Thinking Theater NYC

  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...

Creative Stage Collective, a Harlem-based organization that brings together kids and professional adult artists to create and perform original works based on the imaginative ideas of children, presents CSC Open Day on August 24, 2024, from 2-4pm at El Barrio Community Garden, 415 E. 117th St, NYC.  Join the Creative Stage Collective Youth Troupe and the fabulous CSC Adult Professional Artists for two hours of theater, movement, and music games and activities for kids ages 8-16. Lead artists will include Rob Manning Jr., a tremendously gifted actor, producer, writer, activist, and dad; and veteran film, TV, and stage actress Marisa Ryan, known for her acting roles in Sex and the City , Major Dad , and Wet Hot American Summer . There is no cost to join and no limit to how many workshops participants can attend. This program is designed to serve as a fun and enriching educational opportunity for kids in the neighborhood. CSC looks forward to getting to know the local commun...

Walter Schlinger's Romeo and Juliet Written and performed by Sean Gordon Directed by Dixie O'Connell Presented by Glow-Worm Theatre Company at UNDER St.Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC August 4-16, 2024 Sean Gordon. Photo by Ezekiel Clare Contemporary American society often questions the value of studying the humanities. One way to view Walter Schlinger's Romeo and Juliet , a new solo show from actor, writer, and co-founder of Glow-Worm Theatre Company Sean Gordon, is as an argument for precisely such study, a display of the kinds of conversations that the humanities can prompt us to have with ourselves (and one another) and of how literary texts such as the works of Shakespeare can function not merely objects of admiration but as tools with which to think. Walter Schlinger's Romeo and Juliet is currently part of FRIGID New York's 2024 Little Shakespeare Festival, the theme of which is "Camaraderie and Community," and the play's compassionate ...

Fools in the Forest Created and directed by Natalie Kane, from text by William Shakespeare Presented by Ladies & Fools at UNDER St.Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC August 3-16, 2024 Amy Pan, Christine Vapsva, Rebecca-Anne Whittaker, Maya Barbon. Photo by Natalie Kane The character of Touchstone is the official fool, so to speak, in William Shakespeare's As You Like It , an instance of the courtly wise fool whose license allows him to satirize and question the society around him. In adapting As You Like It , creator and director Natalie Kane's Fools in the Forest adds to the number of (figurative) fools while subtracting much else, imagining a version of the play in which Celia and Rosalind never rejoin Duke Senior and his fellow exiles in the forest of Arden and which does not center heterosexual romance. Aside from Touchstone (Abby Kastenberg), Fools in the Forest retains from its Shakespearean source text only melancholy courtier Jaques (Maya Barbon), who is im...

Mei Melenovsky as Hamlet and Michael Katz. Photo courtesy of FFP Frank Farrell Productions (FFP) will present a one-hour version of William Shakespeare’s tragic play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark , re-titled Hamlet on the Run , adapted by Frank Farrell, Mitch Webb, and Thomas J. Donohoe II for four performances at 7pm, Thursday through Sunday, August 22 – 25, 2024 at The Tank, 312 W 36th St, New York, NY 10018 .“It’s the play we all know but shorter,” said someone after seeing it back in 1982 in Chicago. “I am enjoying it,” shared the play’s director Thomas J. Donohoe II. “People see Shakespeare as very distant without having done a lot of research. I hope this version shows it can be fun and accessible for the audience. The acting and editing of the script bring clarity to the story. We are also doing it in the round and with very little rehearsal, which is hard on the one hand, but also exciting because that is what it must have been like when these plays were performed originally. This...

Open Written by Jaixa Irizarry Directed by Zoe Mintz Presented by Laurizarry at The Tank 312 W 36th St, Manhattan, NYC August 5, 2024 Open begins with one kind of opening of the body, a type that scholar Julia Kristeva would class as abject and that involves a short, sharp dash across the stage for protagonist Ivy, played by the show's playwright, Jaixa Irizarry. Soon, though, Ivy recrosses the stage and returns to the business at hand, the nature of which is suggested by the subreddit which she has been frequenting: r/Random-Acts-Of-Blowjob (yes, it is an actual subreddit, which currently claims 619,000 members and lists r/RandomActsOfMuffDive as the sole entry under "Friends and supporters" on its menu). Throughout the play, Ivy's Reddit-facilitated encounters provide windows–sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes infused with pathos, frequently hilarious–onto human wants and needs, including but far from limited to sexuality and the dynamics of (gendered) power, contr...

Bring Them Back Written and directed by David Willinger  Presented by Crystal Field, Executive Director, Theater for the New City, at Theater for the New City May 9-19th, 2024 Paul Korzinski and Carole Forman. Photo by Steven Pisano Bring Them Back is a great new work by David Willinger featuring Carole Forman as Trudy and Paul Korzinski as Paul in a 90-minute play at Theater for the New City. Son of a psychoanalyst, Paul is a playwright who is experiencing writer's block in the worst way. He can't sleep, he's lost interest in eating, he's constipated on every front, and with good reason: death surrounds him. Every other phone call delivers a message that yet another family member or friend has checked out, and he's left reeling. On the day after Yom Kippur, Paul is desperately experimenting with Kabbalistic ritual to bring back the deceased. This, he hopes, will help him move past his remorse and guilt in not giving due attention to the living when they were al...