porous membrane between audience and performance becomes the governing logic of Charley-Whatley’s production. Posner’s “sort...

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...

The Cherry Orchard Written by Anton Chekhov Adapted/translated by John Christopher Jones Directed by Ryan Czerwonko Presented by Adult Film in association with BKE Productions at Rutgers Presbyterian Church 236 W 73 St., Manhattan, NYC September 18-October 12, 2025 Ryan Czerwonko and Megan Metrikin in The Cherry Orchard . Photo by Joey Damore. Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard is replete with hauntings: the owner of the estate on which the titular orchard sits is reminded of the drowning death of her young son by the return of his tutor and mistakes a white shape in the orchard for her dead mother; the estate, and indeed the nation, are haunted by the memories of their exploited serfs (the play was written just two years before the First Russian Revolution in 1905); and the ghosts of indiscretions and lost youth dog multiple characters. Adult Film+Theatre's fantastic new production of The Cherry Orchard , which makes its debut after a yearlong development process, embraces a...

The Notebook of Trigorin Written by Tennessee Williams Directed by Jim Niesen Presented by Irondale Ensemble Project at The Space at Irondale 85 South Oxford Street, Brooklyn. NYC March 28-April 27, 2025 The Notebook of Trigorin . Photo courtesy of The PR Social As a twentieth-century American adaptation of a late nineteenth-century Russian play, Tennessee Williams's The Notebook of Trigorin already bridges places and times at significant removes from one another, and Irondale's new production enthralls while adding a few new lanes to that bridge. Williams's "free adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull ," as the play identifies itself, represented the achievement near the end of his life of, to borrow Allean Hale's phrasing, a "lifelong dream to interpret" this particular work by the Russian writer, of whom Williams had been an ardent fan since his early twenties. Hale's introduction to the 1997 New Directions edition of The Notebook o...

OHETOS cast. Photo by Yekaterina Gyadu As part of the 2024-25 POETIC MACHINE season, Theaterlab and The Social Club Thtr are thrilled to present On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and Other Substances , a workshop production of the groundbreaking adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s hidden gems, adapted and directed by Lita Lofton. Over four years, she dedicated herself to crafting a modern adaptation, meticulously comparing translations to preserve the brilliance of Chekhov’s style while infusing contemporary resonance and spotlighting the Russian playwright's humor, pathos, and keen observation. The production – which was fostered by Theaterlab from its inception – runs from February 20 to March 2 at Theaterlab (357 W 36th St, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10018), with a special Blackout Night performance on February 28. Tickets (General admission is $45, with a limited number of $25 discounted tickets), and more information are available at https://theaterlabnyc.com/ Intentionally emphasizi...

Sea Gull Written by Anton Chekhov Translated by John Christopher Jones Directed by Ryan Czerwonko Presented by Adult Film at Rutgers Presbyterian Church (236 W 73rd St., Manhattan, NYC), May 8-June 1, 2024, and Stone Circle Theatre (59-14 70th Ave., Queens, NYC), June 2, 2024 The cast of Sea Gull . Source: https://www.adultfilm.nyc/ Anton Chekhov's The Sea Gull (1895) was unquestionably innovative in its time, becoming a milestone in world drama, and Adult Film's new production of the Chekhov classic, Sea Gull , channels that innovatory spirit in a fleet, engrossing staging. Using a new translation by film and theater veteran John Christopher Jones, Sea Gull opens with a filmed segment that would fit comfortably in an arthouse film and that draws from the work's abortive play-within-a-play, a recontextualization that invites hearing its imagery of the cold emptiness of extinction, the horror of material existence, and the contrast between ever-changing matter and ever...

Adult Film , a Brooklyn-based theatre company, film studio, and actor training center, is currently presenting Sea Gull , a new version of Anton Chekhov's play, at Rutgers Presbyterian Church for a limited run in the Upper West Side. Originally set to end on May 26th, this run has been extended to June 2nd after a sold-out first weekend. AF artistic director Ryan Czerwonko directs and plays Konstantin. The cast features Mia Vallet as Nina, Megan Metrikin as Arkadina, Christian Ryan as Trigorin, Lauren Guglielmello as Masha, Simon Fortin as Sorin, Ira Gamerman as Medvedenko, Christopher Jon Martin as Dorn, Ellie Mae Miller as Paulina, and Peter Rinaldi as Shamrayev, with Rob Riordan understudying. AF is a group of working-class artists who set out in May 2023 with a mission to work on the play for one whole year, seemingly an impossible task in our fragmented hypermodern moment, while recording the process as part of a feature film documentary. With a focus ...