Thinking Theater NYC

After a critically acclaimed Off-West run, Ivories , written by Riley Elton McCarthy, will make its New York premiere November 6 - 22 at East Village Basement (321 East 9th St.), with the official opening on Monday, November 9. Starring John Yi, the darkly comic horror play follows a young couple who suddenly inherit a dying relative’s home and discover what may be lurking below. Evan Michael Woods directs the production, which follows a successful Texas regional premiere. www.ivoriesplay.com In Ivories , prodigal playwright Sloane is summoned back to her childhood home to care for her grandmother, whose severe dementia has left the family estate in their hands. Accompanied by her botanist husband Gwyn, Sloane attempts to settle into a new routine and begin the painful work of sorting through her grandmother’s belongings. When Gwyn’s childhood best friend Beckham arrives to help settle the estate, the reunion initially offers Sloane a welcome connection to the life they left behind. ...

Image courtesy of Untitled Theater Company No. 61 I n honor of what would have been the 90th birthday of legendary playwright and former Czech President Václav Havel, a new production of his sharp, political satire Unveiling ( Vernisáž ) will open in New York City this October following an opening preview performance in Chicago. Tickets are available at untitledtheater.com ,  Václav Havel (1936–2011) was one of the premier absurdist dramatists of the 20th century, winning multiple OBIE Awards in New York for his theatrical masterworks. A prominent political dissident and leader of the 1989 Velvet Revolution that peacefully overthrew Soviet rule, Havel went on to serve as the last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic. Written in 1975 while Havel’s work was banned by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Unveiling is a darkly comic critique of individuals who compromise their ethics in exchange for government favors and material privileges. Th...

Happy Days Written by Samuel Beckett Directed by Jade King Carroll Assistant director: Anabel Gioacobbi Presented by Brave New World Repertory Theatre at The Loading Dock Theatre 170 Tillary Street, Brooklyn, NYC September 17-October 3, 2026 Claire Beckman. Photo by Mikiodo. When the character Winnie in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days , first performed in 1961, observes that "something has seemed to occur, and nothing has occurred, nothing at all," she could as easily be describing the play itself (as well as other of Beckett's works) as reflecting on her and her husband Willie's existence (and, by extension, all of ours). Brooklyn-based Brave New World Repertory Theatre's current revival, starring company co-founders Claire Beckman and John Edmond Morgan as Winnie and Willie, respectively, brings Beckett's study in stasis to the borough's very intimate Loading Dock Theatre, giving audiences an entrancingly up close and personal experience of what Winnie ...

Les Enfants Terribles Adapted from the novella by Jean Cocteau Written and directed by Michael Gardner Presented by Crawl Space Plays LLC at East Village Basement 321 E 9th St., Manhattan, NYC September 10-October 4, 2026 (L to R) Rutger Scott, Caroline DeFazio, Victor Gao, Maysie Jane Kilgore. Photo by Kent Meister. Much like Georges Bataille's novella Story of the Eye (1928), fellow French artist Jean Cocteau's near-contemporaneous novella Les Enfants Terribles (1929)–which similarly features protagonists dedicated to gameplaying and taboo-breaking in equal measure–retains its transgressive force nearly a century after its first publication. Play- and filmmaker Michael Gardner's theatrical adaptation of Les Enfants Terribles , making its world premiere in the intimate East Village Basement, with Gardner directing, drops audiences into the midst of their adolescent characters' "Game," their term for "that state of semi-consciousness in which children ...

Very Blue Light Written by Daphne Silbiger Directed by Emily Moler Presented by The Tank and Isabelle Chirls at The Tank 312 W 36th St., Manhattan, NYC September 10-October 4, 2026 Dom Martello, Sam Im, Anita Parrott, and Ellenor Riley-Condit. Photo by Travis Emery Hackett. It seems fitting that, on the Thursday we saw Very Blue Light , we each separately spent the day at our respective workplaces listening to talks about AI. While Very Blue Light is not about any single tentacle of Big Tech, this new play by Daphne Silbiger is very much concerned with our inescapably algorithmic zeitgeist, with living in a moment when it feels like, as one character puts it, "Shit's so weird." Very Blue Light brings one character, currently a Tesla employee, from Austin, Texas, to Marfa, a small, artsy desert city also known for its mysterious airborne lights, to visit a pair of old friends. As this visit unfolds, the production perfectly captures the pervasive anxiety that most of ...

  A Midsummer Night's Dream Written by William Shakespeare Directed by John Gordon and Ruby Rich Presented by  Smoking Mirror Theatre Company at  A.R.T./New York Theatres 502 West 53rd Street, Manhattan, NYC August 27-September 13, 2026 Above (L-R): Catherine Desciak (Mustardseed), Roslind Joyce (Peaseblossom), Caroline Feduccia (Cobweb), Samuel Andrews (Mote). Below: Ruby Rich (Titania). Photo by Jonathan Slaff. At the beginning of act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Duke Theseus asks his master of the revels, “Say what abridgment have you for this evening, / What masque, what music? How shall we beguile / The lazy time if not with some delight?” While Theseus’s consideration of the various forms of entertainment for the evening’s recreation leads to the Athenian tradesmen’s comically terrible production of Pyramus and Thisbe , it also encompasses Smoking Mirror’s production of Midsummer itself, with its talented, versatile cast not only able to seamlessly move a...

The Pigs Next Door Written and performed by Rebecca Wolf Presented as part of the first annual NYC Clown Fest at Brooklyn Art Haus 24 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn, NY September 3, 2026 Rebecca Wolf. Photo by Sean Barry A packed house and a buzzy bar at Brooklyn Art Haus boded well, making an encouraging argument for the inaugural NYC Clown Fest before Rebecca Wolf’s The Pigs Next Door had even begun. Then Peg the Pig (Rebecca Wolf) entered, perfect in pink, pig nose and tail in place, returning home to her husband, Joel. Joel, it should be said, is a stuffed animal. Wolf’s Peg walks the line between Fran Drescher’s Nanny and Miss Piggy: all domestic grievance, sexual confidence, wounded pride, and terrific comic timing. She arrives home flustered from brunch with neighborhood gossip: her friend Denise has been arrested for murder by police chief Old McDonald, who hog-ties her, all while huffing and puffing. The animal puns do not grow more sophisticated from there, nor do they need to. Wol...