Thinking Theater NYC

 The Broadway Bound Theatre Festival proudly presents the world premiere of Bengal to Berlin , a bold new musical by playwright and scientist Hasan Padamsee, with performances on August 7, 9, and 10 at AMT Theater in Manhattan. The story is poignantly portrayed through the soundscapes of musical theater and Hindustani music in more than 15 songs by Zlaja Miric and choreography in Bengali and Berlin cabaret styles. Directed by Katrin Hilbe, the show weaves together science, identity, and resistance in a way that feels especially resonant today. Bengal to Berlin captures the spirit of Satyen Bose, a brilliant mind forged in the fires of colonial Bengal. Bose is a revolutionary scientist who dares to defy not only British rule but the injustices within his own society. In 1925, against all odds, Bose’s groundbreaking scientific work reaches Albert Einstein in Berlin to form a historic collaboration. In 2025, we mark the 100th anniversary of the fateful meeting. This dynamic ensemble ...

Theatre Now New York, one of the nation’s leading producers of original short-form musicals, has announced the creative teams for the 10 short musicals to be presented in its SOUND BITES XII Festival of 10-Minute Musicals. The festival will take place on May 5th at 7pm at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center (129 W 67th St, New York). Tickets are now on sale at tnny.org/soundbitesXII . This year's twelfth annual Festival of 10-Minute Musicals promises to be a fast-paced evening of new and diverse short musicals from 10 teams of emerging musical theatre creators. From comedy to drama to absurdity, Aristotle to aliens to Art Garfunkel, crime and love and almond milk, SOUND BITES XII has something for everyone. Since the beginning of the festival in 2013, Theatre Now has premiered over 100 new musicals by almost 200 emerging writers, published an anthology of festival highlights, and helped license festival shows for performances around the world. Theatre Now's Artistic Director To...

TEXAS ANNIE: The Legend of the Moan Ranger Book by Jenn Howd & Roz Mihalko; music by John Woods, Stephen Goers, Roz Mihalko, and Jenn Howd; lyrics by Roz Mihalko, Jenn Howd, and John Woods; based on the song "Texas Annie" by The Wet Spots (John Woods & Cass King) Directed by Maggie Perrino Presented by Jenn Howd and Maggie Perrino and FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks 94 St Marks Pl, Manhattan, NYC April 8-18, 2025 Matthew Graham, Hope Pauly, Brooks Hope, and Royce Louden. Photo by Maggie Perrino. UNDER St. Marks is abuzz thanks to the defiant musical joy of TEXAS ANNIE: The Legend of the Moan Ranger , 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. Set in a state where one can legally own more guns than sex toys, TEXAS ANNIE is inspired by the very real Texas law that once outlawed the ownership of six or more sex toys. Though the law was ultimately overturned in federa...

The Trojans Book, lyrics, and music by Leegrid Stevens Directed by Eric Paul Vitale Presented by Loading Dock Theatre and Nancy Manocherian's the cell theatre at the cell theatre 338 W 23rd St., Manhattan, NYC March 19-April 19, 2025 [Update 4/1/25: Performances extended through April 26th] Sam Tilles, Jen Rondeau, Deshja Driggs, Roger Casey, and E. James Ford. Photo by Vivian Hoffman One of the recurrent stock phrases in Homer's Iliad , as translated by Caroline Alexander (HarperCollins, 2015), is "battle where men win glory" (76), though Alexander stresses in her introduction that the poem "makes explicit the tragic cost of such glory" (xiv). While literal battlefields have hardly disappeared from contemporary American life, sports has long provided an alternative avenue to glory through a sort of ritualized–or theatricalized–evocation of combat. The wildly entertaining new musical The Trojans , with book, lyrics, and music by Leegrid Stevens, makes fan...

Kendyl Ito. Production photo from SOUND BITES XI Theatre Now  is accepting submissions for SOUND BITES XII, the 12th Annual Festival of 10-Minute Musicals, through January 3rd, 2025. 10 finalists will be selected for presentation on Monday, May 5, 2025 at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center. There is no fee to submit, and there are no required fees for artist participation in the event. For more information and to submit a show, go to  www.tnny.org/soundbitessubmissions . SOUND BITES offers an opportunity for talented musical theatre creators to present their fully-staged work in front of audiences and industry professionals. Any 10-minute piece that can be performed live, has a story arc, and includes music qualifies. Theatre Now has produced over 80 short musicals and is looking for diverse pieces that are current, test the musical form, and communicate a well-crafted story. All styles and genres are accepted including foreign language and/or bilingual scripts. Submissions f...

  Formed in 2019, the Theatre Now Musical Writers Lab is a community of 20 writing teams who meet bi-weekly to work on the development of new musicals through Lab presentations, sharing their process, and offering support. Lab members benefit from Theatre Now services including developmental readings and productions, publishing, and licensing. This is a highly skilled, active, and collaborative group focused on embracing and fostering the diversity of musical theatre styles, forms, and creators. At this time, there are openings available for one musical theatre writing team in the local NY Lab and two teams in the International Lab. The NY Lab is for those residing in the local tri-state area and meets in person. The International Lab is open to anyone and meets on zoom. There is no cost to apply, and no dues or fees are required if accepted. The deadline for submissions is September 4th, 2024 at midnight. Submission guidelines can be found HERE ( https://bit.ly/46FdJTG ), and the...

SEGREGATION BANNED AT RYDELL! American teens Dorothy and Lenny navigate friendship, romance, and the shift from crinolines to pencil skirts in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education and the integration of Rydell High. Sheen ,  The Musical brings all new music and a new luster to a classic tale of teen turmoil at the dawn of the 1960s. Sheen is the answer to Grease you never knew you needed but are damn sure glad you have! In-the-know theater fans have been falling in love with Sheen, The Musical since an early collection of scenes and songs were presented at A.R.T./NY’s 50th Anniversary Celebration in June of 2023. Later iterations were presented as part of Brooklyn Comedy Collective’s WOOF! Residency in the fall of 2023. As fall turned to winter, Playful Substance offered Sheen space to workshop new scenes to complete the script. Sheen has since grown from a 30-minute show to a full 90-minute musical that is now preparing for a weeklong residency at the venerated HB Studio...

An Axemas Story Music, etc. by Anthony De Angelis Lyrics, etc. by Patrick Spencer Book, etc. by Charlie O'Leary Music direction by Sara Linger Associate conducting by Buck McDaniel Direction and choreography by Mackenna Goodrich Presented by Cartwheels Theatrical at The Players Theatre 115 MacDougal St, Manhattan, NYC November 30-December 17, 2023 Isabel Julazadeh and John Jeffords. Photo by EJ DeCoske When An Axemas Story calls itself a "sappy" musical, it refers not to holiday schmaltz, which the show actively satirizes, but rather to the spilling of vital fluids as the non-deciduous residents of Tree Town meet their fates at the edge of a blade. This 1980s-slasher-inspired story of sentient trees on a Christmas tree farm is perfect for the kind of person who seeks out appropriately themed horror films for major holidays, enjoys self-aware wordplay ( Axemas Story features a veritable forest of tree-related puns), or just likes a wildly entertaining time at the theater...

A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant - Live! , written by Kyle Jarrow (based on a concept by Alex Timbers) and directed by Sean Pollock, features a jubilant cast of children celebrating the controversial religion in uplifting pageantry and song. The actual teachings of The Church of Scientology are explained and dissected against the candy-colored backdrop of a traditional nativity play. The pageant is a musical biography of the life of L. Ron Hubbard, with child-friendly explanations of Hubbard’s notion of the divided mind (embodied by the lovely identical twins Emma and Sophie Whitfield in matching brain outfits) and a device called the e-meter (or  electropsychometer), used to monitor the human psyche, which is demonstrated  by stick puppets. Grade school children, portraying Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, John Travolta, and other less starry Scientologists, brings the controversial Church of Scientology to life in story an...

Monstress Book and Lyrics by Emily Kitchens Music by Ben Quinn and Titus Tompkins Directed by Hondo Weiss-Richmond Presented by Hunger & Thirst Theatre at New Ohio Theatre 154 Christopher Street, Manhattan, NYC October 21-November 5, 2022 The Cump'ny of Monstress. Photo by Al Foote III Hunger & Thirst Theatre’s new production, Monstress , may not be the first to reimagine Greek mythology with a feminist slant, but it must be the first to do so as a bluegrass-fueled Southern gathering. Monstress presents a series of song-studded stories, along with some standalone musical interludes, set in periods ranging from the murky beginnings of creation to the present day but all focused on female monsters. In the production's retellings of these classical stories, cultural traditions separated by continents and millennia harmonize as bewitchingly as do the performers' voices. Philip Estrera as Catch with Allison Kelly, Adam Boggs McDonald, and Rheanna Atendido as The Si...

My Onliness Text and lyrics by Robert Lyons (from Witkacy) Directed by Daniel Irizarry Composer: Kamala Sankaram Presented by One-Eighth Theater , New Ohio Theatre and IRT Theater at New Ohio Theatre September 6-24, 2022 Daniel Irizarry. Photo by Suzanne Fiore Photography Late in My Onliness , a character known only as the Writer (Rhys Tivey) asserts, "The absurdity of life in-and-of-itself" is "something you won't see / on the stage of any theater." What we have seen to that point doesn't much support that claim, but then, the Writer himself observes that people require that their truths be wrapped in fiction or ceremony. The Writer is no favorite of the king (Daniel Irizarry)–the royal Onliness of the play's title–but artists and intellectuals are seldom beloved of authoritarians, and the king claims to both rule over and suffer for his subjects entirely on his own. If the Writer comes into conflict with the king merely by virtue of being "liter...

Girl Be Heard , a Brooklyn based organization that amplifies and celebrates the voices of girls and young women through socially conscious theatre-making, storytelling, and performance, presents Voices Be Heard: The Musical , its 2022 Mainstage production, June 21-22 at The Space at Irondale. Written and performed by an international cast of 12 professional young “artivists” ages 17-24, the work features original music and personal narratives of mental health, women’s rights, immigration, identity, justice, and issues facing our communities today. With the company returning live to the stage for the first time in over two years and presenting its very first full-length musical, Voices Be Heard: The Musical follows the lives of six girls living separately in an old New York City apartment building, facing their own day-to-day struggles of survival in the bustling city. In this multi-disciplinary production, which includes live performance of monologue, music, and movement, paired with ...

Petunia's Playhouse Live!: Petunia's Big Day Book by Laura Kay Clark Directed by Christina Rose Ashby Music and lyrics by Billy Recce Presented on demand by New Ohio Theatre for Young Minds and Party Claw Productions January 17-February 6, 2022 Photo courtesy Party Claw Productions No doubt there are those for whom a new school term has only ever been an occasion of self-confident excitement. For most of us, though, students and teachers alike, back-to-school involves some degree of fretfulness. Petunia's Playhouse Live!: Petunia's Big Day , based on the web series written and performed by Laura Kay Clark, tackles these first-day jitters with a spirited family-friendly musical. The 2020 web series Petunia’s Playhouse aimed to help equip its young viewers with tools and tactics to address the mental health-related challenges of living in a pandemic. Petunia's Playhouse Live!: Petunia's Big Day faced its own pandemic challenges: it was set to bring Petunia and c...

  Photo courtesy Party Claw Productions New Ohio Theatre for Young Minds invites families to its historic Greenwich Village theater for Party Claw Productions’ Petunia's Playhouse Live!: Petunia's Big Day – a new musical puppetry experience based on the award-winning web series Petunia’s Playhouse , conceived during the COVID lockdown as a tool to help children cope with the mental health challenges of our new reality. With a brand-new book and story by Laura Kay Clark, directed by Christina Rose Ashby, the interactive show follows the titular character on her first day of school and weaves together puppetry, original songs by Billy Recce, and participatory activities designed to introduce young audiences to the crucial practice of self-care in times of stress and uncertainty. The show, suitable for young theatergoers aged 6-12, will be presented at New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street, NYC) from December 22, 2021 to January 1, 2022. Tickets ($25; $18 for groups of four o...

Loveville High: A Prom in Nine Musical Podcasts , in association with the Broadway Podcast Network, has announced that a re-release of the remastered audio musical plus songs from the podcast will be available free on streaming services. With book and lyrics by David Zellnik (Drama Desk-nominated Yank! ) and music by Eric Svejcar (Disney’s Peter Pan Jr. with Zellnik),  Loveville High  takes place on prom night in the fictional town of Loveville, Ohio. Each ten-minute episode tells a love story – new love, old love, romantic love, friend love, gay and straight, cis and genderqueer; each is a self-contained musical while also connecting with the other episodes to form a glimpse into the biggest night in the lives of one high school class. The first five remastered episodes and a special bonus episode were released together, with the final four remastered episodes released weekly on subsequent Wednesdays. Episodes are available exclusively from the Broadway Podcast Network ...