LAST UPDATED: 10/31/2024
Friends always ask me how I see so manyy plays that they’ve never even heard of. The long answer is, “I get recommendations, pay attention to playwrights whose work I’ve liked in the past and most crucially, I also subscribe to (and skim) many, many individual theater’s newsletters.” The short answer is, “It’s weirdly hard and annoying!” And EXPENSIVE. (But good news if you’re under 30, 35 or even 40: Quite a few theaters have great ticket discount programs.)1
This is a free newsletter, but it’s also an ever-updating landing page and a list of what I’m seeing, as well as what I’d like to see in-theater. I’ll annotate when it feels right: a star* means I have a ticket, two stars** means I liked it (or, honestly, a trusted friend-of-the-newsletter did) This letter will appear in your inbox when there’s enough worthy of an update. Otherwise, please check back regularly!
SEEN ANYTHING GOOD LATELY? REPLY TO THIS EMAIL & TELL ME! PLEASE!
currently running (and about to run)
Reconstructing (Still Working but the Devil Might Be Inside) by The TEAM (Oct 24 — 27, BAM)* …AS A PART OF BAM’S NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL 2024!
On the stage is a two-story house. From one angle, it’s mucked out after a flood. From another, it’s a new development wrapped in Tyvek. And from another, it’s “Tara” from Gone with the Wind being transformed into an Airbnb. Sometimes it looks like it’s on fire. Someone is quilting in the corner. Come in.
The Wind and the Rain: A story about Sunny's Bar by Sarah Gancher (Sept 28 — Oct 27, Vineyard Theater/En Garde Arts)*
At the end of Conover Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, on the waterfront, there is a bar called Sunny’s. For over one hundred years, it’s been run by one family, through booms and busts, prohibition and pandemics, blight and gentrification.
Franklinland by Lloyd Suh (Oct 10 — Nov 3, Ensemble Studio Theater)
The story of growing up as the only son of Benjamin Franklin: the greatest scientific mind in the world, inventor of the lightning rod and the urinary catheter and the glass harmonica and bifocal glasses and, oh yeah, in his spare time the United States of America.
Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek (adapted by Norman Allen) (Sept 12 — Nov 3, CSC)
Ten Polish classmates — five Jewish and five Catholic — grow up as friends and neighbors, then turn on one another with life and death consequences.
The Beacon by Nancy Harris (Sept 22 — Nov 3, Irish Rep)
Beiv, a renowned artist, has left her suburban Dublin home for a secluded cottage on a rugged island off the coast of West Cork, Ireland. Here, there is no escaping the rumors of her shadowy past, and Beiv lets everyone see right in. Her relative peace is disrupted when her estranged son, Colm, returns home with his new wife, searching for answers about his father’s mysterious death.
HOTHOUSE by Carys Coburn (Oct 23 — Nov 7, Irish Rep)
Sail through an intergenerational tale complete with horny songbirds, a mad captain, Rachel Carson, and wanting to change, but not knowing how.
The Beastiary by Christopher Ford & Dakota Rose (Oct 7 — Nov 9, Ars Nova)**
Medieval meets modern in The Beastiary, a twisted comedic puppet pageant of consumption, corruption and the end of humankind.
A Woman Among Women by Julia May Jonas (Oct 15 — Nov 17, Bushwick Starr)** [EXTENDED, again]
It’s Cleo’s backyard, Roy’s back in town, and Christine’s brought information. I mean, basil. A riff off Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, A Woman Among Women challenges the audience to participate in the making of a tragic hero, experience her Aristotelian fall from grace, and interrogate the meaning of collective catharsis.
Sex Variants of 1941: A Study of Homosexual Patterns by The Civilians (Nov 14 — 24, Skirball)
The Civilians examine the intimate lives of Depression-era queers in this kaleidoscopic, musical fantasia adapted from the 1941 text Sex Variants, a “medical study” of LGBT+ sexuality.
Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! by Alina Troyano and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Oct 23 — Dec 1, Soho Rep)**
Part love letter to an iconic performance artist, part intergenerational debate about the legacy of “downtown” New York, part theatrical interrogation of the uses/abuses of nostalgia, real estate, representation, and the avant-garde, 100% fantastical journey in which Branden Jacobs-Jenkins attempts to buy Carmelita Tropicana from her creator…but at what cost?
Cellino v. Barnes by Mike B. Breen & David Rafailedes (Aug 9 — Dec 1, AsylumNYC) [EXTENDED]
Through the '90s, 2000s, and 2010s, we witness our pals navigate the ethical ambiguities of the law, grapple with personal demons (and fax machines), and aspire to world domination.
BURNOUT PARADISE by Pony Cam (Nov 12 — Dec 1, St Ann’s Warehouse)*
What begins as a simple wager between performer and audience becomes a desperate attempt to complete a series of escalating tasks that confront the limitations of the performers’ bodies, spirits, and minds. This is not an endurance feat. Nor is it performance art. It is an unraveling realization that the system we participate in is not designed for us.
Bad Kreyòl by Dominique Morisseau (Oct 8 — Dec 1, MTC)
Simone, first-generation Haitian American, and her cousin Gigi, Haitian-born and raised, reunite to honor their grandmother's dying wish for them to reconnect. Simone's pilgrimage back to her ancestral homeland forces both cousins to confront their differing world views.
300 Paintings by Sam Kissajukian (Nov 12 — Dec 15, Vineyard Theater)*
Is art a joke? In 2021, over the course of five intense and unpredictable months, Sydney comedian Sam Kissajukian created 300 large-scale paintings, unknowingly documenting his mental states through an extended manic bipolar episode.
RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR by Kallan Dana (Dec 6 — 22, The Heart @ A.R.T./New York Theatres)
A daughter and father embark on a shapeshifting road trip across the country, into the past, through the gelatinous terrain of their shared nightmares. So exciting, it’s not safe, such a fun trip!
Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey by Object Collection (Dec 13 — Dec 22, La MaMa)
Beautiful Madeline Harvey has a problem: she is not certain whether she does or does not, in fact, exist. Handsome Roger Vincent waits for her at a boulevard café, where their eyes meet like an electric shock. A paper-thin love story within a paper-thin world, speeding towards inevitable catastrophe…or perhaps, a very serious twist.
readings
Various @ First Light Festival (Oct 24 — Dec 12, Ensemble Studio Theatre)
festivals & series
2024 La MaMa Puppet Festival: Oct 23 — Nov 17, La MaMa
Dedicated to creative new puppet theatre works, an array of puppet artists from diverse backgrounds have consistently pushed boundaries and engaged our community through thoughtfully crafted shows with innovative design.
Under the Radar Festival: January 4 — 19, 2025, Various*
New York City’s premier annual festival of experimental theater, featuring cutting-edge performances from around the world and across the U.S.
Shows of interest: Cuckoo by Jaha Koo (Jan 16 — 18, 2025), Runway by Christiana Kosiari (Jan 10 — 14, 2025), Rich With History and other stuff you say at a haunted house by Mabou Mines (Jan 8 —16).
BAM Next Wave Festival: Sep 17 —Jan 19, 2025, Various*
Next Wave is where well-known visionaries and trailblazing rebels unleash their groundbreaking creativity onto the world.
Shows of interest: Reconstructing (Still Working but the Devil Might Be Inside) by The TEAM (Oct 24 — 27), Gaviota by Guillermo Cacace (Nov 13 — 23).
PROTOTYPE FESTIVAL: January 9 — 19, Various
The visionary festival is the only one of its kind in New York City and is a model now emulated around the country – producing and presenting a wide spectrum of works, from intimate black-box experiences to larger chamber opera productions, valuing artistic, curatorial, and producorial risk-taking.
Shows of interest: EAT THE DOCUMENT by Dana Spiotta (Jan 9 — 12, 2025), BLACK LODGE by David Little & Anne Waldman (Jan 11 — 12, 2025).
The Exponential Festival: January 2025, Various
The participants in this multi-artist, multi-venue festival are committed to ecstatic creativity in the face of commercialism. Exponential is driven by inclusiveness and a diversity of artists, forms, and ideas coupled with utopian resource-sharing, mentoring and the championing of risky, rigorous work in eclectic fields.
theater over $50 & probably worth it
The Counter by Meghan Kennedy (Sept 19 — Nov 17, Roundabout)
Every morning at the local diner in a small town, a waitress refills a regular’s coffee. An unlikely friendship develops and keeps him coming back for more. But when he asks for a shocking favor, it brings to light both of their deepest secrets.
Gaviota by Guillermo Cacace (Nov 13 — 23, BAM)2 …AS A PART OF BAM’S NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL 2024!
In an emotionally charged, stripped down interpretation, five actresses sit around an oversized table and offer an extremely intimate presentation of the Russian playwright’s “spectacle of waste”, The Seagull.
Strategic Love Play by Miriam Battye (Nov 1 — Dec 7, Audible Theater)*
After matching online, two strangers—Heléne Yorke and Michael Zegen — meet in real life. What begins as a typical date off the apps spirals into something unexpected in a bold new production of Strategic Love Play, the show that sold out in London and took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm.
King Lear by William Shakespeare (Oct 26 — Dec 15, The Shed)
Kenneth Branagh plays the title role in a new production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear, set in the barbarous landscape of Ancient Britain.
WALDEN by Amy Berryman (Oct 16 — Nov 24, 2nd Stage)3
In the near future, Stella and her fiancé, Bryan are waiting at their remote cabin for Stella’s estranged twin sister, Cassie. Raised by their astronaut father to be NASA scientists, the twins have taken different paths: Cassie has just returned from a successful moon mission, while Stella has left NASA behind.
GATZ by Elevator Repair Service (November 1 - December 1, The Public Theater)*
One morning in the office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter of his desk. He starts to read it out loud and doesn’t stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it’s no longer clear whether he’s reading the book, or the book is transforming him. Told over a single 6 1/2-hour production created by Elevator Repair Service.
Shit. Meet. Fan. by Robert O’Hara (Oct 28 — Dec 15, MCC Theater)*
Here’s the game… Phones Out. Face Up. Volume High. Every text, every email, and every call must be shared aloud. That’s what a group of long-time friends gather to play on the night of the eclipse. With the cocktails flowing among grownups who refuse to grow up, outrageous secrets and skeletons begin to emerge…
Hold On To Me Darling by Kenneth Lonergan (Sept 24 — Dec 22, Louise Lortell)
On learning of his mother’s death, country music icon Strings McCrane finds himself in an existential tailspin. The only way out, he decides, is to abandon superstardom in favor of the simple life, so he moves back to his hometown in Tennessee.
The Blood Quilt by Katori Hall (Oct 30 — Dec 29, Lincoln Center Theater)
Four sisters gather at their childhood island home off the coast of Georgia for their annual reunion. They are creating a family quilt to honor their recently deceased mother. But when their reunion turns into a reading of their mother’s will, everyone must grapple with a troubling inheritance.
Quite a few theaters have “Under 30”, “Under 35” or “Under 40”! programs OR student discounts. Check for them when you’re buying tickets — for example, Manhattan Theatre Club’s 30 Under 35, HIPTIX at Roundabout (if you’re under 40!), Lincoln Center Theater’s LincTix for Under 35s, Second Stage Theatre’s $30 Under 30, Irish Rep’s GreenSeats for Under 35s, Playwrights Horizons’ 30 & Under Membership, Vineyard Theater’s 40 Under 40 (where for $40 (once) you can get any ticket to any show for $20), and New York City Center’s “Access Club” just extended their age limit from 35 to 40(!) — according to this TikToker. Other ways to get cheaper tickets: sign up for the theater’s newsletter (they’ll often send out codes for discounts) or check TodayTix.
Please note that Gaviota is presented in Spanish without English supertitles.
Pay just $49 for ANY SEAT IN THE HOUSE. Use code HALLOWALDEN. Available for any performance between Oct 31 and Nov 3.