Thinking Theater NYC

Cabaret: A Night with the Dead Presented by FRIGID New York , Something from Abroad , and Quemoción  at UNDER St. Marks 94 St Marks Pl, Manhattan, NYC November 2, 2024 Tonight at Cabaret A Night with the Dead , a celebration of the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, or Dia De Los Muertos, we spend the evening in warmth and companionship, honoring the memory of our departed loved ones in this deeply immersive and interactive cabaret variety show. Skits, stories, songs, poems, dance, and burlesque are offered in respect and loving tribute to these souls joining us on St. Marks Place this November evening. The theatre space is beautifully appointed for the occasion, with papel picado , or traditional paper banners, adorning the room. A guitar player plays a gentle meandering melody as the audience members find their seats and the festivities begin. At the center of the stage is the ofrenda , a beautiful altar to the departed, adorned with photographs of lost loved ones and the objects t...

  Photo courtesy of Kampfire PR The New Place Players ’ The Masque of Night , a cabaret of contemporary and Elizabethan songs intermixed with, as Stephanie Pietros put it, " Romeo and Juliet ’s most iconic set-pieces" returns in June for performances in New Jersey and New York City. (you can read Stephanie's review of an earlier NYC performance here ).  The Masque of Night comes first to ​Princeton, NJ on June 7th and 8th, featuring Actors Studio lifetime member Clara Tristan as Juliet and recent Actors Studio MFA graduate Jorge Carrion Alvarez as Romeo. The performances will take place at the enchanting Hopewell Mountain Christian Church, near Princeton, New Jersey, a beautifully preserved wooden structure dating back to 1844. The Masque of Night  offers a unique and intimate experience for theater enthusiasts. The venue's interior balcony, grand piano, original bell, and seating for forty guests create an enchanting atmosphere that complements the magic of Shakespea...

How to Be an Ethical Slut Written and performed by Brooke McCarthy Presented by FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC February 18-27, 2023 Brooke McCarthy. Photo credit: Michael Rosas Whatever our advances in how we conceive of gender and sexuality, heteronormativity stubbornly refuses to relinquish its patriarchal grip on our culture - appropriately, perhaps, for an ownership-based model of relationships. But other, better alternatives have at least gained a bit of mainstream ground in recent years, and How to Be an Ethical Slut charts its course through these sometimes choppy but ultimately liberatory waters. Written and performed by Brooke McCarthy and presented as part of the 17th annual FRIGID Fringe festival , the award-winning How to Be an Ethical Slut offers a guided tour through stages of slutdom leading to its ethical incarnation. An honest, often hilarious mix of solo show and cabaret, How to Be an Ethical Slut includes a few surprising rev...

(beyond) Doomsday Scrolling Collectively created by the members of AnomalousCo Directed by Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva with Jeremy Goren and Diana Zhdanova Presented by AnomalousCo at HERE 145 6th Ave, Manhattan, NYC February 16-26, 2023 Photo by Jarrett Robertson The war in Ukraine, which will have stretched on for a year as of late next week, looms large in (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling , a formidable new devised theater piece from feminist performance collective AnomalousCo, but the full scope of the show's consideration of women in wartime is much more capacious. (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling imagines women from different eras and locations coming together to shelter in a theater, a space which has historically played various important roles during times of conflict. The result is what AnomalousCo founding Co-Artistic Director Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva characterized to Thinking Theater NYC as "one part theatre, one part protest," with naturalistic scenes "ruptured b...

Photo: Jarrett Robertson Beginning next week,  AnomalousCo , a predominantly queer woman-led, nearly all immigrant, feminist, transdisciplinary performance collective, will present  (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling  from February 16th to 26th at Manhattan's HERE Arts Center . The show is set in an imagined theater in which women from different periods and places come together for shelter from war. By means of this setting,  (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling  centers women in its consideration of war, displacement, and resistance. Described as a dramatic cabaret, the production is multilingual and multigenerational, performed by twelve women and one man. The cast members hail from Ukraine, Poland, Iceland, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Scotland, Italy, Cuba, and the United States, and the show's live band is headed by Ukrainian musician and anti-war activist Lesya Verba. (beyond) Doomsday Scrolling incorporates songs from different cultures, eras, and genres, as well as te...

Cabaret in Captivity: Songs and Sketches from Terezin Conceived by Edward Einhorn Developed and directed by Edward Einhorn and Jenny Lee Mitchell Musical direction, arrangements, and piano by Maria Dessena Presented by Untitled Theater Company No. 61  at different venues monthly January 28-April 16, 2023 (also available on demand) Photo courtesy of Untitled Theater Company No. 61 Many of those well-versed in 20th century history – even on this marking of Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27 – may not know the place name Terezin or have heard of the Theresienstadt ghetto. Established by the Nazis in November 1941 in German-occupied Czechia, this camp was – and in the contemporary imagination, remains – a contradiction: a place of great suffering and starvation; a way-station or transit point connecting the Jews of Europe to death in Auschwitz. And yet, this was a model camp – a camp good enough to convince the Red Cross that conditions in Europe’s concentration camps were just fine...

  Cabaret in Captivity , an annual cabaret produced by Untitled Theater Company No. 61 in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, will perform both live and livestreamed on Sunday, May 1, at 2pm. This year's production is dedicated to the memory of cast member Barbara Maier Gustern, and there will be a brief tribute to her. The program includes songs and sketches written in Terezin/Theresienstad. Terezin was located an hour away from Prague, and during World War II it served as both an internment camp and a way station for the concentration camps during the Holocaust. Full of satire, bitter humor, and hope, these pieces demonstrate how art became a vital survival technique for the inmates. Most of these pieces were recently recovered through the efforts of scholar Lisa Peschel, who also translated the majority of the work. Conceived and co-directed by Edward Einhorn ( NY Times Critic’s Pick for The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein ) and starring co-director Jenny Lee Mitc...

Photo credit: Lindsay Taylor The 2020  FRIGID Festival  is fast approaching, with performances beginning on February 19 at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks in the East Village. In the lead-up to this annual showcase for storytellers, solo shows, and short works, we will also be highlighting some of the productions on offer. Next up is  Beneath the Bikini . Where:  UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place Manhattan, NYC When:  Monday 2/24 at 8:50 pm Wednesday 2/26 at 8:50 pm Saturday 2/29 at 5:30 pm Sunday 3/1 at 6:50 pm Friday 3/6 at 5:30 Sunday 3/8 at 12:10 pm All shows are 60 minutes What:  “Beneath the Bikini” is an award-winning storytelling cabaret out of Orlando, Florida. In the 60-minute cabaret, writer and performer Katie Thayer regales audiences with her story of growing up “not so skinny,” her love of food, and finding the confidence to start a bikini advertising business. Back in 2013, Katie Thayer, better known as “Bikini Ka...