Upcoming Indie Theater – July 25
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 the Chain, which is available for rentals.
The Anxiety of Laughing
Venue: The American Theatre of Actors (ATA) New York, NY
Dates: July 25
The Anxiety of Laughing is a heartfelt tale of resilience and love that follows Joey, a stand-up comedian with cerebral palsy, and his fiancée, Leah, a talented ballerina. As they support each other in pursuing their dreams, a tragic car accident shatters their lives, leaving Leah paralyzed from the waist down and testing the depth of their commitment. The Anxiety of Laughing is produced by Mixing It Up Productions, LLC, which is a multi-media entertainment company that develops, produces, licenses, and publishes intellectual properties in theatres, music, film/video, and literature. The Anxiety of Laughing will be playing as a part of The Midtown International Theatre Festival, taking place at The American Theatre For Actors from July 13th- 25th
The Kitchen
Venue: AMT Theater
Dates: July 23-25
Witness the gripping dark comedy "The Kitchen" by Earl Crittenden, when a surprise kitchen renovation in a rent-controlled Manhattan apartment triggers an eviction, exposes the neighbor as a predatory landlord, and forces a reckoning with a grandfather's hidden queer life in a Broadway Bound Theatre Festival presentation at AMT Theater on July 23, 24 and 25. Don't miss it!
The Binding Retreat
Venue: Center at West Park
Dates: July 25
Set at a Women’s retreat run by the devout Mary Helen, we follow undercover leftist writer Jude, as they gather details about the corrupt hierarchy at Seed of Life. The play questions the phenomenon of modern evangelical Christianity, divine coincidences, and the weight of queerness in today’s world.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theatre
Dates: July 24-26
Shakespeare’s famous comedy features messy love triangles, mischievous magic, and a person with a donkey’s head. Four Athenian lovers flee into a magical forest only to be caught in the middle of the fairy king and queen's argument. Puck, the mischievous trickster, meddles with their feelings towards one another; meanwhile, a group of actors is preparing a play for the Athenian king's wedding day. What could go wrong?
Crimes of the Heart
Venue: 154 Christopher Street
Dates: Now through July 26
Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley, directed by Eve Bianco | Presented by Red Door Productions
It's been a bad week for the Magrath sisters. The eldest is turning thirty alone. The middle one has come home from Hollywood with broken dreams. The youngest has just shot her husband. Set over a few extraordinary days in a kitchen in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, Crimes of the Heart is Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play about sisters, secrets, survival, and the particular madness of family love. Devastating and hilarious in equal measure, often in the same breath. Red Door Productions brings this Southern tragicomedy to New York City for a limited two-week run at 154 Theater on Christopher Street.
The Body I Left in Susquehanna National Forest
Venue: The Tank
Dates: July 25-27
In a grisly comedy thriller, two newlyweds begin to question their relationship, gender roles in a modern marriage, and sexuality when they’re left stranded in a forest after hitting a woman with their car. Fresh from the altar, Claire and Patrick are determined to be blissful and carefree as they head for their Niagara Falls honeymoon, but their collision with Megan in Susquehanna National Forest sets them on a dark and paranoid path of doubt and denial.
Use code NIAGARA (ALL CAPS) for $5 off tickets!
Foosball
Venue: Arts On Site
Dates: Now through August 1
Caught between small-town Michigan drama and an abusive father, JJ Janson has to navigate an impossible love triangle on his 16th birthday. Foosball begs the question: Can we overcome our trauma or do we learn to live with our wounds? That's Pure Michigan, baby!
The Betrothed
Venue: WP Theater
Dates: Now through August 1
Chosen as part of WP Theater's Space Residency Program for indie theater companies,The Betrothed by Scarlett Grace McCarthy and directed by Sarah Connolly is an absurdist comedy of love, ambition, and social expectation set in the 19th century and performed by an all-women cast. When her brother’s broken engagement disrupts Kitty’s plans to secure a suitor, she’s forced to confront the rigid expectations placed upon her and schemes to restore order and ensure everyone gets their happily ever after. As romantic entanglements unravel and betrayals come to light, The Betrothed queers the classic marriage plot.
The Potluck
Venue: Soho Rep and INTAR
Dates: Now through August 2
Solidarity is just another kind of queerness. In 1979, five labor organizers were murdered at a protest in the streets of Greensboro, NC, by members of the KKK and the American Nazi Party. A year later, César James Alvarez was born into the survivor community and named for two of the victims. 37 years after that, César got a commission to write a musical about the Greensboro Massacre, but it turned into a show about ghosts… and capitalism…and how to recuperate from trauma that happened to you before you were even born. The Potluck is a new musical featuring a 12 person intergenerational cast that conjures the soft side of the revolution, and tells a story about what to do when the government is actually trying to kill you.
Woyzeck
Venue: Modern Sweater
Dates: Now through August 8
Adult Film will present Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, translated by the late and storied American actor, John Christopher Jones, directed by international director Seth Bockley (2666, Gilgamesh) Summer of Blood!! Woyzeck will be the inaugural production at Modern Sweater, a former sweater factory in the heart of the independent arts capital of New York, Ridgewood. Joining the Adult Film company members is Randall Jaynes, who served as a Blue Man and the Senior Artistic Director with Blue Man Group for over two decades. Woyzeck will present a site-specific exploration of class conflict and madness. A rock musical devising lyrics from 1830s Germany. A horror story through a humanist lens.
The Infinite Wrench
Venue: Asylum NYC (123.E 24th St)
Dates: July 25, 31 August 1, 7, and 8
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.
Measure for Measure
Venue: The Makers’ Space
Dates: July 28 - August 1
Measure for Measure asks us to bear witness to a world where morality cannot sustain itself – it flows, flies, and falls like sand. In it, the line between the state and the individual is blurred beyond recognition, and justice turns out to be more akin to bargain than mercy. And then there’s uncleanliness. Tons of it. Here, righteousness is like a rubber band: stretch it enough and you’ll permanently deform it into a kind of perversion. Measure for Measure revolves around that elasticity, its focus is on this exercise of clinging to humanity in a world that renders the moral absurd. I mean, really ask yourself: is being good possible when you’re teetering on the razor’s edge between someone else’s destruction and your survival?
Castrati: A Tale of Two
Venue: McKibbin St. Loft
Date: July 30
A snip. A shriek. A bounce on cold linoleum. A songbird is born. Castrati: A Tale of Two weaves song with castration. Shed your bodily prison during this groundbreaking musical. The first and last of its kind.
FRIZZLED: A Magic School Bus Musical Parody
Venue: Culture Lab LIC
Dates: July 30 - August 2
Frizzled is a wild, nostalgic coming-of-age musical blasting the kids you know and love into outrageous and very grown-up scenarios with their favorite frizzy-haired teacher. Featuring a score packed with infectious hooks about getting older, partying it up, and wanting to lesbian kiss your best friend, this show is guaranteed to make you laugh. Join the kids from Walkerville High as they take one last ride on that big yellow bus! not suitable for audiences under 18
THE BRIDE: A Kill Bill Ballet
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Dates: July 31 – August 2
The Love Show's iconic tribute to Kill Bill, The Bride returns with a vengeance, tearing into the Theater District with grit, wit, sex, and action that won't quit. From director/choreographer Angela Harriell and her prolific dance theater company, The Love Show NYC, comes an homage to Quentin Tarantino’s classic film cycle about revenge, honor, and redemption. A cult classic reimagined through evocative dance and live song, The Bride: A Kill Bill Ballet is a wildly entertaining ride. It's sexy, wacky, beautiful, and weird.
Our Name Is Mara
Venue: National Dance Institute
Dates: August 1
When her father misses her spelling bee, 12-year-old Mara suspects something’s amiss. Anxious for answers, Mara interrogates her neighbor and demands answers from her family. She discovers her father’s been hospitalized then reasons her love is the only medicine he needs to get better. But when he's still not better, she's left questioning if her dad is the same man she knew.
Work Sucks: An Improv Comedy Show
Venue: Duke Comedy Theatre @ Westbeth Community Room
Dates: August 1
Bad jobs, terrible bosses, co-workers from your nightmares. Bring us your worst workday stories, and watch seasoned improvisers from NYC and Hudson Valley’s top comedy theaters turn them into live, laugh-out-loud comedy right before your eyes. Free entry! Donations welcome.
Higher Than a Body
Venue: wild project
Dates: August 7 & 8
Performance art meets supernatural satire in a special work-in-progress presentation of Higher Than A Body, a new solo performance written, composed, and performed by multidisciplinary artist Neil Totton. Developed in residence at wild project, this showing invites audiences into a memory set to music, packed with humor, sass, and deep introspection.
ISLA
Venue: WP Theater
Dates: August 8-29
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.
Lunaticus
Venue: The Tank
Dates: August 10
When sudden spells of aphasia and mysterious blackout episodes lead to a life-changing neurological diagnosis, Danielle is left to navigate an escalating disability while sorting through her relationships, confronting her mortality, and reckoning with an unexpectedly fractured sense of self. LUNATICUS is a quirky, nuanced, deeply personal take on one of humanity’s most ancient and most misunderstood afflictions. This brand-new solo show dives deep into a real-life story of epilepsy, a condition that's been remarkably underexplored in the American theatre. Despite affecting humans for thousands of years, the experience of epilepsy remains shrouded in mystery and marred by misunderstanding. Danielle Allen’s autobiographical tale of the adult-onset epilepsy that upended her life aims to shed light on the diversity of epileptic experiences while reminding us of the power that comes with speaking our stories out loud.
Your Queen Presents: PETRUS
Venue: United Palace
Dates: August 14
YOUR QUEEN PRESENTS: PETRUS is a darkly comic solo performance blending drag, clown, and magical theatricality to uncover the true story behind Beauty and the Beast. Queen Catherine de’ Medici attempts to summon the life of Petrus Gonsalvus, a Canary Islander with hypertrichosis who was taken to the French court in the 16th century and transformed into a spectacle. Created and performed by fellow Canary Islander Edu Díaz, the piece combines historical material and absurdity to explore power, displacement, and the manufacture of monsters. This new iteration will be presented at the United Palace in New York before traveling to Cannonball at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
Party Girl
Venue: The Tank
Dates: August 20 & 22
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.
Half World
Venue: The Chain
Dates: August 20-23
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.