Upcoming Indie Theater – April 16
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.
The preview image is from FRIGID NY, which is available for rentals.
A Baby For Me? No Thank You, Please!
Venue: The Rat
Date: April 16
When everyone in her life pressured Bailey to have a baby, she spent a lot of time questioning, researching and agonizing over what was wrong with her—until she found the answer, literally inside of her—at the gyno's office. Storytelling comedy meets body horror. Ooh! Directed by Desmond Thorne
Notes on Collagen
Venue: Under St. Marks Theater (NYC Fringe Festival)
Date: April 16
Notes on Collagen is a sharp, comic solo show that unpacks aging, beauty standards, and the immigrant experience through the lens of a woman negotiating her face, her visa status, and her value in America. With wit, vulnerability, and biting satire, Fabiana Mattedi explores the quiet panic of collagen loss alongside the bureaucratic absurdities of legal permanence—asking what it costs, financially and spiritually, to remain “desirable” and “valid.” At once hilarious and unsettling, Notes on Collagen Blends storytelling, physical comedy, and cultural critique, the piece exposes the beauty industry’s unspoken commandments while revealing the intimate fears beneath them.
LIPSTICK
Venue: Chain Theatre (NYC Fringe)
Dates: April 16 and 19
Haunted by his mother’s reflection, a man fights to be seen while questioning his own existence. Blending live music, magical realism, and immersive theatre, LIPSTICK is a cathartic ritual that transforms vulnerability into spectacle.
Based on a story by acclaimed Peruvian writer Linda Morales Caballero and performed by award-winning actor Edu Díaz (A Drag Is Born).
ÉTUDE
Venue: The Tank
Dates: Now through April 18
"If Thornton Wilder wrote Gruesome Playground Injuries..." When two soulmates, happily existing in the eternal realm, learn that they will be separated on earth, not even born in the same time or place, they become terrified that they will lose their connection forever. As both are reincarnated in various guises and in varied relationships to each other over the next three hundred years they are forced to test if true (not necessarily romantic) love and eternal connection can survive the trials of the human experience.
Last Request
Venue: LATEA Theater, at The Clemente
Dates: April 9 - 26
Set in a pre-war apartment building in the 1950s the Bronx, LAST REQUEST by Pedro Petri, is a dark comedy that tests morality, dignity, fidelity and the scourge of greed. A young, an old and blind couple are the characters of this play in which building residents discover a lifeless gentleman in the middle of the lobby as a series of tragic-comic situations develop, testing their humanity.
Miracle on South Division Street
Venue: The Sheen Center, Penguin Rep Theatre
Date: Now through May 10
You're invited to meet the Nowaks of Buffalo, NY. They're special -- celebrities in their run-down neighborhood for the miracle that occurred in Grandpa's barbershop in 1942. But their faith — and whole identity — is shaken to the very core when a deathbed confession causes the family legend to unravel. Full of twists, heart and humor, this comedy is as warming as a bowl of Matzoh Ball soup and reminds us that no matter our backgrounds, we're all part of the same story.
The Love Show at The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Date: April 18
Join us for a heartfelt and intimate night of dance, song, and theater. Laugh, cry, and experience an unforgettable evening of whimsy. The Love Show NYC, a globe trotting theater dance company of 20+ years, invites you to experience an evening of emotion in their whimsical home, The Hidden Jewel Box Theater, a secret speakeasy nestled in the world’s busiest bus terminal.
Mother.
Venue: The Rat
Date: April 19
Mother. is a treatise on the nouns we associate with the word, in the many forms they take. Five artists explore themes of adoption, birth, admiration, nurture, and abandonment through both light humor and painful truth, as told by five queer artists.
I Am Nobody
Venue: The Magnet Theater
Dates: April 20, 27 and May 4, 11
From Tony Award-winner Greg Kotis (Urinetown, The End of All Flesh) comes a tuneful 21st century parable about humankind’s subordination to myriad technological devices that somehow feels even timelier now than it did when the Covid-19 pandemic forced its extremely premature closure in March of 2020. "This modern world is tearing us apart, still we could not survive in any other place or time."
Buildings
Venue: Brooklyn Art Haus
Date: April 21
This work reflects the internal conflict of pushing towards a better, more peaceful existence while being confronted by the harsh realities of hate and terror. It's about the dissonance between being raised with values of kindness and openness and the pervasive chaos that leads to a feeling of continuous upward reach followed by inevitable falls. The narrative is also reminiscent of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, where humanity's collective ambition to build a towering structure led to divine intervention, resulting in division, confusion, and isolation.
Back Float: A Very Hard of Hearing, Deaf-ish, Bluegrass-Forward Solo Show
Venue: Emerging Artists Theatre - Spark Theatre Festival / TADA
Date: April 22
Back Float is a daring, deeply human solo show about an actor and musician navigating hearing loss. Blending folk music, auditory soundscape, spoken English and ASL, the piece lives in the charged in-between: between sound and silence, labels and lived experience, isolation and belonging. Intimate, inventive, and witty, Back Float charts one woman’s unapologetic reclamation of sound, memory, and identity.
Richard lll: A Twisted Fairytale
Venue: American Theater of Actors- John Cullum Theater
Dates: April 22-26
Once upon a time…when the Villains ruled the kingdom…and tried to destroy each other… Enter the kingdom of Disneare…where King William Disneare has been violently overthrown by a collection of infamous fairytale villains, meanwhile the malevolent hunchback Richard III plots the downfall of his wicked family in a relentless quest to capture the throne. Epiphany Shakespeare invites you to witness a spellbinding tale where Shakespeare’s greatest villain plots, betrays and battles against your favorite characters from Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Peter Pan, Beauty & the Beast, and many more!
I'M FINE!
Venue: Thistle Dance
Date: April 23
I’M FINE! is a high-energy dance musical by Thistle Dance, set to the music of Panic! at the Disco and unfolding inside the glossy, pill-happy fantasy of 1950s America. The social norm demands you stay pleasant and smile, even when every smile comes with a side effect. Candy-colored, cheerfully sinister, and physically electric, I’M FINE! skewers the performance of happiness and the chaos that erupts when bodies stop behaving.
The Farm
Venue: Paradise Factory
Dates: April 23-26
Tyler returns home after two years in a cult; his sister Sasha must face how his arrival alters her reality. After appearing in the Lighthouse Series at SoHo Playhouse, followed by a sold out run at the Providence Fringe Festival (WINNER: Best Comedy and Best Playwriting), The Farm comes to the Paradise Factory from April 23-26. The Farm is a play about language and belief, and an investigation of how we love those we don't understand. Sasha and Tyler are played by real life siblings Davis and Beth Alianiello.
Twelfth Night
Venue: El Barrio's ArtSpace PS109
Dates: April 23 - May 3
Completing Tier5’s ShakesQueer Comedy trilogy (after A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2024, Much Ado About Nothing in 2025), we’re taking Shakespeare's romantic comedy about gender bending mistaken identities and turning it up to 11. Come fall in love at El Barrio: join us for a night of laughter, romance, and rock ‘n’ roll.
This is Our Youth
Venue: HB Playwrights Theatre
Dates: April 24-26
In 1982 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the wealthy, articulate, pot-smoking teenagers who were small children in the ’60s have emerged as young adults in a country that has just resoundingly rejected everything they were brought up to believe in. The very last wave of New York City’s ’60s-style liberalism has come of age—and there’s nowhere left to go.
Overeager
Venue: Brooklyn Art Haus
Date: April 29
Enchanted by promises of success and sisterhood, a lonely college dropout joins a pyramid scheme, only to realize that the desperate longing for her deceased mother has shaped every relationship in her life.
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Venue: Studio 17
Dates: April 30 - May 17
A transformative reimagining of Dale Wasserman’s classic play. By stripping away traditional 1960s gender dynamics—including a female Randle P. McMurphy—this production exposes the universal struggle: the crushing weight of institutional authority against the fluidity of the human spirit. In this ward, the "Combine" seeks to mechanize identity itself, and the patients find power through diverse perspectives and a shared fight for freedom.
The Vengeance Room
Venue: El Barrio's ArtSpace PS109
Dates: April 23 - May 3
5 strangers stricken with amnesia find themselves trapped in a claustrophobic room with 4 weapons sitting on a table: a baseball bat, a sword, a knife and a pistol. Each person discovers this horrific sight, and now must interact with each other and their own fears, as the realization of the Vengeance Room comes into sight: 5 people, 4 weapons…only one way out.
HEART/LUNG
Venue: The Vino Theater
Dates: May 7-9
When a closeted pulmonologist sacrifices her greatest love for career survival in a homophobic medical establishment, the weight of that decision haunts her across decades. But when a dying poet, a resilient ex, and a defiant student all cross her path, Patricia D. Smith must finally decide: will she let her truth die with her or leave behind something worth breathing for?
BRICKGIRL
Venue: Brooklyn Art Haus
Dates: May 7-17
There's a rumor going around that if you hate someone enough, BRICKGIRL will kill them. She's skinless, soaked in blood, and howling in pain. She shows up, beats someone to death with a brick, then disappears. No one knows the rules. We all want her to kill the right people. Everyone wants her to kill someone. When there's nowhere else to turn, when no one can help you and nothing gets better, there's BRICKGIRL.
The Life and Times of Daisy Forbes
Venue: La Mama
Dates: May 21-24
The Life and Times of Daisy Forbes is a long-form lip-sync illustrating a show girl, our last show girl who is at a distinct crossroads in her life. A crossroads where she is forced to make the decision of whether or not to continue pushing the rock up the hill as a performer and human being in this world. Via TV interviews, trashy pop, obscure musical theater scores and film scenes, Daisy channels these voices as a means of excavating the choices she has made, the feeling of abandonment and the uncertain future ahead.
WAKE UP
Venue: Gibney: Anges Varis Performing Arts Center
Date: May 31
WAKE UP is an evening length contemporary/experimental dance work. Transcending you to an alternate world of revolt, the piece is a rebellion against the mundane through giving in to human desire. Movement allows the body to access its memory of everyday gestures with a heightened sensibility, inviting primal physical instincts to resurface. Inspired by combining every-day activities such as playing basketball, watching TV, and walking on high heels with raw human emotions such as hunger, release, and collapse, WAKE UP is a spiritual journey where everyday memories and the awakening human cravings intersect.