Thinking Theater NYC

Julius Caesar Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Jonathan Hopkins Assistant Director: Sundiata Fotso-Chinjé Presented by Smith Street Stage at Carroll Park President St., Brooklyn, NYC May 16-June 7, 2026 Photography by Sam Sulam Summer means Shakespeare in NYC, and of all of the productions to choose from, Smith Street Stage’s annual offerings in Carroll Park, Brooklyn are always a must-see. Even on an unseasonably cool and damp night, this year’s offering, Julius Caesar , has the power to captivate not only those who came to see it intentionally but also dog walkers and other passersby. If Shakespeare’s time seems remote from our own, the Romans who feature in this play were four times as removed from Elizabethan England as Elizabethan England from today. And yet, as Shakespeare made Julius Caesar speak to its contemporaries, so does Smith Street Stage for us today. Featuring both Smith Street Stage veterans and newcomers, the cast is extraordinarily versatile. Save fo...

Henry V  Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Jonathan Hopkins Presented by Smith Street Stage  at Carroll Park Court Street and Smith Street, between Carroll Street and President Street, Brooklyn, NYC Juhe 5-29, 2025 Smith Street Stage’s summer productions in Carroll Park are a beloved neighborhood tradition, and this year’s offering, Henry V , is a stunning way to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary season. While the production’s standout performances, led by McLean Peterson’s brilliant King Henry, are alone noteworthy, the staging, including fight choreography and original music, all contribute to this timely and timeless exploration of leadership and nation. The production features a truly rich range of performances from its entire cast. Oliver Palmer stands out as both the Archbishop of Canterbury and Fluellen, making the former’s long-winded justification of Henry’s claim to the French throne humorous rather than mind-numbingly boring and embodying the latter ...

Richard II Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Katie Willmorth Asst. Directed by Alexandra Haddad Presented by Smith Street Stage at The Mark O’Donnell Theater  at the Entertainment Community Fund Arts Center 160 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NYC September 11-28, 2024 Photo by StudioVic - Juan Carlos Quimper Shakespeare’s history plays might be produced less often than his tragedies and comedies, but as Smith Street Stage’s production of Richard II demonstrates, their depiction of the moral ambiguities surrounding political power and those who wield it speak remarkably well to a contemporary American audience, particularly one in the throes of a presidential election season. As the production so aptly shows, moral rectitude does not reside clearly with one or side or the other, even when one of those sides is supposed to possess divine right, but rather somewhere in the murky middle. To paraphrase the final hymn, sung in gorgeous harmonies by the entire cast, building Jeru...

Love Labor’s Lost Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Raquel Chavez Assistant Directed by Mahayla Laurence Presented by Smith Street Stage at Carroll Park  Court Street and Smith Street, Brooklyn, NYC June 5-23, 2024 Photo courtesy of The PR Social Deftly highlighting for a modern audience Shakespeare’s satire of lovers and especially bad love poetry, Smith Street Stage’s free production of  Love’s Labor’s Lost presents a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s early comedy in the vein of a Love Island / Bachelor -inspired, campy reality show. Reconfiguring the Princess of France’s attendant Boyet as the orchestrator of both the ladies’ games and the men’s wooing attempts and the attendant Moth as a stage manager who assists Boyet, the production eliminates the original play’s side plots in order to focus solely on the lovers. The reality-show concept ultimately heightens not only the comedy in the play but also, through contrast, the somber turn at the play’s end wh...

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...

Measure for Measure Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Beth Ann Hopkins and Raquel Chavez Presented by Smith Street Stage at The Mark O’Donnell Theater at The Entertainment Community Fund Arts Center 160 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NYC September 28-October 15, 2022 Mahayla Laurence & cast. Photo: Bjorn Bolinder, Find the Light Photography The resonances between Smith Street Stage's new production of William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and the ongoing protests in Iran are unmissable. The flashpoint for these massive protests was the death of a young woman named Mahsa Amini, arrested for improperly wearing her hijab, in the custody of Iran's morality police, and Smith Street rousingly frames Shakespeare's play through mass resistance by women to patriarchal policing of their bodies in a Vienna in which a government crackdown on morality means, for instance, that having a child while engaged is punishable by execution. Such is the case for Claudio (T...