Indie Theater Thursday – August 28
It’s Indie Theater Thursday!
We share upcoming indie theater shows/productions happening in New York City. These are submitted by members of the IndieSpace community.
Do you have an upcoming show to share? Use the Show/Production Sharing Form to share the details of your show/production with IndieSpace so that we can share with the community.
From Here (or, The Last New York Living Room Play) by Anastasia West
Location: New venue in Historic FiDi Loft, Address disclosed only to ticket holders
Dates: August 22-24 and 29-31
Use code "ihatebushwick42069" for 25% off tickets
Judd and Ada are old friends and native New Yorkers refuting change in their 20s in their unhealthy personal echo chamber. When Bex, a transplant, permeates their bubble, Ada begins to feel the weight of her popped codependency with Judd finally come crashing down on her. Things have changed, they can't go back, but seemingly, they can't move forward either.
WRITE CLUB Summer Playfest
Location: The Vino Theater
Dates: August 28, 29 and 31
WRITE CLUB presents its first Summer Playfest, a three-day festival showcasing original short plays by emerging playwrights and directors. Each night features a dynamic mix of stories brought to life by a talented group of NYC-based artists. Produced by WRITE CLUB and Isabelle Chirls.
This is not a workshop series. These are fully staged productions presented for a live audience. The Summer Playfest is a celebration of new voices and bold ideas in contemporary theater. Expect thoughtful, funny, and moving performances that reflect the diverse perspectives of a new generation of theater-makers.
Please note that each performance contains all six short plays, with an intermission.
Hamlet: Prince of Denmark
Location: 14Y Blackbox
Dates: August 29 and 30
Note: Tickets are pay as you can!
Hamlet: Prince of Denmark is an original adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet co-created by Cary Sasso and Ryan Dukes which reimagines the titular prince as a ftm transgender teenager.
Picking up on strong affinity queer teens have for Hamlet - he's something of an icon for trans youth - this adaptation asks the question: what if Hamlet was not a prince at all, but a transgender teenager using Shakespeare's text to cope with his grief and isolation, framing the people in his life as queens, kings, and lords and himself as the heroic Prince of Denmark as part of a desperate quest for meaning and dignity? As the story progresses and Hamlet begins to lose his grip on reality, the line between Hamlet's imposed Shakespearean narrative and the underlying reality begins to blur, leaving Hamlet alone with his hoodie, his taped-together paper crown which the other characters constantly try to destroy, and his faltering princely persona to navigate a hostile world of genuine royalty hell-bent on ripping away his sense of identity.
Reflection: Short Play Festival
Location: The Tank
Dates: August 29, 30, and 31
Welcome to Reflection, Epheverie Theatre Co.’s Inaugural 2025 Short Play Festival! This festival invites audiences to turn inward—challenge perspectives, confront biases, and re-examine self-concepts. Featuring six bold new works from a range of emerging voices, Reflection spans absurdist comedy to searing tales of loss—all grounded in a heightened reality. Each piece explores the transformative power of art to help us see what we’ve long avoided and encourages us to renew.
The Infinite Wrench
Location: The Second City
Dates: August 29 and 30; All Fridays & Saturdays in September
Use code HOT20 for $5 off General Admission
The Infinite Wrench is the NY Neo-Futurists' ever-changing attempt to perform 30 original plays in about an hour. Over 1,000 weeks and 7,500 plays and counting!
The NY Neo-Futurists continue to craft new & vibrant work in The Infinite Wrench at The Second City. Dive into a bold and unpredictable fusion of theater, storytelling, and sport with the New York Neo-Futurists every Friday and Saturday. For each show, the Neos take on the challenge of performing 30 original plays in roughly an hour. Through their unconventional storytelling, they deliver quick, powerful slices of life—crafted from the ensemble's own experiences—at times funny, profound, elegant, gross, topical, irrelevant, or even downright absurd. Every show is different, and with new plays every week, they have created over 7,500 new plays!
One in Twenty-Five
Location: Theater for the New City
Dates: August 30, September 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10
One in Twenty-Five,” written, produced, and performed Thomas M. Copeland, dramatizes with intellectual flair the 1986 testimony of an in-over-their-head NASA Acting Administrator navigating a political inquiry curated to protect the government’s interests in the weeks following the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
ASCO (disgust) by Yunior Garcia
Location: ATELIER at TheatreLab
Dates: September 1-4
Set in contemporary Cuba, “ASCO (Disgust)” is a powerful memory play that explores the emotional and psychological aftermath of personal and collective trauma. At its heart is Nara, a woman grappling with grief, guilt, and societal expectations after the tragic loss of her children.
To Feed the Roses
Location: Dream Up Festival, Theater for the New City
Dates: September 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 13
A romantic comedy about an older couple whose past secrets get in the way of their falling in love again.
This is an Equity Showcase -- Free for Equity members.
(No) Refunds
Location: Theaterlab
Dates: September 5, 11, 19, and 26
Use ticketcode IndieSpace25
Originally developed as a First Look Series production at Theaterlab (May ’25) – before winning over hearts across the pond at Edinburgh Fringe (@ Just the Tonic | Aug ’25) – this fall she’s baaaaaaack baby and more delightful than ever. Catch Tiffany Gold’s charm this September as THEATERLAB PRESENTS the best interactive game show in Manhattan.
(No) Refunds is an interactive gameshow-play hosted by the dazzling, delightful, and only occasionally maniacal Tiffany Gold, an old-school American gameshow host and model presenter all-in-one – who quite literally depends on your entertainment.
One premium ticket holder, dubbed the “Star Player” for the evening, will compete in three games designed to amuse the audience and showcase their talents. Although at least a partial refund is guaranteed for our Star Player, will they accept it when they understand the implications of their choice?
(No) Refunds is a play about the real-world costs of being a working artist in our contemporary world, disguised as the most fun you’ve ever had at the theatre.
Performed by: Katy Murphy and Grant Kennedy Lewis
Produced by: Olivia Winn | For The Fun LLC
Stage Managed by: Francesca Pecchi
The Matriarchs
Location: Theaterlab
Dates: September 10-28
It’s Shabbas. And six squabbling teenage girls at a weekly Talmud lesson negotiate snacks, sex, their souls and everything in between.
Loosely based on the underwritten women of the Torah, THE MATRIARCHS by Liba Vaynberg charts the journey of six friends as they grow up and out of the orthodoxy, grappling with fertility and faith. Developed with the Civilians and winner of the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, this is a play about girls, gods, mothers, and other creators: for anyone and everyone who doesn’t know what to believe in.
This Theaterlab Presents production is produced by Anna & Kitty, Inc., with generous support from the Bronx Cultural Visions Fund, ART/NY Creative Opportunity Fund, and the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation.
(un)conditional
Location: Soho Playhouse
Dates: September 18 - October 26
Fantasies are harmless, right? But what happens when your spouse wants to take a dark fantasy from the realm of imagination firmly into your bedroom? For two couples, the boundaries of compromise, communication, and unconditional love are tested to their breaking point, and seven-year-old Mia is getting caught in the crossfire.
Dinner Party
Location: 3AM Theatre
Dates: September 18-21
Dinner Party is a multidisciplinary cross between a dance and a play. Text and movement intertwine to convey intimate storylines that touch on everyday and challenging topics. Growing out of Michelle Thompson’s interest in the choreographic structure of the duet, the work builds as a series of conversations between couples, highlighting the ways in which the conflicts and closeness of these intimate relationships reveal themselves in more public settings.
Thompson, in collaboration with Scott Illingworth of Society Theatre Company, has partnered with playwrights, actors, and dancers to bring you multiple storylines that will collide at the same dinner party. Original music by Michael Wall intertwines through these storylines to guide and enhance the journey of the characters. The individual characters on stage are unaware of the struggles and baggage that each relationship holds but ultimately the storylines start to collide and cause the party to implode. Come see the stories unfold at 3AM Theatre in Queens September 18th-21st.
Iranian Girlfriend
Location: MITU580
Dates: September 18 - October 4 on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays
A darkly comic performance installation about displacement, divorce, and dark times, IRANIAN GIRLFRIEND combines solo performance, video installation, and runway fashion to unpack the untold history and precious objects of a woman on the run, challenging America’s narrow sense of self while offering fresh perspectives on womanhood and belonging.
It’s the middle of June and you’re at an airport bar. She’s perched in a corner drinking gin and reading about revolution in dark times. She’s got a line from a poem tattooed on her arm and you ask her who wrote it. She makes you strawberry jam and tells you about Sylvia Plath and other women who lived through wars, contemplated divorce, and bought a lot of fancy dresses. It’s almost winter now and you bring her home to meet your parents. They think her name is interesting.
Spirit of a Baton Twirler
Location: Emerging Artists Theater Company's SPARK FESTIVAL at the Chain Theater
Date: September 22
"Spirit of a Baton Twirler," a one-woman show born from the loss of my mother to stage 4 lung cancer in 2014. Her final words have echoed in my mind ever since, prompting deep reflection on our life together, my childhood, and the complexities of our relationship.
This project is deeply personal, but it’s also universal. It speaks to anyone who has navigated the challenges of growing up in the 1960s-70s, dealt with divorce, moved between schools, faced step-family dynamics, or experienced the pain of losing a loved one. The show explores the journey from the safety of childhood through the confusion of adolescence and into the uncertainty of adulthood, touching on joys, regrets, forgiveness, and the things left unsaid. My hope is to spark laughter, reflection, and meaningful conversations—encouraging people to reach out to their loved ones while they still can.
Gesture Theater + Krista Jansen
Location: Arts on Site
Date: October 5
Krista Jansen plays with a dance that floats and curls around a seesaw. As Nina Simone musically sets up a structure and then absolutely tears it down to play all over it, and buttoned shirts multiply, Annie Wang has described “Seeing a person wholly realized through movement, revealed in the whirlwind.” Gesture Theater presents a dance-theater-clown piece complete with masks, linguistics, and big suits. In a testament to queer futurity, we “admit that … ‘transsexual is not identity but desire is to admit just how much of transition takes place in the waiting room of wanting things.” (Andrea Long Chu).
Photos by Robin Michals and Eric Bandiero.
Tree Confessions
Location: Site-specific audio play for a tree on Governors Island
Dates: Anytime! It is self-scheduled audio play: scan the QR code, find a tree, and press play on the audio!
It is free for the entire summer on Governors Island.
See poster with QR code! Audiences can scan the QR code, which leads them to the play.
Trees talk! In a landmark study, a scientist learned everything about how trees communicate. — Or did she? One tree tells the story of what really happened, reminding us that human beings and plants live in one interconnected ecosystem.
Presenting the world’s first play told entirely from the point of view of a tree. To experience this site-specific audio play, find a tree near you, sit under it (or nearby), press play, and listen to the tree’s confessions.