Thinking Theater NYC

The Climate Fables: The Clouds Written and directed by Padraig Bond Presented by  FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC August 21-23, 2025 Since the most recent staging, in January, of one of the plays of Padraig Bond's cycle The Climate Fables , the United States government has moved from not doing nearly enough to address humanity's effect on the climate to actively fighting anything that might mitigate climate disaster. Closing out a literally fiery summer, The Climate Fables returned to UNDER St. Marks with a (very) staged reading of a new installment of the cycle from FRIGID resident playwright Bond: The Clouds . The Clouds closes the multi-play, millennium-spanning arc of the witchy Miranda and the burden that she bears of struggling to reconcile humanity and a world ecology devastated by anthropocentric climate change and ever less able to support life. Alongside Miranda, a cast of new characters, including one from a skybound society...

Anti-Gone Created by Sivan Raz Presented by Needs More Work Productions at FRIGID New York 's 5th Annual Little Shakespeare Festival at UNDER St Marks 94 St Marks Pl, Manhattan, NYC August 14-17, 2025 L to R: Elizabeth Fox, Emily Phelps, and Penelope Rose Deen, and Photo by Noah Simon Jampol Anti-Gone , created by Needs More Work Productions, is something like a reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone , one of the most enduring tragedies of the Greek stage. Rather than retell the story in straightforward fashion, the company makes the audience a collaborator, placing us inside the questions of justice, memory, and communal responsibility that have haunted this text for centuries. Staged in the intimate confines of UNDER St. Marks as part of the Little Shakespeare Festival, the production opens with a bag at center stage, the body of Polynices within; players come and go; there is a bit of very fine crowd work, and the sound of a cello plucking and bowing. From the first moment, we are ...

UNSEX'd Written by Jay Whitehead and Daniel Judes Directed by Josh Bradley Presented by JB Theatricals at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC August 10-17, 2025 The playful use of bardcore covers of contemporary songs in scene transitions encapsulates both the era-bending sense of humor in Jay Whitehead and Daniel Judes's Renaissance-set UNSEX'd and the continuities in the issues that the play raises between the early modern period and our own. In commercial theater in Shakespearean England, public self-exhibition onstage was frowned upon for women, so female roles were played by boys or young men, and UNSEX'd , with psychological acuity and enough bawdy humor to make the Bard proud, irresistibly draws us into the friendship and rivalry between two such specialists in female characters in Shakespeare's own company. In its run at UNDER St. Marks, UNSEX'd is making its U.S. premiere as part of the FRIGID New York 's 5th annual Little Shakespe...

The Mousetrap, or Prince Hamlet wrote a dumb play and now we have to do it… Written by Margaret Rose Caterisano Directed by Jackson Paul Walker Presented by Broomstick Theatre Co. at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC August 2-14, 2025 If in William Shakespeare's England, plays were required to be approved by the Master of the Revels and playwrights would take care not to openly criticize the current monarchy, in today's United States, a major network has curried favor for a merger by canceling a show critical of the government, while the government itself takes time out to attack episodes of South Park that satirize its officials. In this environment of governmental attacks on the arts, The Mousetrap, or Prince Hamlet wrote a dumb play and now we have to do it… , from playwright and professor Margaret Rose Caterisano, takes up the question of the place of art in calling out those in power through a return to Hamlet and its play-within-a-play that dramatizes t...

As You Will Created by Conor Mullen, David Brummer, and George Hider August 3-16, 2025 As You Wish It...or The Bride Princess....or What You Will Written by Michael Hagins Directed by Kat Santomoreno and Michael Hagins Presented by Fork the Odds Productions July 31-August 9, 2025 Part of the Little Shakespeare Festival 2025 presented by FRIGID New York at Under St. Marks, 94 St Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC, July 31-August 17, 2025 For most American high school students, their experience with Shakespeare is with the tragedies, and surely this contributes to the sense of Shakespeare as the Bard, writer of elevated, high culture entertainment. Of course, in reality, in his own time, Shakespeare was anything but, which is beautifully captured in this year’s Little Shakespeare Festival, “Not Your English Teacher’s Shakespeare.” The unscripted, improvisational As You Will and the Shakespearean  Princess Bride  parody  As You Wish It are both poignant reminders that Shakespeare ...

Alice Fishbein. Photo by Caeli Smith It's been 84 years… or 26, since April 1999, when six-year-old Alice Fishbein was finally allowed to watch James Cameron's classic, Titanic , on VHS, and a star was born. Written and performed by  Alice Fishbein , a tour de force in the comedy scene of New York City, and directed by Ryann Lind,  Leo Still Dies in the End is a one-woman parody re-enactment of James Cameron’s Titanic where Alice plays all the roles and the scenes are randomly selected by a prize wheel. Some may call it a sickness, but Alice calls it “nostalgia.” Leo Still Dies in the End is a laugh out loud commentary on how the content we consumed as children affects us as we grow up. The show’s pre-production began in Alice’s parents’ apartment, where a young Alice would mouth the words along to the entire movie. It was soon subsequently banned in the apartment. However, the show concept really formed during a trip to Portugal in 2019 when, during dinners, Alice’s si...

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...

Candice Fox. Photo courtesy of the PR Social Just in time for Mother’s Day, NYC-based writer and performer Candice Fox presents her darkly funny autobiographical and emotionally charged solo show Cheers, Mom! Eulogy for a Living Parent for a limited run at UNDER St. Marks on May 9, 11, 16 & 17. A sharp and unfiltered look at grief, addiction, and estrangement, the show continues its journey this summer with performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Told with biting humor and unflinching honesty, Cheers, Mom! unpacks what it means to love an alcoholic parent and grieve someone who’s still alive. Shaped by years of trying to make sense of the wreckage—in therapy and in silence—the show gives voice to the kind of grief many people feel, but most people don’t talk about. It’s raw, it’s ridiculous, and it hits home for anyone who’s ever felt alone in their family story. Structured around the five stages of grief, the piece moves through moments of anger, heartbreak, and surprising...

Home Rule Written by Liam Gibbons Directed by Francis Pacae-Nunez Presented by Dragon Events LLC and FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC April 2-11, 2025 As a setting, wartime highlights divisions, and Liam Gibbons's dark comedy Home Rule , which takes place in 1920s Ireland during the War for Independence, uses its politically divided setting to examine divisions of sexuality, gender, religion, and family. With ghosts real and figurative, Home Rule takes a comedic look at identity and the disjunctions among internal experience, external self-presentation, and expectations around both. Home Rule 's humorous story of possession is one of 63 shows at the 2025 New York City Fringe Festival , which runs through April 20th across four venues in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn. Home Rule begins with Finn (Adriel Jovian) and Riley (Taegan Chirinos), a young couple from the small coastal town of Doagh, deciding to finally have sex with each other, lea...

The Funny Thing About a Panic Attack Written and performed by Ben Kassoy Directed by Joanna Simmons Presented at UNDER St Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC March 6-7, 2025 Ben Kassoy. Photo credit: Richard Dean. Ben Kassoy is mesmerizing in the award-winning The Funny Thing About a Panic Attack , a genre-defying hybrid of poetry, dance, and physical performance that explores the complexities of living with panic attacks. Based on Kassoy’s 2023 poetry collection of the same name, the show breathes new life into his evocative poems. These verses, composed during the early COVID lockdown period, capture the chaos and complexity of experiencing a panic attack. On stage, the poems are brought powerfully to life by Kassoy’s magnetic presence and emotional depth, inviting the audience to connect not only with his words but also with the experience of panic itself. Kassoy’s varied verse, breaking, and flawless execution of a “Dougie” make it clear that there is something here...

The Yiddish Shakespeare Project will present Shakespeare in Yiddis h, a collection of scenes written by William Shakespeare and translated into Yiddish by Yosef Goldberg, directed by Jake Levy and Jennie Reich Litzky. The production will be presented with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009) on Monday, March 10 at 7:00pm. Tickets are available on a sliding scale and for advance purchase at www.frigid.nyc . The performance will run approximately 60 minutes. A night of curated scenes from Romeo and Juliet , King Lear , Hamlet , and Julius Caesar presented by The Yiddish Shakespeare Project - performing Shakespeare’s plays as they were meant to be performed: in Yiddish! (with English captioning). The cast will feature Abigail Duclos, Gillian Brown, Sydney Gerlach, Thaleia Dasberg, Jennie Reich Litzky, Mikah Kinsey, Richard Lowenburg, and Jess Lauricello. The creative team includes Jake Levy (Director/Producer), Jennie Reich Litzky (Director/Producer), H...

The Big Secret Written and performed by Brad Lawrence Presented by FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St Marks Pl, Manhattan, NYC February 16-27, 2025 With an updated version of 2023's The Big Secret , storyteller Brad Lawrence returns to UNDER St Marks with another outstanding solo performance. Hilarious and moving, Lawrence takes us through what ultimately becomes a decade-spanning consideration of and tribute to a formative friendship. At the same time, Lawrence's looking back over this particular relationship acts as a meditation on and exhortation to resist the ways that institutions, including church, patriarchy, and family, can damagingly distort both people's selves and their stories. While The Big Secret does eventually end up in the recent past, most of the show focuses on a few pivotal years beginning when Lawrence was 14. Through an anecdote about a youth group event at which the youth pastor preached against the horrors of premarital sex–teen pregnancy, AI...

Coyote Oughta Eat That Salesman! Written by Padraig Bond Directed by Luis Felicano Presented by Torch Ensemble and FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC January 23-25, 2025 L to R: Kristen Hoffman, Samson MacDermot, Nolan Donahue, Danny Gomez, Jess Lauricello. Photo source at this link .    With the hottest year on record just having ended and with a U.S. government newly (re)committed to now doing worse than nothing about the unfolding climate catastrophe, the debut of the newest installment of The Climate Fables arrives bearing a burlesque of and a call to self-reflection regarding our arrogantly anthropocentric determination to destroy the world ecology which enables our existence. The Climate Fables , written by playwright Padraig Bond, will ultimately comprise a classical-epic-length twelve plays, and the latest production in Torch Ensemble's residency at FRIGID New York, The Climate Fables: Coyote Oughta Eat That Salesman! , marks the...

  Climate Fables: Coyote Oughta Eat That Salesman! , the sixth installment of Padraig Bond’s award-winning canon, The Climate Fables , will be presented by FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009) on January 23, 24, and 25, 2025.  Written by Padraig Bond and directed by Luis Feliciano, Coyote Oughta Eat That Salesman! is a witty and thought-provoking theatrical journey where the mythical trickster, Coyote, takes on a cunning pesticide salesman whose toxic products are poisoning the land, animals, and people. As farmers fall victim to the Salesman's slick promises, Coyote must outwit him to save the world from destruction. But in this interactive production, the audience plays a crucial role in determining the fate of the earth—will they side with the charming Salesman or with Coyote’s call to protect nature? With a split ending that hinges on audience choice, this play is both an entertaining and urgent environmental allegory for our times....

On Cats and Dogs and Other Family Revelations Created, directed, and performed by Ella Veres Presented as part of the 2024 Gotham Storytelling Festival with FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC November 10, 2024 Elle Veres and Pandele Our relationships with nonhuman animals can be revealing on not only individual but also socio-cultural levels. Solo show On Cats and Dogs and Other Family Revelations , from independent artist Ella Veres, a Harlem-based native of Transylvania, dexterously interweaves both of these levels in a fascinating hour of stories that span her personal history from childhood to the present while drawing on the particular perspective that she has acquired living in both Romania and the United States. Developed during Veres's 2023 Fountain House Gallery summer residency on Governors Island and in Adam Wade’s Magnet Theater Solo Workshop, the show debuted at the 2024 NYC Fringe Festival. Most recently, the performance of On Cats...