Thinking Theater NYC

Like an Octopus in a Guitar The New York City-based Kairos Italy Theater along with the Italy-based KIT Italia and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU will present the 12th season of the In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater taking place in all five boroughs of NYC, May 5-19. Venues for the 2025 festival include Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011), The Rat NYC (68-117 Jay St, Brooklyn, NY 11201), BAAD (2474 Westchester Ave, Bronx, NY 10461), Culture Lab LIC (5-25 46th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101), Calandra Institute (25 W 43rd St Suite 1700, New York, NY 10036), NOoSPHERE Arts (520 Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222), WOW Cafe Theater (59-61 E 4th St #4, New York, NY 10003), Casa Belvedere (79 Howard Ave, Staten Island, NY 10301), The Atelier at Theaterlab (357 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018), The Tank (312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018) and the Italian Cultural Institute NY (686 Par...

Bread of Life Written by Frank Pagliaro Directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby Presented by UP Theater Company at Fort Washington Collegiate Church 729 W 181st St., Manhattan, NYC March 26-April 12, 2025 Nikaury Rodriguez (Herut) and Miguel Reis (Simon). Photo by Edward Lopez. Loaves and fishes, those comestible stars of one of the stories of the Biblical New Testament, also function in Frank Pagliaro's new play, Bread of Life , as apt shorthand for the gendered situations of husband and wife. Herut (Nikaury Rodriguez) spends a lot of time making bread, that domestic staple, her hand-grinding of the flour becoming almost an aural motif on its own while the stone grinder's circular movement suggests the same sort of repetitiveness that marks her days as a wife and mother. Her husband, Simon's (Miguel K. Reis), trade as a fisherman takes him daily beyond the confines of the home and into the company of others (and, often, on his way home, into the company of alcohol). It is theref...

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...

Lilith in Pisces Written by Kayla Eisenberg Directed by Stephanie Cox-Connolly Presented by  Drops in the Vase at The Siggy at The Flea 20 Thomas St, Manhattan, NYC March 5-22, 2025 Morgan Zipf-Meister and Nicki Kissil. Photo by Kent Meister. It is most assuredly the season of the witch in the world premiere of Lilith in Pisces , a new, outstanding play written by Kayla Eisenberg and directed by Stephanie Cox-Connolly, making its debut at The Flea. Eisenberg’s play is a deeply moving meditation on the weight of the past, the appeals of escapism, and what it means to need connection—all under the auspices of something as innocuous as an extended interaction with a babysitter in a pleasant suburban townhouse in New Jersey. Albeit under a full moon. On the surface, Diane (Morgan Zipf-Meister, understudy for Evelyn Peralta) and Erin (Nicki Kissil) have little in common beyond this would-be brief exchange at a babysitting gig in the suburbs. But as Erin settles into Diane’s warmly lit...

It CAN Happen Here!: Hallie Flanagan & the Federal Theatre Project Written by Melody Brooks, Katrin Hilbe, Tess Howsam, Daniel Jacobs, and Susan Quinn Directed by Katrin Hilbe Presented by New Perspectives Theatre Company and Culture Lab LIC at Culture Lab LIC 5-25 46th Ave, Queens, NYC March 6-30, 2025 It CAN Happen Here!: Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theatre Project. Photo by Al Foote III. Faced with the current, billionaire-led dismantling of the federal government in the United States, it's hard–well, harder–to imagine the level of robust financial support for the theater arts at the national level that is detailed in It CAN Happen Here!: Hallie Flanagan & the Federal Theatre Project . It's much less difficult to imagine the acts of censorship and accusations of subversion, communism, and race-baiting leveled at theater artists by grandstanding politicians out to destroy that very support. At least in the political landscape of the 1930s, as we learn at one po...

The Funny Thing About a Panic Attack Written and performed by Ben Kassoy Directed by Joanna Simmons Presented at UNDER St Marks 94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC March 6-7, 2025 Ben Kassoy. Photo credit: Richard Dean. Ben Kassoy is mesmerizing in the award-winning The Funny Thing About a Panic Attack , a genre-defying hybrid of poetry, dance, and physical performance that explores the complexities of living with panic attacks. Based on Kassoy’s 2023 poetry collection of the same name, the show breathes new life into his evocative poems. These verses, composed during the early COVID lockdown period, capture the chaos and complexity of experiencing a panic attack. On stage, the poems are brought powerfully to life by Kassoy’s magnetic presence and emotional depth, inviting the audience to connect not only with his words but also with the experience of panic itself. Kassoy’s varied verse, breaking, and flawless execution of a “Dougie” make it clear that there is something here...

Photo by Mikiodo. Northern Manhattan’s UP Theater Company, which has developed new plays and produced professional theater to its community since 2010, fully producing 16 world premieres, and gaining attention with its diverse theatrical endeavors, celebrates its 15th Season with the world premiere of Bread of Life , by Frank Pagliaro, directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby.  We may know the story of St. Peter, but what about the family he left behind? Bread of Life tells the original story of a family in Bethsaida, fractured by the Messianic message of a mysterious carpenter from Nazareth, and the fallout of fanaticism. 30 AD. The midst of Roman occupation. A mysterious messiah roams ancient Galilee. His startling message leads a father away from home, leaving his wife and son to deal with a tragic upheaval.  Bread of Life  examines the costs of religious radicalism in the context of political oppression and domestic discipline. The show runs from March 26-April 12 at Fort Wa...