Thinking Theater NYC

Desi SNL Written by Azhar Bande-Ali Directed and produced by Azhar-Bande Ali, Shreya Thakur, and Sandalina Sattar, presented with FRIGID New York at wild project 195 E 3rd St, Manhattan, NYC April 3-18, 2026 The cast and crew of Desi SNL .   Photo by Nader Farzan.   While Saturday Night Live , currently in its fifty-first season, has gotten (a bit) more diverse over the decades, it has still never, to our knowledge, had a regular South Asian cast member. Luckily, with an entirely South Asian ensemble cast, Desi SNL is more than ready to remedy this lack. Across a mix of stand-up, sketches, and satire modeled on its television namesake, Desi SNL is consistently hilarious, and a number of its comedic targets, such as pushy parents or group-chat-addicted relatives, work simultaneously in universal and culturally specific dimensions. Desi SNL is currently part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival , an open lottery-based theater festival in which one hundred percent o...

Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Purloined Pelvis: At Vicar's Gate Written by James Sweeney and Matt Tanzosh Directed and designed by James Sweeney, Matt Tanzosh, and Ben Fletcher Presented by Theater for the New City , Crystal Field, Executive Artistic Director, at Theater for the New City 155 First Ave., Manhattan, NYC August 25-September 2, 2024 Ben Fletcher and Matt Tanzosh. Photo courtesy of the artists. Classic British detective fiction, of the Arthur Conan Doyle/Michael Innes/Agatha Christie/Dorothy L. Sayers variety, popularized tropes that are still inescapably familiar today (think, for example, of the investigator climatically gathering everyone together in a drawing room to make a bit of a show of explaining their solution to the crime). Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Purloined Pelvis: At Vicar's Gate takes these tropes, supercharges them, gives them a hilariously NS...

The Mascot Murders Written by Michael Zielinski Directed by Ken Wolf Presented by Manhattan Repertory Theatre at the Chain Theatre 312 West 36th Street, 4th Floor, Manhattan, NYC June 7-9, 2024 Dave Silberger as Tom and Nathan Cusson as Matt. Photo by John Sarno For a brand, a mascot does nothing but trumpet identity, but for the person inside a mascot costume, complete anonymity is the diametrically opposed effect. There's also something inherently humorous and yet a little creepy about these ungainly, unspeaking, masked characters (think about how many horror movie villains fit that description). Michael Zielinski's new play, The Mascot Murders , notwithstanding its title, mines these contradictory elements not for fright but for full-tilt farce, as a pair of hapless private investigators face repeated–and varyingly outrageous–attempts on their lives by someone concealed within the fuzzy exteriors of various mascot costumes. Nathan Cusson as Matt and Geoffrey Grady as Biff B...

Twisted Written by Joel Greenhouse Directed by Joe John Battista Music by Peter W. Dizzoza and Joe John Battista Lyrics by Joel Greenhouse Presented by Theater for the New City Executive Director Crystal Field at Theater for the New City 115 1st Ave., Manhattan, NYC September 28-October 15, 2023 Andrew Ryan Perry, Xue Yun Zhang, Tony Del Bono, Christine Weiss Beidel, Brian Belovitch, Robert Z Grant, Penny Balfour, Larry Fleischman, Evan Laurence, Maude Lardner Burke, Sevin Ceviker, JC Augustine. Photo: Hillary Wyatt. In a fog-drenched opening scene featuring sex workers in peril, Twisted , a new play with songs, wastes no time in establishing the existence of an ancient cult that worships a pre-Christian reptilian god. Prior to this beginning, the show projects film-style opening credits full of thunder and lightning and atmospheric bayous, further evoking the exploitation movies to which it pays comedic homage–particularly those of the 1960s, although one might equally be put in mind...

The Jester's Wife Written and directed by T. J. Elliott Presented by Knowledge Workings Theater LLC at the 36th Street Theatre 312 W 36th St., 3rd. Fl. September 21-October 8, 2023 Jester (Steve Weatherbee) entreats Wife (Emma Taylor Miller) to join his scheme while Stranger (Xander Jackson) observes. Photo by Marjorie P. Elliott When we tell stories, what forces shape not only which stories we choose to tell but also who the protagonists are and who ends up relegated to the margins? The Jester's Wife , written and directed by T. J. Elliott and billed as a Dark Ages comedy, raises such questions by, in a Stoppard-esque move, approaching the story of medieval Irish martyr St. Dymphna by decentering Dymphna herself in favor of those who would normally play at best supporting roles in the tale. This shift foregrounds reflections on gender, religion, power, and art, all wrapped in a hilarious production that would make the titular jester–and his wife–proud. Wife (Emma Taylor Mille...

Irregulars Written and directed by David Adam Gill Presented by New Ambassadors Theatre Company at the Hudson Guild Theatre 441 W. 26th St., Manhattan, NYC September 7-24, 2023 Marie Elèna O'Brien, John Peña Griswold, Eric Svendsen, Jonathan Peck, Mickey Pantano. Photo by Mordecai Nuccio The titular Irregulars in the rollicking new comedy from David Adam Gill, Artistic Director of New Ambassadors Theatre Company, hail not from London's Baker Street but Brooklyn's own Carroll Gardens, but if the mysteries with which they are concerned are intrafamilial rather than criminal, they are no less important–and a lot funnier–for that. The title Irregulars literally refers the business, Roger's Irregulars, which sells irregular clothing, that is owned by one of its characters, but metaphorically encompasses Roger (Todd Butera) and his immediate family and in-laws, as well as a couple of those in that extended family's immediate orbit. Playing in repertory with the terrific...

Sex Work/Sex Play Written by Caytha Jentis Directed by Rosie Gunther Presented by Emerging Artists Theatre at the 28th Street Theatre 15 W. 28th St., 2nd Fl., Manhattan, NYC September 4-October 29, 2023 Sex Work/Sex Play – Constance Zaytoun and Amber Gatlin. Photo by Richard Rivera. When it comes to sex, most people probably have experiences, desires, habits, frustrations, and so on that they do not share readily or at all (inhibitions no doubt shaped by our puritanical, heteropatriarchal culture). At the start of Sex Work/Sex Play , from playwright Caytha Jentis, each of the characters is keeping at least one such secret, leading to comic collisions that upend a status quo that is less than ideal for most of them. Sex Work/Sex Play is making its world premiere in repertory with two further world premiere productions–solo show Anne Being Frank and Doris Day: My Secret Love , a play with music–and it also features four special performances, with the September 22nd performance follo...

Yoga with Jillian Written by Lia Romeo Directed by Andrew W. Smith Presented by Project Y Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions in association with The Pleasance June 2-17, 2023 Penguin in Your Ear Written and performed by Eliza Bent Directed by Jess Barbagallo June 10, 2023 Part of the Women in Theatre Festival , presented by Project Y Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres Michole Biancosino. Photo courtesy of Project Y Theatre This June, Project Y Theatre Company presents the eighth annual installment of its Women in Theatre Festival (WIT), which showcases new work by women and maintains "more than 50% female representation of all artists involved." This year, the festival includes a lobby installation project, titled In the Betweens , from scenic designer Chen-Wei Liao, through which audience members pass on their way into the theater proper. One first chooses first between "light" and "dark" rooms and then moves into "the gardens" before re...

I Am So Much Better Live ( Dal vivo sono molto meglio ) Written by Paola Minaccioni, Alberto Caviglia, Claudio Fois, and Daniele Prato in collaboration with Andrea Lolli Directed by Paola Rota Presented by by Teatro Stabile d’Abruzzo in collaboration with Stefano Francioni Produzioni May 5, 2023 at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU, 24 W 12th St, Manhattan, NYC May 9, 2023 at Hudson Theatres , 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA Paola Minaccioni. Photo by Francesca Lucidi Theater, film, television, and radio performer Paola Minaccioni has built a storied, decades-long career in her native Italy. With her solo show I Am So Much Better Live ( Dal vivo sono molto meglio ), Minaccioni brings a blend of stand-up and sketch-style character work, punctuated with musical contributions from DJ Lady Coco, to the United States. I Am So Much Better Live , performed in Italian with English supertitles, is presented this month as part of the 2023 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, takin...

I Need a Hero Written and performed by Kayla Engeman Presented by Manhattan Theatre Source and FRIGID New York in collaboration with Arts on Site and 721 Decatur Community Garden at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC (and via livestreaming) March 23-25, 2023 Kayla Engeman I Need a Hero makes it clear from the outset, as actor and comedian Kayla Engeman dances in parallel with herself as she appears in a 1998 home movie, that this solo show is firmly a multimedia affair. Aside from the humor in this temporal palimpsest, the juxtaposition of media such as this with more contemporary images, text messages, and video suggests how much our relationships to our own pasts have changed over the past couple of decades–no one today, for example, would even think to call a video taken on their phone a home movie. In I Need a Hero , Engeman takes a (mostly) humorous look at her own personal past in order to reach some conclusions about her present (including the very well taken...

Furious Written and performed by Emily Fury Daly Presented by Manhattan Theatre Source and FRIGID New York in collaboration with Arts on Site and 721 Decatur Community Garden at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC (and via livestreaming) March 23-24, 2023 Emily Fury Daly. Photo by Kat Soriano Furious , the hilarious solo show from actor and comedian Emily Fury Daly, includes no shortage of meta moments that underscore its iconoclastic humor–from Daly's pre-show dancing in a pink reflective vest, sunglasses, and headphones to artists such as Fiona Apple and Dolly Parton (a public private display that could be said to characterize many solo shows), to her incorporating the usual pre-show announcements (along with some others) into the show itself, to her consistently drawing attention to the genre commonplaces of the show's structure. Furious is currently part of the EstroGenius Festival, themed Ban(ned) Together in its twenty-second year of spotlighting "...

Pretty Beast Written and performed by Kazu Kusano Presented by FRIGID New York at The Kraine Theater 85 E 4th St, Manhattan, NYC February 18-March 1, 2023 Kazu Kusano. Photo by Matt Misisco The contrast suggested by the title of comedian Kazu Kusano's solo show Pretty Beast , currently part of the 17th annual FRIGID Fringe festival, gestures towards the resistance that she encounters as a woman pursuing a career viewed as insufficiently feminine, especially in her native Japan. When she is younger and a class clown (and also likes, unconventionally, to play sports with the boys), her classmates call her " Otoko-Onna " ("boy-girl"); and when she becomes a party girl at the end of high school, her atypicality frightens away the opposite sex. Her acting teacher tries to force her into his own traditional mold, and recommendations to settle down and behave appropriately for a woman comes from even closer and more hurtful quarters. When Kusano, now based in Los Ange...

  Always Wild Content  presents a staged reading of Maia Nikiphoroff’s new dark comedy, Brace for Impact!  on Saturday, December 10th, 7:00 PM at Culture Lab LIC. Brace for Impact! is a hilariously dark, one-woman show about a flight attendant named Shiva who’s being haunted by a disheveled clown and fights to stay focused on the job while her father’s body is being cremated. Playwright Maia Nikiphoroff is a Paraguayan writer and actor based in Brooklyn, NY, who, before diving into the creative world, was herself a flight attendant, for Emirates Airline, and earned her BA in Marketing. In the play, the flight attendant, Shiva with the help of a disheveled clown only she can see, navigates moments in her life in which she destroys that which she loves. Only after there’s nothing left to wreck will she find the power of forgiveness and regeneration. Grief is at the center of this dark comedy. Between questionable safety demonstrations and vodka-only drink service, Shiva pu...

What Passes for Comedy Written by G.D. Kimble Directed by Rick Hamilton Presented by the Chain Theatre 312 W. 36th Street, 3rd Floor, Manhattan, NYC October 28-November 19, 2022 Andrew O'Shanick, Alain Pierre, Jordan Elman, and Rory Lance. Photo by Reiko Yoo Before ensconcing us in the pressure-filled writers' room of a popular late-night television show, the Chain Theatre's excellent world-premiere production of G.D. Kimble's What Passes for Comedy positions theatergoers as part of the live studio audience for that program, The Jackie Harrod Show . The year is 1963, and the faces of The Jackie Harrod Show , a successful enterprise that pulls big-name guests, are White host Jack Harrod (Michael Filisky) and Black bandleader Bunny Brown (Ryan Brooke Taylor). But it is an insult to another group during the show's live broadcast that precipitates a catalyzing crisis for the play's nuanced and powerful exploration of race, representation, and, of course, comedy. Mi...