Different stages. Different voices. An ongoing conversation.
58 reviews
Falls for Jodie is an intense, intimate play set entirely in a hotel room, featuring strong performances by Boone Sommers and Harry Thornton. The evolving relationship between the characters explores themes of love, obsession, and loneliness with a simple but effective stage design. This immersive experience offers a powerful look at the emotional depths driving the characters, making it a compelling watch at The Tank.
Arias with a Twist at HERE Arts Center is a dazzling mix of puppetry, drag, comedy, and music that fully immerses the audience in its eccentric world. Joey Arias commands the intimate space with energetic performances and clever staging, bringing dynamic scale shifts and bold humor. This extravagant, lovingly crafted show celebrates the art of performance with both wild joy and touching moments.
Very Blue Light explores acceptance and trans rights with strong performances from Dom Martello and the cast. A standout alien-search sequence and clever lighting added memorable moments. But the static staging and long speeches sometimes kept us more like listeners than viewers, leaving us wanting more connection and everyday life.
Safe House presents an intimate family drama set in a basement before an election, exploring political divides and personal dynamics. Marc Kudisch shines as Rock, evolving from a forceful conservative to a vulnerable father, supported by a strong cast including Julianna Layne and Tony winner Karen Ziemba. The clever staging with memories and overlapping conversations adds depth, making the close, realistic portrayal resonate beyond politics.
Melissa Maney's Hungry Women starts strong with four women around a tea table as men are dying and women survive. The first part features controlled, powerful performances and clever monologues revealing private thoughts. However, later sections become increasingly noisy and chaotic, making it harder for us to stay connected.
Lunaticus introduces a compelling story about epilepsy and missing time through Danielle Allen's one-woman monologue, blending humor with unsettling experiences. The opening's inventive use of sound and light creates a strong atmospheric start, though much of the performance settles into straightforward storytelling. It's a promising work in progress with a script and story that invite curiosity about its future stage potential.
Benevolent immerses audiences in a 1917 laundry room at the Inwood Benevolent Home, vividly conveying the harsh realities and judgment faced by four girls. The authentic setting, strong performances, and nuanced portrayal of growing friendship balance the play’s tough themes with humor and hope. It's a powerful, well-crafted production that deeply engaged us and promises a compelling future.
ISLA brings one Cuban family’s history to life through brilliant shadow puppetry, live music, singing, humor, and recorded memories. Following three sisters from Cuba to their new lives in New York, it finds warmth and playfulness even within stories of war and migration. Inventive, personal, and full of theatrical magic, it’s a beautiful celebration of family, memory, and home.
Les Misérables: The Arena Concert Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall transforms the beloved musical into a grand arena experience with impressive lighting, massive screens, and a visible orchestra. Alfie Boe’s final performance as Jean Valjean was a highlight, supported by a strong cast including Jeremy Secomb and Samantha Barks. Though less traditional in staging, its powerful vocals and scale offer a memorable celebration of this timeless story.
¡Violencia! turns heartbreak and mental health into a wonderfully chaotic tragicomedy packed with big personalities, physical comedy, and theatrical surprises. Six versions of Violencia battle for control inside one woman’s head, while an energetic cast brings her brilliantly dysfunctional world to life. Funny, fresh, and full of personality, it’s an exciting production we would love to see return.
Perimenoparty tackles a topic we rarely see on stage with warmth, wit, and plenty of clowning. Irene Serrano blends comedy, music, multimedia, and audience interaction into a playful and heartfelt celebration of navigating perimenopause. Full of personality and big ideas that need to be refined but also the kind of potential that makes you excited to see what comes next.
Honor Shmonor starts as a brilliantly silly medieval comedy before revealing something much sharper underneath. Packed with sword fights, physical comedy, and wonderfully over-the-top performances, it delivers plenty of laughs while taking aim at prejudice, power, and blind obedience. Smart, funny, and thought-provoking, it's the kind of show that keeps you smiling and leaves you thinking.
What a World! What a World! throws classic Hollywood, movement, drag, and meta-theatre into one inventive mix, creating a show that's always full of surprises. Queen-Tiye Akamefula and Annie Hoeg lead with great chemistry and commitment, while the creative staging keeps everything fresh. It doesn't all come together perfectly, but its imagination and willingness to take risks make it a fun and memorable watch.
My Orgasm and Me is a one-night comedy premiere by Brooke Ferris blending clowning, storytelling, and audience participation to explore consent, communication, and self-discovery. Ferris's engaging presence and careful, warm approach to interaction create a relaxed atmosphere that invites laughter and thoughtful conversation. The show balances humor with meaningful messages about self-love and healthy relationships in a fresh, fearless way.
Vida is a vibrant, fast-paced celebration of ambition, resilience, and the joy of storytelling. Carolina Gaitán delivers a magnetic performance, effortlessly blending comedy, drama, music, and multiple characters as she charts one woman’s extraordinary journey from rural Colombia to international stardom. Energetic, heartfelt, and packed with theatrical flair, it’s an evening that leaves audiences cheering from start to finish.
Closed for the Holiday throws audiences into a whirlwind of unfinished thoughts, absurd encounters, and emotional detours as Matteo Porru explores the chaos of creativity through a fast-moving solo performance. Packed with sharp comedy, especially the brilliantly ridiculous “Office for the Complication of Simple Affairs,” the show balances manic energy with quieter reflection.
The Life and Times of Daisy Forbes is an ambitious collage of lip sync, movement, music, and memory that transforms personal grief into something intimate and theatrical. Scout Davis delivers a magnetic and emotionally honest performance, supported by striking design and inventive staging. While the concept occasionally becomes repetitive and overstretched, the show remains a bold, vulnerable experiment filled with originality and compelling visual ideas. DDd
Traviata: A Free Prose Opera transforms Verdi’s classic into a playful theatrical experiment full of opera, comedy, and backstage chaos. Blending physical theatre with self-aware humor, the production follows three performers questioning whether they can even stage the opera at all. Inventive, energetic, and delightfully theatrical, it works best when it fully embraces the joyful messiness of performance-making itself.
Panthe-ON! 2.0 transforms Egyptian mythology into a playful musical theatre cabaret packed with powerhouse vocals and ensemble energy. Featuring songs from across the Broadway world, the production celebrates ambitious independent theatre and the passion of emerging performers. While still finding its full theatrical identity, it offers an evening full of talent, heart, and larger-than-life gods.
White Noise is a furious, emotionally raw solo performance that confronts homophobia, repression, and religious control with unflinching intensity. Through a physically demanding and deeply committed performance by Danilo Napoli, the production explores the devastating cost of forcing someone to deny who they are. Provocative, unsettling, and driven by genuine emotional urgency, it refuses to look away.
One actor. Multiple characters. A full hour at breakneck speed. Patria turns family conflict into a theatrical high-wire act, with Fabio Banfo leaping between voices, bodies, and generations with astonishing precision. Set against decades of Italian history, the show mixes political memory, sibling rivalry, and sharp humor into something restless, alive, and completely commanding.
Canciones transforms a Brooklyn home into a living, breathing family memory filled with music, food, laughter, and heartbreak. Blending immersive storytelling with stunning live mariachi performances, the production invites audiences to wander through generations of love, tension, and tradition. Warm, intimate, and beautifully crafted, it feels less like watching theatre and more like being welcomed into someone’s life.
Tale of a Potato transforms a table full of vegetables into a wildly inventive world of identity, ambition, and self-worth. Using handcrafted lights, puppetry, and extraordinary vocal precision, Valentina Fadda turns potatoes, corn, and eggplants into unforgettable characters. Funny, charming, and surprisingly thoughtful, it’s a beautiful reminder that imagination will always outshine spectacle.
Lipstick is a bold, emotionally rich solo performance that blends clowning, music, and intimate storytelling into a powerful exploration of identity, repression, and self-acceptance. Edu Díaz commands the stage with extraordinary control, balancing vulnerability, humor, and improvisational brilliance. Smart, beautifully structured, and emotionally fearless, it pulls you in completely and rewards the audience with remarkable honesty and heart.
Mercury is a smart, intimate thriller that plays with perspective, identity, and memory. With a rotating cast reinterpreting the same characters, the story unfolds in layered fragments, building tension with each return. Stylishly directed and sharply performed, it blends dark comedy and modern romance into a dynamic piece that keeps you guessing until the end.
The Menopause Monologues is a vibrant, fearless celebration of voices long left unheard. Blending comedy, music, dance, and deeply personal storytelling, it transforms a historically silenced topic into something urgent, human, and powerfully entertaining. Bold, compassionate, and joyfully theatrical, it invites conversation while building a shared, unforgettable experience.
Love Story is a tender, actor-led piece that blends humor and grief with quiet precision. Framed as a rehearsal that becomes something more, it explores memory, loss, and connection with honesty and warmth. Simple in staging but rich in emotion, it builds into a shared experience that feels intimate, human, and deeply affecting.
Cumulo is a dreamlike, wordless journey where puppetry, light, and sound create a world that is both beautiful and unsettling. Moving through shifting images rather than story, it explores inner struggle with striking visual invention. Playful yet eerie, it captivates through pure movement and imagination, leaving you suspended somewhere between wonder and unease.
White As Snow is a deeply personal solo piece blending music, storytelling, and spoken word to explore identity, faith, and self-acceptance. Through a powerful vocal performance and emotional honesty, it traces the tension between belonging and individuality. Thought-provoking and intimate, it shines brightest in its musical moments and raw, human truth.
Watch Me Sleep is an intense, close-up portrait of a relationship that is as gripping as it is unsettling. In a raw, intimate space, two powerful performances drive a story that shifts between tenderness and volatility. Blending realism with subtle theatrical touches, it’s a compelling exploration of love, control, and emotional complexity that stays with you long after.
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea strips theatre to its raw essentials, where two standout performances drive an intimate, volatile emotional journey. What begins in tension unfolds into vulnerability, connection, and the fragile possibility of change. With precise direction and gripping pacing, this is powerful, actor-led storytelling that lingers long after the final moment.
How To Become A Saint While Wearing Pants is a bold, queer reimagining of sainthood that blends clowning, storytelling, music, and movement into a lively Fringe experience. With a fearless ensemble and unapologetic energy, the show reframes historical narratives through a modern lens, celebrating identity, transformation, and the power of voices long left unheard.
Dear John is an intimate, one-woman journey that begins with a Facebook message and unfolds into a moving exploration of identity, family, and second chances. Blending humor, technology, and heartfelt storytelling, Rachel Lin delivers a captivating performance that bridges cultures and generations, reminding us how powerful it can be to reach out and reconnect.
Dust of Egypt confronts the lingering reality of slavery through the powerful story of Sojourner Truth’s fight to reclaim her son. With restrained staging and grounded performances, the production invites reflection over spectacle. Direct, human, and unsettling, it reminds us that this history is not distant, and its impact still echoes today.
Entangled turns a roadside gas station into a playground of quantum mystery, where time bends, people vanish, and the ordinary becomes strange. Blending comedy, movement, and sci-fi curiosity, the ensemble dives into questions of free will and coincidence. Playful, clever, and unpredictably fun, it’s downtown theatre that embraces chaos with charm.
ExtraO1dinary Aliens blends humor, heart, and cosmic curiosity to explore what it truly means to be “extraordinary.” Through playful storytelling and sharp observations about immigration, ambition, and identity, the show follows artists navigating the maze of the American visa system. Thoughtful, funny, and quietly hopeful, it reminds us that chasing a dream may be extraordinary enough.
The Magnificent Ms. Pham brings Vietnam’s ancient water puppetry tradition to life in a lyrical journey through family, migration, and the pull between tradition and change. Guided by music and striking visual storytelling, the piece traces one woman’s life across generations. A culturally rich finale to Puppetopia that celebrates heritage, history, and the quiet seeds of rebellion.
The Mall The Mall The Mall turns early-2000s mall culture into a gleefully absurd adventure. Packed with Buffy references, Pokémon dance breaks, and video-game style battles, this energetic comedy follows a group of teens on a quest through their local mall. Nostalgic, playful, and full of pop-culture chaos, it’s a fun tribute to the social universe of teenage malls.
Ruby & Charlie is a wordless, soul-infused love story told through exquisite tabletop puppetry and live music. In just 45 minutes, two wooden figures make us laugh, ache, forgive, and dance through the rhythms of partnership. Tender, universal, and deeply human, it reminds us that love remains our greatest transformative force.
Parched turns a water-scarce future into a visually stunning, wordless puppet epic. With recycled creatures, cinematic lighting, and live music driving the action, Official Puppet Business craft a dystopian Wild West that feels thrilling and unsettling. Beneath the spectacle lies a timely warning about scarcity, survival, and the fragile future we are hurtling toward.
Before Dorothy, there was truth. Wicked explodes with spectacle, soaring vocals, and Broadway magic that fills the Gershwin from wall to wall. Lencia Kebede’s fierce Elphaba and Allie Trimm’s sparkling Glinda redefine good and evil. A bold, defiant celebration of difference, power, and owning exactly who you are.
Cirque Le Swing transforms a hidden Chelsea speakeasy into a sultry world of jazz, circus artistry, and immersive mischief. With live music, dazzling acrobatics, playful audience interaction, and a charismatic maître d’, the evening unfolds within touching distance. A stylish supper club escape that captures the mystery and magic of old New York.
Edgar A. Poe’s Smashed Valentine is a dark, intimate, and immersive monologue where technique meets obsession. Through Poe’s poetry and prose, Scott Robinson channels the master of the macabre with passion and precision. Supported by a strong creative team, the experience blurs performer and legend, drawing audiences deep into Poe’s tormented, haunting world.
A shadowy, sharply comic, and untamed journey into the woods, The First Line of Dante’s Inferno blends humor with quiet unease. Kirk Lynn’s play, brought to life by three excellent performances, explores loneliness, memory, and human connection through an inventive and modern theatrical lens.
Layer the Walls: Part II transforms a puppet-led tale into a profound meditation on memory, migration, and belonging. Through exquisitely crafted puppetry, masks, music and storytelling, generations of life in New York City unfold with warmth and intelligence. It is theatre that educates, enchants, and gently challenges audiences of all ages to see humanity in shared stories.
Staged in the shadow of the Apollo’s legacy, the Fire This Time Festival delivers six sharp, fearless short plays that confront identity, love, aging, gentrification, and resistance with humor and urgency. Performed with range and precision, the evening feels like living history. Intimate, electric, and unapologetically honest theatre that continues the Apollo’s tradition of truth-telling.
Aladdin on Broadway is a triumph of spectacle and heart, celebrating authenticity over illusion. With breathtaking sets, couture-level costumes, a magnificent live orchestra, and jaw-dropping stage magic (that carpet!), the production dazzles throughout. Anchored by standout performances, especially a scene-stealing Genie, it is pure Disney wonder that leaves audiences singing and smiling like kids.
Bold, quirky, and unapologetically theatrical, Your Queen Presents: Petrus delivers a delightfully surreal performance that blends camp, comedy, and clever commentary. Overflowing with charisma and edgy creativity, the show plays with identity, power, and spectacle in ways that are as surprising as they are memorable. A uniquely vibrant work-in-progress for adventurous theatre lovers!
A gritty, basement-theatre blast of Off-Off-Broadway energy, DetoNation Rat Cabaret pulls you into a rough-around-the-edges space where the performers’ passion is totally contagious. Beneath the humor and musical chaos, it lands a forceful message about revolution, resistance, and repression, ending a little abruptly, but leaving you hungry for more.
Set in the round and unfolding almost like an album played straight through, Dream Feed is an immersive, dreamlike concert-theatre experience powered by exquisite three-part harmonies. With stunning lighting, inventive instruments and themes spanning awakening, family, love, and death, it’s spine-tinglingly intimate, so affecting you’ll leave speechless and wanting to see it again.
MJ the Musical delivers electrifying choreography, pitch-perfect vocals, and a deep dive into the creative genius of Michael Jackson. More than a jukebox musical, it captures the drive, discipline, and complexity behind the icon. A thrilling celebration of talent that leaves you buzzing long after the curtain falls.
Bill Bowers crafts a quietly extraordinary piece that blends mime, storytelling, and personal reflection into something deeply human. It Goes Without Saying is intimate, funny, and unexpectedly emotional, revealing how much can be communicated without words. A masterclass in subtlety and connection that lingers in the heart.
Tense, intimate, and emotionally charged, The Disappear is a gripping psychological drama powered by outstanding performances. Hamish Linklater, Miriam Silverman, Dylan Baker, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Madeline Brewer and Anna Mirodin bring depth and nuance to Erica Schmidt’s story. Smart, unsettling, and compelling theatre that demands your attention.
This powerful triple-bill weaves together three stories that confront mental health with honesty, vulnerability, and imagination. Set beneath a striking almond tree, the piece balances raw emotion with theatrical creativity. Under the Almond Tree is thoughtful, challenging, and deeply affecting - theatre that sparks reflection long after you leave.
The Adventures of Beastie invites us into a playful cycle of waking dreams, where imagination runs free until judgment interrupts the fun. Through games, journeys, and childlike wonder, Beastie turns a room of adults into fearless participants. It’s a joyful, empathetic celebration of creativity, vulnerability, and the radical act of playing without shame.
Blending live performance, visual art, and immersive VR, Maria de los Guardias brought a striking exploration of the human body and self-expression. The experience is sensual, artistic, and visually arresting, inviting audiences to see performance through a new lens. A bold, innovative fusion of technology and theatre.
Joyful, hilarious, and deeply heartfelt, A Drag is Born charts one performer’s journey toward self-expression through drag. Combining mime, music, comedy, and transformation, the show celebrates identity with warmth and wit. It’s bright, loving, and unapologetically fabulous, a feel-good celebration of becoming who you are.
At The Barricades plunges audiences into the intensity of the Spanish Civil War through immersive staging and powerful ensemble work. Physical, urgent, and emotionally charged, the production captures the chaos and humanity of conflict. A bold piece of historical theatre that feels immediate, visceral, and uncomfortably relevant.