Upcoming Indie Theater – January 23
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, which is available for rentals.
(No)Refunds
Location: Theaterlab
Dates: January 23 and 24
(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.
Godbird
Location: The Brick/Exponential Festival
Dates: January 23 and 24
Deb sees a dog. Hugo sees Deb. A bird sees it all.
PANICMOM
Location: The Brick Aux
Dates: January 23 and 24
PANICMOM is an unexpecting mother in a fever dream haunted by the Greek God Pan, who induces cycles of death and birth, forcing her to confront the depths in which she's internalized violence and stored it. Almost always, at the center of that depth is a child. The one we once were, the one we plan for, the one we fiercely protect and the one we silenced or sacrificed. Through the power of panic, we will explore the many lifetimes a single wound can echo through. It is also somehow, a surrealist clown show.
Once, The Musical
Location: The Little Victory Theatre
Dates: January 23-25
Once is a beautiful love story performed with live instruments.
Always Young The Musical
Location: Theater For The New City
Dates: January 23-25 and January 29 – February 1
Always Young is a heart-warming, magical reflection on British school days in the eighties. Discover the possible stories behind the characters we all remember from school. An insightful and thought provoking look at how our school experiences and parenting influenced who we are today.
A show for adults about our memories. A nostalgic yet disconcerting reality check, that uses music, and tall tales to deliver powerful messages.
20 Original musical numbers accentuate the stories with genre bending sounds and styles that traverse musical history. Honky-Tonk Piano meets Contemporary Rock with feelgood Broadway and Vaudevillian style numbers.
The Infinite Wrench
Location: The Second City
Dates: January 23, 24, 30, and 31
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!
Cimino's Defeat
Location: Torn Page
Dates: Now through February 14
After gaining acclaim and recognition with his film The Deer Hunter, director Michael Cimino rose to fame and power within the flourishing New Hollywood system. With his new found success came megalomania, and Cimino's following film Heaven's Gate was rife with production troubles and ultimately flopped. This commercial and critical failure resulted in the end of Hollywood's director driven era and the beginning of commercial, studio driven filmmaking. Witness the seeds of this cinema apocalypse in an intimate, behind the scenes style in Cimino's Defeat.
How to Make a Doll
Location: Brooklyn Art Haus
Date: January 25
Where do brain anatomy, dollmaking, depression, and healing overlap?
How to Make a Doll is an interdisciplinary solo performance by Marisa Caruso that blends memoir, research, and absurdity to explore mental health and the transformative power of creation. Digging through memory, medical texts, and a towering pile of socks, Caruso searches for meaning in the failures of family and Western medicine.
Video, puppetry, sound, and text collide in an experience where grief meets humor, science meets art, and when words fail, making something by hand becomes a last resort.
The Wayfaring Strangers
Location: The PIT
Date: January 25
Join The Wayfaring Strangers at The PIT for their first improvised bluegrass musical of 2026, featuring brand spankin’ new lyrics to old-timey standards, played on traditional instruments like banjo, guitar, fiddle, washboard, egg shakers and, uh, kazoo …
I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty
Location: The Brick (Exponential)
Dates: January 30 – February 7
One sexy office siren- performed by 4 performers - is trying to answer her daily email. As she hits reply all, she keeps being whisked away into more and more absurd worlds.
The Trash Garden
Location: UNDER St Marks
Dates: January 31
Living in a wasteland of garbage, Atlas and Evelyn play games and reinvent theater to cope being being the last people on Earth. Come see resident playwright Padraig Bond 's benefit production of The Trash Garden, Best Play Winner at the 2024 NYC Fringe at FRIGID! The Trash Team is gearing up to perform at Adelaide International Festival Fringe in Australia this March, and you can support them by attending this show!
"Show Up, Kids!"
Location: The Rat
Dates: February 7, 14, 21, 28
This acclaimed, long-running, interactive musical show for kids 3-10 years old puts a wildly comedic twist on the traditional kids’ show. When the main attraction doesn’t show up, the host enlists the help of the kids (and their grownups) to control everything from plot to props, characters to costumes, and settings to sound in a one-of-a-kind, 45-minute laughfest.
A Hot Mess’s Guide to Becoming a Better You! (In Just Two Acts!)
Location: The Vino Theatre
Dates: Feb 12-14. Industry Preview on Feb 11
Self proclaimed “Recovering Hot Mess”, Eve, has lived her life caught in a constant cycle of failed self improvement attempts that only lead her back to where she started. And after the walk of shame from hell… she creates the unconventional guide for messy girls in pursuit of a rebrand. Yet as she journeys on the quest to clean up her act, her subconscious, personified as a chaotic ensemble of ex flings, influencers, hippies, frat bros, artists & Doctor Freud, we question whether her resilience is motivated by self love or self hatred.