Thinking Theater NYC

Playwright Francesca Becchetti In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater happening in all five boroughs, and Hystrio-Scritture di Scena, one of the most prestigious theater awards in Italy, will present their 6th Annual Translation and Adaption Mentorship, a program which mentors an Italian playwright on the English translation and adaptation of their play. The Hystrio Scritture di Scena Award is a prestigious Italian dramaturgy competition for playwrights under 35, organized by the Milano-based Hystrio – Associazione per la diffusione della cultura teatrale. It promotes original Italian theater pieces, offering winning scripts, mentorship, staging at Hystrio Festival, and publication.   Playwright Francesca Becchetti, whose play Tekken Dram a was selected by In Scena! from the finalists of the 2025 Hystrio Scritture di Scena, will be mentored by Dave Johnson, an American playwright and poet, who was one of the authors selected fo...

Azadeh Kangarani in Echoes of My Silence . Photo by Nathan Zhe. Iranian playwright and performer Azadeh Kangarani brings her autobiographical solo show Echoes of My Silence to New York for its premiere at the 2026 New York City Fringe Festival this April. Following a critically acclaimed run at the 2025 Toronto Fringe Festival, the production will play five performances at Chain Theatre Mainstage. Echoes of My Silence confronts sexual assault, trauma, and the patriarchal beliefs instilled at a young age, tracing one woman’s journey toward reclaiming her voice and power. Kangarani performs the solo show, which runs April 5–14. In Echoes of My Silence , on a flight from Germany to the U.S., a female pilot triggers Azadeh’s reckoning with a life shaped by patriarchal norms. Through her memories, she confronts the silence that has defined her beliefs about gender, power, and herself. The play was praised by critics at the 2025 Toronto Fringe Festival. Born in Tehran, Iran, playwright/per...

The Meeting Written by Brian James Polak Directed by Richard Piatt Presented by Theatre Unleashed at Chain Theatre 312 West 36 Street, Floor 4, Manhattan, NYC April 1-6, 2026 Mitch Lerner as Joe. Photo by Matt Kamimura, courtesy of Theatre Unleashed. Since last January, the United States has seen certain words, particularly related to climate science or diversity, effectively banned by the federal government in, for instance, higher education programs, museum displays, and grant applications, including in the arts; the ego-driven renaming and planned shuttering of one of the nation's premiere arts centers; and, this week, governmental threats to jail journalists for doing journalism. So the fascist dystopia in which Brian James Polak's The Meeting immerses audiences, where all forms of art are prohibited and saying a banned word can trigger omnipresent sensors, feels entirely too recognizable. As discomfiting as it is reaffirming, The Meeting is part of the 2026 New York Cit...

Chip on Her Shoulder Written and directed by Jen McAuliffe Presented by Off with their Heads Productions at Chain Theatre 312 West 36 Street, Floor 4, Manhattan, NYC April 5-17, 2026 Victoria Nieves. Courtesy of Off with their Heads Productions  Food, as most of us have experienced, can be a source of comfort and even of control. For Angela (Victoria Nieves) of the one-woman show Chip on Her Shoulder , the go-to catalyst for such feelings is chips, specifically salt and vinegar. When Angela calls salt and vinegar chips "the perfect balance of pain and pleasure," her description also echoes the unerring blend of comedy and trauma that characterizes the play, in which the constant stresses from career, dating, and lingering familial hurts sometimes seem like they can only be countered, always temporarily, by a good, crisp snack. Chip on Her Shoulder , the debut play from Australian screenwriter and playwright Jen McAuliffe, was first seen at the Melbourne Fringe in 2025 and now...

Lipstick Co-written by Edu Díaz and Linda Morales Caballero based on a story by Linda Morales Caballero Directed by Lil Malinich Presented by Edu Díaz at Chain Theatre 312 West 36 Street, Floor 4, Manhattan, NYC April 5-19, 2026 Edu Díaz in Lipstick . Photo by Krystal Pagán. For centuries in Western culture, cosmetics have been discussed as having a transformative power, which has been invoked in ways ranging from a condemnation of their facilitation of falsehood and pride to a selling point for potential consumers. In Lipstick , a solo show based on acclaimed Peruvian author Linda Morales Caballero's short story "Labial," from her book El libro de los enigmas , the titular cosmetic wields just such a power across two generations of one family. Lipstick 's unnamed narrator-protagonist, expressively and affectingly inhabited by Canary Islands-born actor and the show's co-writer Edu Díaz, shuffles through his past experiences and present anxieties in a contemp...

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...