Thinking Theater NYC

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...

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...

Potty Training with Joey Rinaldi Written and performed by Joey Rinaldi Presented by Joey Rinaldi Comedy at 59E59 Theaters 59 E. 59th St., Manhattan, NYC July 12-16, 2022 Joey Rinaldi. Photo credit: Lamosa Photography Good comedians have the ability to transform pain into laughter, and the bodily injury at the center of solo show Potty Training certainly gives writer and performer Joey Rinaldi plenty of pain to work with. With Potty Training (a title that must result in some amusing exchanges with theatergoers: "Hi, I'm here for Potty Training !"), New York City-based comedian Rinaldi tells the story of a brief moment of adolescent showing-off that resulted in more than one surgery and months of recovery. Rinaldi, who has won awards at multiple festivals, has recently appeared on the Risk! and NPR's Spooked podcasts and regularly performs his storytelling comedy show Bad Trip in Brooklyn. Potty Training is part of 59E59 Theaters' East to Edinburgh Festival , w...

  FRIGID New York to present 10th Annual Gotham Storytelling Festival November 2-14 at The Kraine Theater FRIGID New York will present the 10th Annual Gotham Storytelling Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery), November 2-14. Performances will also be available to livestream from home. Tickets are available on a sliding scale ($20 in-person; $15 online, suggested) and are available for advance purchase at www.frigid.nyc/tags/gotham . Not even an ongoing pandemic can stop the tenth annual Gotham Storytelling Festival: This year’s fest will touch on the good, the bad, and the most outrageous of 2021. Whether you’re looking to escape into someone else’s story, to commiserate with an artist, or to dive into what makes this year so insufferable, Gotham has something for you. Audiences are invited to join legendary hitters and new friends for an international event that’s sure to alleviate some of the year’s aches. This year's shows are as follo...

What the Fuck Just Happened? Created and performed by Mike Daisey Presented by FRIGID New York at the Kraine Theater  85 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC and via YouTube Live April 2, 2021; encore performance: May 7, 2021 Mike Daisey. Photo Credit Ursa Waz While it may be spring in the city, the East Village was feeling FRIGID this weekend. On April 2, indie theater stalwarts FRIGID New York opened the doors of the Kraine Theater on East 4th Street to a live audience for monologuist Mike Daisey's one-man reflection on the past year, What the Fuck Just Happened? Following the Kraine's health and safety protocols for reopening, in-person audience members were required to be fully vaccinated, to wear masks while inside the theater, and to adhere to pod seating. The Kraine has also installed a new ventilation system designed specifically to mitigate COVID exposure, and the mask-less Daisey performed at a minimum distance of ten feet from the audience. Having not yet ascended to the rank...

  The Pumpkin Pie Show: Quarantine Tales Written by Clay McLeod Chapman Performed by Clay McLeod Chapman and Hanna Cheek Presented via YouTube Live October 31, 2020 Clay McLeod Chapman. Photo credit: Antonia Stoyanovich Halloween has, sadly, come to an end (although this coming week might be the really frightening one). If end it must, then at least this season of scares came to a creepy, funny, and enjoyably unsavory close with a new installment of Clay McLeod Chapman's macabre storytelling series The Pumpkin Pie Show . The show boasts a history stretching back to 1996, and with its latest (re)incarnation, The Pumpkin Pie Show: Quarantine Tales , playwright, novelist, and comics writer Chapman joined fellow performer Hanna Cheek to bring a quartet of finely crafted and expertly told tales into audiences' homes via the dark magic of YouTube Live . The four stories, totaling about an hour, are each narrated in first-person, often with a sense of confessional intimacy that inten...

  The next RISK! Live Online Show will take place on Friday, October 9 at 10:00pm ET / 7:00pm PT  Kevin Allison ( The State ) and a fantastic crew of storytellers will come together for RISK! 's latest live online show. This show will be broadcast via a webinar format on Zoom, and will feature incredible true stories from Jamie J. Brunson, Alex Edelman, Jessieca McNabb and M.J. Kang. The price: $15, and only 100 tickets are available. Ticket link: https://zoom.us/webinar/ register/3315984743950/WN_ NJDspE02Qr6PmaDe9RSWPA Coming up later in the month, the Halloween RISK ! livestream happens on Friday, October 23 at 10pm ET / 7pm PT. This will be the show's annual Halloween show, and a special celebrity guest will be guest-hosting on this night, to be announced shortly! Listen to RISK! on your favorite podcast player . Visit RISK!’s website . Follow RISK! on Facebook . Follow RISK! on Twitter . Follow RISK! on Instagram .

Desperately Seeking the Exit: Online Live Written and performed by Peter Michael Marino Original direction by John Clancy Presented via Zoom See the show's website for upcoming dates and tickets Photo credit: David Rodgers Have you ever wondered about the drama behind a drama, the ways in which something like a large-scale theatrical performance comes together—or doesn't? If you have, then Desperately Seeking the Exit , with its inside look at the pinnacles and pitfalls of this process, is for you. If you haven't, then Desperately Seeking the Exit is for you as well because it is a wildly entertaining piece of storytelling. This one-man show, written and performed by Peter Michael Marino, recounts the rocky journey of the short-lived musical that Marino wrote based on the 1985 film Desperately Seeking Susan , from its inception to its opening night and beyond. Desperately Seeking the Exit is partly a behind-the-scenes show-biz story, partly a fish-out-of-cultural-water t...

Risk! Hosted by Kevin Allison May 1, 2020 Upcoming shows May 8, 16, and 23 Social distancing has turned us all to our screens for socializing, constantly checking when this will end, and endless movies and series that we would never have watched in “normal” times. Some previously live shows are now seeing that the only way to move forward is holding their events online, and this is what Risk! , a live show with an associated podcast, has done. I joined in for the series of stories and was surprised at the possibilities for storytelling that exist right now for our diminished social lives. The show begins with Kevin Allison , creator of the show, doing a bit of intro and selling Risk! to the audience. We are all now familiar with this sort of killing time for the first few minutes of Zoom calls while everyone joins a meeting. Allison’s brand is filthy humor and taboo. So, he, of course, talks about his adventures as a BDSM educator and stories of sticking cucumbers and corn ...

Story Time with Joey Rinaldi Written and performed by Joey Rinaldi Available to stream through May 9, 2020: Watch here Cost: $5 Photo by Aliya Schneider Storytelling and comedy suit the shift to streaming performances necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic particularly well. Enter comedian Joey Rinaldi's solo show Story Time with Joey Rinaldi . Rinaldi has created and performed two previous one-man shows— Potty Training , which played at The PIT in 2017, and Picture Everybody Naked , which played at The Kraine in 2019—and serves as creator of the YouTube comedy sketch channel Dirty Laundry Videos and co-creator and host of the underground pop-up comedy show The Manifest Show . He has appeared at an international selection of comedy and theater festivals and now brings Story Time with Joey Rinaldi , winner of Best Comedy at NYC's FRIGID Festival 2020, to your home. Says Rinaldi of Story Time , “I wanted to give audiences the chance to forget their own childhood tra...

A Southern Fairytale Written and performed by Ty Autry Directed by David L. Carson Presented at The Kraine Theater 85 E. 4th St., First Floor, Manhattan, NYC Wed., February 19 at 7:10pm; Sat., February 22 at 5:00pm; Sat., February 29 at 5:00pm; Wed., March 4 at 7:10pm; Fri., March 6 at 5:30pm Ty Autry. Photo by Mike Glatzer Photography Fairytales really do come true for queer kids in the South. That is, if they can keep it together until they get the hell out. So goes the narrative of Ty Autry’s one-person play A Southern Fairytale . Advertised both as a fairytale and “The story of a gay Christian growing up in the Deep South,” the play focuses on Autry’s real-life story of growing up gay in small-town Georgia. Not only is the play Autry’s story and written by him, but he is also the lone actor in the play. Part of NYC’s Frigid Festival of independent plays, Southern Fairytale represents the need for these sorts of independent, open festivals. As the play opens,...

Photo credit: Maryanne Ventrice The 2020  FRIGID Festival  is now underway, with performances at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks in the East Village. In our coverage of this annual showcase for storytellers, solo shows, and short works, we will also be highlighting some of the productions on offer. Next up is Delirium . Where: The Kraine Theater 85 E 4th St., Manhattan, NYC When: Thursday, Feb 27th @ 5:30 pm Saturday, Feb 29th @ 1:40 pm Sunday, March 1st @ 3:30 pm Thursday March 5th @ 7:10 pm Saturday, March 7th @ 8:20 pm What: Renowned storyteller Martin Dockery will perform his raucous and cathartic one-man show Delirium at the Kraine Theater as part of the 2020 Frigid Festival in his hometown of New York City. Inspired by his grandfather’s book on the epic migration of the monarch butterfly, Dockery weaves a tale about the intersection of love and death. Traveling from Canada to Mexico, Dockery tackles the question of whether there is meaning and s...

Blockbuster Guy Written and performed by Mark Levy Directed by Kristen Keim Presented at UNDER St. Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC February 21st at 5:30 pm; February 28th at 8:50pm; March 1st at 3:30pm; March 4th at 10:30pm; March 7th at 2:10pm ( click here for tickets ) Mark Levy. Photo by Arin Sang-urai Right at the start of Mark Levy's solo show Blockbuster Guy , he announces that he always has been and always will be a movie nerd. Blockbuster Guy offers a humorous paean not only to how film can shape our lives but also to finding a sense of discovery and even community in the unlikely location of a now-defunct corporate retail chain. The show arrives in revised form at the 2020 annual FRIGID Festival after a 2019 run at SOLOCOM at the PIT Loft. Levy is no stranger to the festival, with All is Fine in Sunny Florida! (2016), Lenny Bruce is Not Afraid (2018), and CC: You in Hell! (2019; reviewed by us here) on his FRIGID resumé, and Blockbuster Guy see...

Jim Loucks. Photo by Jeff Burkle The 2020 FRIGID Festival is now underway, with performances at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks in the East Village. In our coverage of this annual showcase for storytellers, solo shows, and short works, we will also be highlighting some of the productions on offer. Next up is  Cemetery Golf . Where:  UNDER St. Marks 94 St Marks Place New York, NY 10009 When:  10:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 27 2:10 p.m. on Saturday, February 29 8:50 p.m. on Wednesday, March 4 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 5 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 What:  Solo performer and playwright Jim Loucks brings his Southern storytelling style to the 2020 FRIGID Festival with his one-man show Cemetery Golf  , directed by Lisa Chess. After playing to critical acclaim around the country, Loucks is bringing his rollicking, heartfelt solo performance to New York in a way that only he can, through the eyes of a little boy growing up s...

The 2020  FRIGID Festival  is now underway, with performances at the Kraine Theater and UNDER St. Marks in the East Village. In our coverage of this annual showcase for storytellers, solo shows, and short works, we will also be highlighting some of the productions on offer. Next up is  The 500 List . Where:  Kraine Theater 85 E 4th St New York, NY 10003 When:  2/23 @ 6:50 pm 2/25 @ 10:30 pm 2/29 @ 8:20 pm 3/1 @ 6:50 pm 3/3 @ 5:30 pm 3/8 @ 3:30 pm What: Ryan Adam Wells, who was at FRIGID Festival two years ago with his show Beers About Songs , winner of both the Patrons' Choice and Performers' Choice Awards, returns this year with his new show The 500 List . The 500 List is a new musical storytelling show about a road trip that Wells took with his best friend back in 2008. They spent two years compiling our 500 favorite songs of all time and then took a week -ong drive across the USA while listening to all 1,000 songs. Wells describe...

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...