Thinking Theater NYC

Crushed Velvet Written by Andrew Trimmer Directed by Sam Perwin Presented at wild project April 5-18, 2026 Kate Delacruz. Photo courtesy of Austin Ruffer. Tonight at wild project, everything is semi-homemade. The food gleams under studio lights, pristine and untouchable; the kitchen is immaculate but weightless; the life on display is both carefully constructed and rather unraveling. In Andrew Trimmer’s Crushed Velvet , presented as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival , the question is not simply how to stage Sandra Lee, but how to stage the system that made, sustained, and ultimately consumed her. What emerges is less a biography than a kind of hagiography, Aunt Sandy rendered with ambition and real relish. The production’s central instinct is a deeply compelling one. Rather than settling into a single mode, Crushed Velvet effortlessly moves across genres, backstage naturalism, media parody, documentary reconstruction, and sketch-inflected interludes, as if no one form can...

did you charge your phone for the end of the world? Written and directed by Fletcher Michael Presented by Infinite Monkey Theater Company  at wild project 195 E. 3rd Street, Manhattan, NYC April 4-19, 2026 L to R: Collin Dennis, Fletcher Michael, Lucy Boisvert. Photo by Nicholas Barris & editing by Lucy Boisvert. Tonight at wild project, the phone rings long before it connects. In Fletcher Michael’s did you charge your phone for the end of the world? , presented by Infinite Monkey Theater Company as part of the 2026  New York City Fringe Festival , catastrophe is a matter not of if or when, but of messaging. An asteroid is on its way to Brooklyn, and the public will not be told until a boutique advertising agency can find the right tone; the end of the world, here, must be properly branded before it can be properly known. Give me schtick or give me death. Three creatives, Del Morgan (Fletcher Michael), Nico Deluca-Graham (Lucy Boisvert), and Lorimer Clancy (Collin De...

How to Become a Saint (while wearing pants) Created and performed by Lex Alston, Becca Canziani , Brooke Ferris, Lynn Hodeib, and Ania Upstill Presented by Butch Mermaid Productions at wild project 195 E 3rd St, Manhattan, NYC April 1-4, 2026 Lex Alston, Becca Canziani, and Brooke Ferris. Photo by Ruby Goldner. One might not think of excessive weeping as a divinely bestowed gift, but medieval English mystic Margery Kempe claimed her copious crying as a sign of her special relationship to Jesus Christ, arguably repositioning a "feminine" weakness as a strength. Kempe is one of a trio of the saintly who assemble in How to Become a Saint (while wearing pants) for a celebration of one of their own that ends up throwing their perceptions of history and self into question. Written by the cast, the freewheelingly funny How to Become a Saint is part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival , an open lottery-based theater festival in which one hundred percent of box office proceeds...

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...

Azhar-Bande Ali, a New York–based comedian whose work has been compared to Hasan Minhaj and Mike Birbiglia by critics, will present Desi SNL , written, directed, and produced by Azhar Bande-Ali in partnership with Shreya Thakur and media host and storyteller Sandalina Sattar as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival with FRIGID New York at wild project (195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009) with performances on Fri April 3 at 6pm, Mon April 6 at 7:40pm, Mon April 13 at 6pm & Sat April 18 at 8:40pm.  Desi SNL  is an ensemble cast-driven sketch comedy show reimagining the SNL format with monologues, the Weekend Update segment, and original skits rooted in South Asian culture— delivering sharp satire, bold performances, and unapologetically relatable takes on identity and diaspora life with an ensemble cast of TBA South Asian talent. Lead writer, director, and co-producer Bande-Ali has won multiple Moth StorySLAMs and earned Best Comedy awards for his specials Curr...

Infinite Monkey Theater Company will present did you charge your phone for the end of the world? written and directed by Fletcher Michael.  The year is 2034. A city-demolishing asteroid is heading for Brooklyn. The government refuses to alert the public of the impending catastrophe until a boutique advertising agency can come up with a positive rebrand for the calamitous asteroid. The production will be presented as part of the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival with FRIGID New York at wild project (195 E. 3rd Street, New York, NY 10009) with performances on Sat April 4 at 8:40pm, Mon April 6 at 6pm, Sat April 18 at 3:40pm & Sun April 19 at 5:20pm. The performance will run approximately 60 minutes, and the cast will feature Fletcher Michael, Lucy Boisvert, and Collin Dennis. Tickets ($15) are available for advance purchase at  www.frigid.nyc .  Fletcher Michael (Playwright/Director) is the founder of Infinite Monkey Theater Co., through which they write, direct, prod...

A Venomous Color, Part Three: The Animals Speak By Cameron Darwin Bossert Presented by Thirdwing at the wild project 195 E 3rd St., Manhattan, NYC August 5-17, 2025 Ginger Kearns, Adam Griffith, Cameron Darwin Bossert, & Cian Genaro. Photo by Hunter Canning The Animals Speak , the final installment in Cameron Darwin Bossert's outstanding Disney-centered trilogy A Venomous Color , which began with The Fairest in 2021, followed by Burbank the next year, is the first play of the trilogy to be set outside the workplace. The Animals Speak , making its world premiere at the wild project, takes place on a 1941 trip to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile sponsored by the U.S. government, which sent Walt Disney, his wife, Lillian, and a group of Disney artists on a goodwill tour intended to counter fascist and Nazi influence. It quickly emerges in Bossert's play, though, that leaving the workplace several thousand miles behind does not mean that Walt (Cameron Darwin Bossert) can leave w...

Three Can Keep a Secret Written by Gregory Crafts Directed by Richard Piatt Presented by Theatre Unleashed and FRIGID New York at the wild project 195 E 3rd St., Manhattan, NYC April 15-19, 2025 Sonny (Ryan Dylan Wargnier) and Moose (Gregory Crafts). From 2024 Hollywood Fringe production. Photo by Matt Kamimura, Choice looms large in crime comedy Three Can Keep a Secret , from Los Angeles-based theater artist Gregory Crafts and 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. With some "bad decisions" by one of the characters having set the plot in motion, not only must the rest of the characters reckon with a consequent series of choices and repercussions, but the audience too must decide at several points which path the show takes. For the characters, much of this decision-making reveals that they may not know those close to them as well as they thought, while for the audience, i...

The End of All Flesh Written by Greg Kotis Directed by Avery Rose Pedell Presented by Theater of the Apes and FRIGID New York at the wild project 195 E 3rd St., Manhattan, NYC April 2-20, 2025 [UPDATES, 1 and 28 May 2025:  The production has been extended and will be presented as part of the “Monday Night Musicals” double-feature at The Magnet (254 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001) with performances on May 5 at 6:30 p.m., May 19 at 6:30 p.m., June 2nd at 6:30 p.m., June 9th at 6:30 p.m., June 16th at 6:30 p.m., and June 23rd at 8 p.m. Tickets $25 are available for advance purchase at www.magnettheater.com . ] Greg Kotis, Maithili Ginde, Sammy Pignalosa, and Ayun Halliday. Photo by Pam Rice.  As you may have noticed lately, the United States government seems set on accelerating, via a number of avenues, the climate apocalypse towards which humanity is already proceeding at quite a clip. Set in the postapocalyptic future that we seem so determined to bring about, The End of All F...

Love in the Time of Piñatas Written and performed by Baruch Porras Hernandez Directed by Richard A. Mosqueda Presented by FRIGID New York at the wild project 195 E 3rd St., Manhattan, NYC April 8-13, 2025 Baruch Porras Hernandez. Photo by Robbie Sweeny. When Baruch Porras Hernandez first takes the stage in his sparkling solo show Love in the Time of Piñatas –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–it is as one of the titular candy-filled papier-mâché containers (in a costume by Kipper Yanaga). As a piñata–something beautiful, Hernandez notes, in a world made to destroy pretty things–he leads the audience through a story of being being wrenched away from the life he'd known to be used at a little boy's birthday party, from which he escapes only to encounter abuse and finally achieve transcendence. The piñata's journey acts like a brief, fanciful version of the show as a wh...

The 16th Annual The Fire This Time Festival Ten-Minute Play Program Out , written by FELISPEAKS Pound Cake , written by Brittany Fisher Security Watch , written by TyLie Shider Immanentize the Eschaton , written by Garrett Turner Just One Good Day , written by Jeanette W. Hill …But Not Forgotten , written by D.L. Patrick Directed by Kimille Howard Presented in collaboration with  FRIGID New York at wild project 195 E. 3rd St., Manhattan, NYC January 23-February 2, 2025 Anita Welch-Smith and LaDonna Burns in Out . Photo by Dante Crichlow The time has arrived once again for one of our most anticipated annual theatrical events, The Fire This Time Festival Ten-Minute Play Program. In its 16th season, the Obie Award-winning Fire This Time Festival, which provides a platform for playwrights of African and African-American descent, has adopted the theme of "Taking Space" and has put the Ten-Minute part of things into quotation marks, loosening the time restriction to allow each ...