Upcoming Indie Theater – August 21
Each week, we share upcoming indie theater shows and productions 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.
For more coverage of indie theater in New York, please visit New York Theatre Review.
The preview image is from FRIGID NYC, which is available for rentals.
Lupercalia, or the queer aftermath of Twelfth Night
Venue: Under St. Marks Theater
Dates: August 21
Learn more and get tickets: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1476/
Following the events of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Olivia and Viola find themselves unhappy in their marriage arrangements, despite what you have been made to think. In this queer and trans piece, follow Liv and Vi as they navigate what their relationship means now that they are both married to f*gs. Alliances will be broken, villains will be made, and everyone will be gay.
Lilith
Venue: The Tank
Date: Now through August 22
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2026/6/9/lilith
Before Eve, there was Lilith—the first woman, who would not bow to Adam or to God’s order. Yet love ties her to the garden as she and Eve forge a bond of desire and defiance. Lilith, a new play by Adina Aaron and directed by Samantha Ozeas, is a new interpretation of the myth that investigates the gender dynamics, narratives about desire, and embrace of duality which continues to define our culture.
MOONBODIES
Venue: The Tank AND The Makers Space (Williamsburg)
Dates: August 21 & 22
Learn more and get tickets: https://makersensemble.org/calendar
Space Cowgirl Productions is proud to announce the workshop premiere of MOONBODIES, an Oliver Kelly Award–winning new play written by Halley Platz and directed by Lauren Winnenberg. Following a staged reading at The Flea Theater as part of the Rogue Theatre Festival (July 12, 2026), MOONBODIES receives its fully staged world premiere at The Tank (August 13, 9:30 PM) and continues for a four-performance run at The Makers' Space in Brooklyn (August 20–23, 2026). MOONBODIES is an erotic horror love story set in a near-future New York City that feels uncomfortably close. When Shelley enrolls in an experimental drug trial that transforms her into a werewolf, the only catch is that she has to eat. A volatile, surreal, and deeply funny play about two people changing shape in a world obsessed with making everyone smaller — body horror, puppetry, and two people falling apart and back together in a city that is literally made of bodies. The show centers actors of size, foregrounds queer and neurodivergent voices, and lets the weird, the grotesque, and the tender all live in the same room.
Half World
Venue: The Chain
Dates: Now through August 23
Learn more and get tickets: www.ghostlighttheatrenyc.org
Through the twisty rhizomes of online chatter and Discord servers, internet friends Bianca and Izzy lament the loss of their pop-culture tether, before the internet pushes them in different and unexpected directions.
The Vessel
Venue: 59E59 Theaters
Dates: Now through August 23
The Vessel is inspired by the controversial honeycomb-like Hudson Yards attraction, which first opened to the public in 2019 and subsequently faced numerous closures due to fatal incidents at the site. The play follows three parks employees working together in that same timeline as the apathetic structure looms over their lives. It is written and directed, respectively, by Drama Desk nominated duo Brendan George and Peter Charney, and features Anastasia Locke, Will Ingram, and Sofonyas, each making their Off-Broadway debut.
ISLA
Venue: WP Theater
Dates: Now through August 29
ISLA, a new full-length work from the acclaimed theater company Hit The Lights!, is a Latin American coming-of-age story, featuring a full original songbook and a live Latin jazz-influenced score. Cinematic projections, recorded interviews and an extended cast of handmade shadow puppets illustrate the exquisite craft of HTL’s technical team. ISLA’s immersive set is a kinetic picture book in a state of continuous transformation that reveals the magic possibilities of one immigrant family's journey.
The Bathroom Attendant
Venue: 124 Bank Street Theater
Dates: Now through August 30
At a ramshackle apartment on the outskirts of Vegas, a pair of neighbors, a former fighter and an ex-porn star, are visited by a young man with a secret and an offer they can’t refuse. Booze, betrayal and blackmail ignite an explosive night that will change their lives forever, in this dark comic thriller.
The Infinite Wrench
Venue: Asylum NYC (123.E 24th St)
Dates: August 21, 22, 29, and 30
The Infinite Wrench is a barrage of 30 short plays the cast attempts to perform within a single hour in a race against the clock. Each play offers something different, be it funny, profound, elegant, disgusting, topical, irrelevant, terrifying, or even a dance or a song. All are truthful and tackle the here-and-now, inspired by the lived experiences of the performers. With new plays every week, The Infinite Wrench is the Neo-Futurists’ ongoing and ever-changing attempt to shift the conventions of live performance and speak to audiences, including those unreached or unmoved by traditional theater.
ACTION 开拍
Venue: The Tank
Date: August 22
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/action
When I was 18, I discovered that my great-grandfather directed 21 films in 1930s China. Why did nobody ever tell me? Where can I find his films? What did he believe in as an artist? Now, I step onstage, searching through fragments for answers—in a world still falling apart.
Party Girl
Venue: The Tank
Dates: August 22
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2026/6/23/partygirl
Party Girl is the one woman show of your dreams! This girl just wants to have fun and be sexy! And never think about the economy. Or death. After years of losing love, scraping by at minimum wage, and smoking weak-ass weed, she's determined to have the most fabulous night ever, at any cost. Even blood.
Patrynize Previews
Venue: RedEye NYC
Date: August 22
Learn more and get tickets: www.patrynize.com/productions/patrynize-previews
For one night only, Patrynize Productions & Rori Nogee bring together four brand-new musicals in development, each presenting a 20-minute showcase of songs and scenes for an audience of theatre lovers, industry professionals, and fellow artists. Whether you're discovering your next favorite musical or supporting new work before it reaches the stage, this is your chance to experience these exciting new shows at the very beginning of their journey.
Swinewomb
Venue: The West End Theater
Dates: August 22 & 23
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/motherof/2336870
In the small, God-fearing town of Caleb’s Rest, Shiloh and Ellis grieve their parents: Shiloh through a spiraling affair with her teenage sweetheart, and Ellis through violent outbursts and secret visits to a banished herbalist rumored to practice witchcraft. Meanwhile, something old and demonic begins to fester inside Shiloh… and it wants out.
“Still Here”
Venue: Arts On Site
Date: August 23
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.artsonsite.org/tickets
This evening brings together my dance, storytelling, Black history, faith, resilience, and my journey of surviving an HIV/AIDS diagnosis and returning to the stage stronger than ever. I’ll also be sharing more about my book, PAST SHAME: Still Here—Undetectable & Untransmittable, followed by a talkback. It feels especially meaningful to share this work in NYC with a community that has played such an important role in the history of HIV/AIDS, the arts, and my own journey.
The Last Leaf
Venue: The Tank
Date: August 23
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/thelastleaf
The Last Leaf is Sydney Yu's autobiographical journey reflected through her grandfather's illness and the family she left behind. It begins in a dreamlike world of childhood memories and fantastical love, but then reality breaks through, and what's left is the something she never quite said out loud. This story is for anyone who has loved someone implicitly, grieved someone quietly, or wondered what home and love actually mean.
the moon rituals
Venue: The Tank
Dates: August 24 – September 4
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2026/4/9/the-moon-rituals
THE MOON RITUALS is a cathartic comedy for anyone who's ever had pain in the "wrong" places. Sick of their pelvic pain, five friends form an amateur witches’ coven to cast a healing spell in their vacation rental... and accidentally summon a demon, setting off a cascade of rituals that can only end when they realize the demon isn't the only one who can make the rules.
another cold evening with ethan and lee
Venue: The Tank
Dates: August 25 & 26
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/anothercoldevenning
A role reversal, a return to form, a performer in the dark, two discoveries over two nights. Tiny Tim Machine returns to The Tank with two new iterations in their series of cold evenings with ethan and lee.
Close Distance Disappearing Acts
Venue: The Tank
Dates: August 27-30
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2026/4/24/closedistance
Close Distance Disappearing Acts is sexy, funny, and deliciously dangerous. ANDY is a quirky vigilante on a mission: clearing nerd conventions of "bad bad men." PETER is the kind of man who shouldn't exist — unapologetically Irish, built like a god, and offering his very specific services on the dark web. She hired him. Somewhere between the blood and the bodies, it became something else entirely.
it’s not about my mother
Venue: The Vino
Dates: August 28 & 29
Learn more and get tickets: https://sourgrapesproductions.com/tickets
After their mother’s funeral, two half-sisters reunite in their family basement to begin clearing out her house. For Midge and Nancy, it’s a little like meeting their mom for the first time, like meeting each other for the first time, like meeting themselves for the first time. A memory play about Dr. Pepper and coming to terms with the death of a person you might not entirely miss.
Conquering the Canon
Venue: Under St. Marks
Date: September 1
Learn more and get tickets: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1515/
The 60 minute version of my one-man show Conquering the Canon will have one final show in New York City before we head to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival! I tell the story of how I may be the only African-American artist to ever take part in every play of William Shakespeare’s complete Canon. It's the story about all of the completed works, but I learn along the way that with every great achievement and life changing moment, comes a great and sad loss.
Dodoland
Venue: The Tank
Dates: September 2 & 3
Learn more and get tickets: https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2026/7/13/dodoland
On a trash island in the middle of the ocean, the last dodo lives a lonely life. One day, he finds a plastic egg and tries his very best to hatch it. Dodoland is an humorous, absurd puppet show about memory, extinction, trash, and the things we’re willing to throw away.
Dirty Bird
Venue: ErF Gallery
Dates: September 4-20
Learn more and get tickets: https://dice.fm/event/923ood-dirty-bird-20th-sep-erf-gallery-new-york-city-tickets
Summer. A family gathers. And for no good reason, destroys one another. A forensic examination of the transcendence and violence of desire, the insatiable need to discover new forms of human expression and the brutal aches that shape us… a traverse to endure amongst the moments of neon lightening and jagged wounds. Dirty Bird is a radical new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull by writer / director Whit Flint, with a score built around artists like Bowie, the Pixies, and the Zombies.
Boys Will Be Dogs
Venue: Brooklyn Art Haus
Dates: September 10-12 & 17-19
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/boys-will-be-dogs-tickets-1996903826099
Lacrosse star Logan has a lot going for him - he’s sixteen, has a near guaranteed scholarship to Yale, and just got his first girlfriend. But when mounting pressures lead him to seek guidance in the alt-right manosphere, the adults in his life are all too busy to notice. As his older sister, her spouse, and their roommate navigate shared secrets and a particularly violent neighborhood dog named Cupcake, Logan’s mindset deteriorates in an abstract space called “the turf” where he sees himself as a dog on his girlfriend’s leash. When his radicalization erupts in an act of violence, will his caretakers be able - or willing - to help?
McMusical
Venue: Theater For The New City
Dates: September 17-20
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/mcmusical
From the creators of Garfeld: The Musical (A Garfield Parody) comes McMusical, a brand-new, unhinged satirical romp making its first developmental production at Theater for the New City, September 17–20, 2026. Randy McDandy, the washed-up clown mascot of the fast-food empire McDandys,bites off more than he can chew when he takes over one of his restaurants in the perilous streets of Slumsville. He’s shocked to find that the restaurant has been transformed into a cold, corporate shell, stripped of all its charm. Determined to restore McDandys to its former glory, Randy must battle cynical corporate overlords. With appearances from other iconic mascots and a slew of crazy side characters, McMusical is a high-energy, R-rated parody served with unexpected heart and earnestness.
The Wayfaring Strangers
Venue: The PIT
Date: September 20
Learn more and get tickets: https://tinyurl.com/waystrangeape
Join The Wayfaring Strangers at The PIT on Sunday, August 16 at 7pm for an improvised bluegrass musical, featuring brand spankin’ new lyrics to old-timey standards, played on traditional instruments like banjo, guitar, stand up bass, washboard, triangle and jug.
Persephone: A Garden Between Worlds
Venue: Newtown Creek Nature Walk Phase 3
Dates: October 3, 4, 10, and 11
Learn more and get tickets: https://linktr.ee/persephoneimmersive
Journey into the underworld via our immersive reimagining of the Persephone myth. Pulling on the aesthetic traditions of "Viola’s Room" and "Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy", attendees will wander through a fantastical outdoor location in Greenpoint during this intimate adventure. As Homer narrates the tale of Persephone’s kidnapping by the Queen of the Underworld, dancers and large-scale installations bring the myth to life.