Thinking Theater NYC

Clay Mommy Written by Aviva Pearl Creation Directed by Jael Scott Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC July 1-2, 2025 As a monster, the golem, a humanoid creature in Jewish tradition commonly created from mud or clay and animated via a word written on its forehead or on paper placed into its mouth, destabilizes normative boundaries and categories. A golem occupies the eponymous role of Clay Mommy in Aviva Pearl Creation's play of the same name, adding a complementary supernatural layer to the show's concern with such destabilizations, as well as with self-fashioning and mothering. With an all-trans-femme cast, Clay Mommy presents a nuanced narrative of one young woman's struggles to define and enact what it means for her to be a daughter and granddaughter, a prospective mother, a trans woman, and Jewish after she returns from New York City to the West Coast and her estranged mother. Clay Mommy is part of FRIGID New York's 2025 Queerly Festiv...

Femme in Yellow Tombola: mystical queer italian bingo Written and performed by Summer Minerva Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC June 12 and 28, 2025 Numerous cultures have traditionally included–and often celebrated–third gender categories: a person might be, for instance, a bakla in the Philippines, two spirit or equivalent designations among various North American Indigenous peoples, or a femminiello in Naples, Italy. It is the femminiello  who is a central, structuring figure in Summer Minerva's punningly titled solo show Femme in Yellow Tombola: mystical queer italian bingo . Feminielli , while socially excluded in some ways—prompting them to queer certain traditions—are also considered lucky and, relatedly, have often called the numbers in the titular tombola, a traditional game comparable to bingo but in which the numbered squares have names and meanings attached to them (number 66, for example, is le due zitelle , the two spinsters, associated...

The Gay Social Network - A One Woman Show Written and performed by Seerat Jhajj Directed by Pearl Emerson With Maya O'Day Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC June 18, 2025 Seerat Jhajj (front) and Maya O'Day (rear). Photo by Marissa Moorhead Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, never a paragon of ethics, has really leaned into the role of insecure technocapitalist supervillain in recent years, joining peers such as Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, and Jeff Bezos as a prominent living reminder of why billionaires should not exist. In The Gay Social Network - A One Woman Show , Seerat Jhajj takes the 2010 film about the founding of Facebook, The Social Network , written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, as a jumping-off point for a thoroughly hilarious, inventive, and queer skewering of Zuckerberg and the mindset that he represents. This week's performance of The Gay Social Network , headed to Edinburgh Fringe Fest later this summer, was part of FRIGI...

Mary & the Shelleys Created and written by L.X Moon Presented by FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC June 13 and 28, 2025 In the celebratory new single "Wearing Black," from Laura Jane Grace in the Trauma Tropes, trans punk musician Grace sings that her "pride's a riot" and that she will be "[w]earin' black to the Pride parade." If more than one element of that sentence resonates with you, then Mary & the Shelleys , which tells the story of its titular, reanimated Mary through original punk and postpunk songs, should be at the top of your to-see list. Of course, non-punk/horror/horrorpunk fans should also check it out; monstrosity in Mary & the Shelleys is, after all, tied to inclusivity. Mary & the Shelleys is part of FRIGID New York's 2025 Queerly Festival, " FRIGID’s annual celebration of all things artistic and LGBTQIA2S+ ," which is currently curated by co-artistic director Jim...

Laurizarry will present once again If I Did, You Deserved It , written by Jess Lauricello and directed by Casey Kelly, as an encore performance from the 2024 Queerly Festival with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009) on Saturday, June 27 at 10:30pm.  A party seemingly thrown by no one that you definitely wouldn’t have been invited to full of people that you hate, followed by eternal damnation! Come judge other people for fun. Don’t worry, you totally have every right to. If I Did, You Deserved It , produced by new Gen Z theatre company Laurizarry and directed by Casey Kelly, is a new play from award-losing playwright Jess Lauricello that’s probably a comedy. It was FRIGID New York’s Show of the Month of June 2024 and was described as “snappy and vibrant” and “quick-witted” by Theatre Beyond Broadway . Tickets (up to $25 on a sliding scale) are available for advance purchase at  www.frigid.nyc . The performance will run approximately 60 minute...

Ladies at a Gay Girls' Bar, 1938-1969 Choreographed, written, and performed by Maggie Cee Presented by In the Streets Productions at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC June 24 and 29, 2024 Maggie Cee in Ladies at a Gay Girls' Bar. Photo by Olivia Blaidsell. Communal gathering spaces can shape identity while fostering community, and, for queer people, one of those spaces has long been the gay bar. Just how long can be seen in the subtitle of Maggie Cee's solo show Ladies at a Gay Girls' Bar, 1938-1969 (and one can doubtless point to even earlier analogues, such as Eve Adams' Tearoom in 1920s Greenwich Village). With music and dance providing both connective tissue and additional layers of signification, Cee incisively and entertainingly knits voices from these spaces together with the narrative of a quest for self-definition and a call for further excavation of the stories of a certain, underrepresented segment of the lesbian community. Ladies at a...

Pearl Necklace: A Gay Sexcapade Written and performed by Jamie Brickhouse Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC June 14 and 23, 2024 Jamie Brickhouse cruising in Dangerous When Wet . Photo credit: Mikiodo Early in the solo show Pearl Necklace: A Gay Sexcapade , writer and performer Jamie Brickhouse wryly observes that the show's title and subtitle should act as their own trigger warnings. At the same time, by the end of this funny, genuine, and engrossing show, the "pearl necklace" will come to symbolize simultaneously a life built with another person and an ongoing refusal of a monogamy-centered model of sexuality rooted in heteronormativity, to use the sort of jargon that the show lightly mocks at one point. Pearl Necklace is currently part of the 2024 Queerly Festival, presented by FRIGID New York and curated by FRIGID Co-Artistic Director Jimmy Lovett. Founded in 2014, the festival, which provides a space for queer teams and artists both on...

 Venus in Waves Productions will present Asexuality! The Solo Musical , written by Rebecca McGlynn and directed by Heather Dowling  (she/her), a Soaring Solo instructor and an award-winning writer and actress. The production will be presented as part of the 2024 Queerly Festival, FRIGID New York’s annual celebration of LGBTQA+ artists, at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009). What does it mean to be a man in the 21st century? How does toxic masculinity affect those of us assigned male at birth? What’s so great about sex, and why won’t people shut up about it for two goddamn seconds and just let me play my video games in peace?! Written and performed by Rebecca McGlynn (she/they), a transgender queer writer, actor, songwriter, and filmmaker working in film and TV production in Los Angeles,  Asexuality! The Solo Musical  is an autobiographical musical comedy about McGlynn’s pre-transition life. The story follows Robert, an asexual man navigati...

Shake the Disease , a new play written by Leif Larson and directed by Matthew Pezzulich, will be presented as part of the 2024 Queerly Festival, an annual celebration of LGBTQA+ artists, with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009). Currently a Fellow in Literary Arts with the Lucas Artists Residency Program, Larson is a Queer playwright born in L.A. during the Summer of Love when Charles Manson was assembling his Family. Cults were everywhere, and he was born into one. He recently woke up and got out. Now, he writes plays to share his experiences with his community in the spirit of strengthening its sense of empathy and understanding for each other. In addition to writing, Larson and his husband, visual artist Christopher M Tandy, publish a bi-annual fagazine, Blood of a Fresh Kill . In  Shake the Disease ,   River, a server at a resort, opens a vortex of queer power and rage after subverting a gay bashing. Part historical, part horror, S...

Give Me The MacArthur Genius Grant , by Tarek Ziad, an L.A.-based queer Afro-Arab comedian, actor, and writer, will be presented as part of the 2024 Queerly Festival with FRIGID New York  at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009), with performances on Fri June 14 at 9pm and Mon June 17 at 7pm.  In Groundlings SNL Scholar and Yale grad  Ziad’s Give Me The MacArthur Genius Grant , the idea of The MacArthur Fellowship—a shining $800,000 symbol of validation and achievement for creatives—becomes a gateway into discussions of success, failure, self-obsession, and how they all fit under one scary umbrella: Financial Security. In his 50-minute solo comedy, Ziad juxtaposes larger notions of what exactly a “genius” is with his own feelings of accomplishment (or lack thereof) as a budding-yet-broke queer artist of color. Faced with an uncertain future and the reality that no one is promised anything, Ziad begs the absurd—potentially satirical—question, “why not g...

Flayed ,   written and performed by L.A.-based actor and writer Josiah Blount and directed by David Bridel, Founding Artistic Director of The Clown School, as well as an artist, scholar, author, and educator, will make its East Coast debut as part of the 2024 Queerly Festival with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009) with performances on Sunday, June 16 at 7pm and Monday, June 17 at 9pm.  Flayed is the story of a man on the verge of a breakdown, or maybe spiritual enlightenment. Joshua is fresh out of pastor's college and delivering his first sermon to a conservative church in Southwest Virginia. This trial-run sermon will determine if he joins the church staff as an Associate Pastor, something he's longed for his whole life. However, Joshua is queer, deeply closeted, and on the precipice of a mental breakdown. As his sermon progresses, his pristine public self begins to falter, and his messy, complex, internal world is revealed. His mi...

Butch Mermaid Productions will present A Bit Too Much Hair ,   written by Ania Upstill and William Duignan, as part of the 2024 Queerly Festival with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009) with performances on Tuesday, June 18 and Monday, June 24 at 7pm. Butch Mermaid Productions believes that representation matters - you can’t be what you can’t see. Putting positive queer and trans stories on the stage helps us not just survive but thrive, so Butch Mermaid makes art that celebrates the beauty of embracing your authentic self because visible joy is a political act in the struggle for equality. With  A Bit Too Much Hair,  Butch Mermaid invites audiences to join “a big, silly party where transness is centred and everyone is welcome!” (Theatreview).  A Bit Too Much Hair  is a gender-euphoric musical cabaret for thems, mens, femmes, and everyone in between. The 2022 New Zealand premiere was nominated for Excellence Aw...

Indie theatre company Laurizarry will present If I Did, You Deserved It , written by Jess Lauricello - an NYC-based playwright, theatre director, indie theatre and film producer, dramaturg, actor, and tree-hugger who believes in you and aliens - and directed by Casey Kelly, as part of the 2024 Queerly Festival with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009) on Friday, June 21 at 7:00pm. Tickets (up to $25 on a sliding scale) are available for advance purchase at www.frigid.nyc . The performance will run approximately 90 minutes. A party seemingly thrown by no one that you definitely wouldn’t have been invited to full of people that you hate, followed by eternal damnation! Come judge other people for fun. Don’t worry, you totally have every right to. If I Did, You Deserved It  is a new play from award-losing playwright Jess Lauricello that’s probably a comedy. It’s a new take on No Exit that explores morality, shame, redemption, and generally fumbl...

Cauldron MultiMedium will present The Ho Must Go On , written, directed, and performed by Phillipe Andre Coquet. The production will be presented as part of the 2024 Queerly Festival with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009), with performances on Saturday, June 29 at 9:30pm and Monday, July 1 at 7pm.  Phillipe Andre Coquet is a 55-year veteran of stage and screen, and a multi-threat actor/singer/dancer/playwright/director. He was featured in the Broadway musical, Her First Roman which starred Leslie Uggams and Richard Kiley, and appears in the book Broadway’s Greatest Flops , and a revival of T he Time of Your Life at Lincoln Center. He has acted and directed a ton of regional theater in quite a few cities, and his plays have won a few Fringe awards, including ‘Fringe of the Fringe’ and ‘Show that Breaks the Most Rules.’ He is also a co-star of the acclaimed Netflix-produced cult “cult” documentary Holy Hell , now available on Prime.  The H...

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...

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...