Thinking Theater NYC

Bread of Life Written by Frank Pagliaro Directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby Presented by UP Theater Company at Fort Washington Collegiate Church 729 W 181st St., Manhattan, NYC March 26-April 12, 2025 Nikaury Rodriguez (Herut) and Miguel Reis (Simon). Photo by Edward Lopez. Loaves and fishes, those comestible stars of one of the stories of the Biblical New Testament, also function in Frank Pagliaro's new play, Bread of Life , as apt shorthand for the gendered situations of husband and wife. Herut (Nikaury Rodriguez) spends a lot of time making bread, that domestic staple, her hand-grinding of the flour becoming almost an aural motif on its own while the stone grinder's circular movement suggests the same sort of repetitiveness that marks her days as a wife and mother. Her husband, Simon's (Miguel K. Reis), trade as a fisherman takes him daily beyond the confines of the home and into the company of others (and, often, on his way home, into the company of alcohol). It is theref...

Photo by Mikiodo. Northern Manhattan’s UP Theater Company, which has developed new plays and produced professional theater to its community since 2010, fully producing 16 world premieres, and gaining attention with its diverse theatrical endeavors, celebrates its 15th Season with the world premiere of Bread of Life , by Frank Pagliaro, directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby.  We may know the story of St. Peter, but what about the family he left behind? Bread of Life tells the original story of a family in Bethsaida, fractured by the Messianic message of a mysterious carpenter from Nazareth, and the fallout of fanaticism. 30 AD. The midst of Roman occupation. A mysterious messiah roams ancient Galilee. His startling message leads a father away from home, leaving his wife and son to deal with a tragic upheaval.  Bread of Life  examines the costs of religious radicalism in the context of political oppression and domestic discipline. The show runs from March 26-April 12 at Fort Wa...

Lost Sock Laundry Written by Ivan Faute Directed by Madelyn Chapman Presented by UP Theater at Fort Washington Collegiate Church 729 W 181st St., Manhattan, NYC April 10-27, 2024   Michelle Feza Kuchuk, Haneen Arafat Murphy, and Maria Peyramaure. Photo by Jody Christopherson In Ivan Faute's Lost Sock Laundry , a communal space functions as a microcosm of New York City, which functions, or has the potential to, as a microcosm of the nation. A neighborhood laundromat provides the site for the play's examination of how strangers become neighbors become friends, how the bounds and bonds of community can form, shift, and grow. At the same time, such boundaries, including the literal borders of the nation, are policed in multiple ways, and characters' everyday personal and familial dramas are thus also haunted by xenophobia and hostile government policies. With compassion, humor, and authenticity, Lost Sock Laundry –which is offering Spanish translated performances on Saturday,...

The Best Punk Band in Conway, Missouri: An Oral History of Presley Cox and the Fallout Five Written by Kirby Fields Directed by Rachael Murray Presented by UP Theater Company at Fort Washington Collegiate Church 729 W 181st St., Manhattan, NYC May 3-20, 2023 Henry Temple, Devin Romero, and Zuzu. Photo by Amy Milstein For a certain group of us, few things are better than a live punk or metal show, preferably in the smallest venue possible, so it is genuinely exciting to see the new production from NYC's UP Theater Company successfully translate that energy to a stage play. The Best Punk Band in Conway, Missouri: An Oral History of Presley Cox and the Fallout Five , from UP Artistic Director Kirby Fields, though, is not merely an uncritical celebration of punk and local music in a time and place when such DIY scenes were still fully analog and offered one of the few sites for certain types of outsiders to find community. Set in the fictional small town of Conway, Missouri, The Best ...