Thinking Theater NYC

apocaLIPSTICK Written by Seth Barnes Directed by Jennie Hughes Presented by Seth Barnes, Elena Cramer, the Players Theatre Residency Program, and Forager Theatre Company at The Players Theatre 115 MacDougal St., Manhattan, NYC November 6-23, 2025 L to R: Fara Faidzan, Ben Bogdan, Kathleen Salazar, Jordan Jackson, Clayton Matthews, Elena Cramer, Michela Richards. Photo by Samori Etienne. Anyone who frequents metal or punk shows knows that when someone falls in the pit, you pick that person up. That communal etiquette does not, however, extend to zombies, as we see in the opening scene of apocaLIPSTICK , a new play from Seth Barnes set in a United States reshaped by the zombie apocalypse. Following two members of a punk band called The Dammit Janets on their cross-country search for their friend and third member, with whom they had lost contact, apocaLIPSTICK integrates live music and zombie-attack action into a narrative that, similarly to Forager's December 2024 production of Th...

The Best Punk Band in Conway, Missouri: An Oral History of Presley Cox and the Fallout Five Written by Kirby Fields Directed by Rachael Murray Presented by UP Theater Company at Fort Washington Collegiate Church 729 W 181st St., Manhattan, NYC May 3-20, 2023 Henry Temple, Devin Romero, and Zuzu. Photo by Amy Milstein For a certain group of us, few things are better than a live punk or metal show, preferably in the smallest venue possible, so it is genuinely exciting to see the new production from NYC's UP Theater Company successfully translate that energy to a stage play. The Best Punk Band in Conway, Missouri: An Oral History of Presley Cox and the Fallout Five , from UP Artistic Director Kirby Fields, though, is not merely an uncritical celebration of punk and local music in a time and place when such DIY scenes were still fully analog and offered one of the few sites for certain types of outsiders to find community. Set in the fictional small town of Conway, Missouri, The Best ...