Upcoming Indie Theater – October 16
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 coverge of indie theater in New York, please visit New York Theatre Review.
The preview image is from JACK, which is available for rentals.
THE LOVE SHOW
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Date: October 16
Learn more and get tickets: loveshow.eventbrite.com
The Hidden Jewel Box's cheeky in-house theater dance show returns for a heartfelt and tittilating night of dance, burlesque, song & theater! Laugh, cry, and experience an unforgettable evening of intimate whimsy unlike any other in the "Paris" Authority. The Love Show NYC, a globe trotting theater dance company of 20+ years invites you into our little home.
Intended
Venue: Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum & Garden
Dates: Now through October 18
Learn more and get tickets: redmonkeytheatergroup.wordpress.com
Samuel Treadwell Pell, a newly minted captain of the Continental Army, cannot wait to get home to Pelham to see his fiancée (and cousin), Mary. However, when Mary’s family hosts British officers for dinner, she and Samuel have to decide if their future marriage can withstand a political divide. Frey examines the impact of bipartisan politics on family dynamics during the birth of the United States of America.
A Part Of The Noise
Venue: THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY/ Johnson Theatre
Dates: Now through October 25
Learn more and get tickets: https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/a-part-of-the-noise/
The year is 1959, and Franz’ art dealer, Sidney Janis, refuses to include Franz’ new color abstractions in an upcoming one-man show. Sidney wants Franz to ride out the popularity of his black and white paintings that are selling for record prices. Franz insists on including his two newest color abstractions, and Sidney threatens that if he does, this will be his last show at the prestigious Janis Gallery.
She Kills Monsters
Venue: The Secret Theatre
Dates: October 16-25
Learn more and get tickets: www.citygateproductions.org
She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she finds herself catapulted into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was her sister’s refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.
The Invisibles
Venue: Theater For The New City
Dates: Now through October 25
Learn more and get tickets: https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-invisibles/
The Invisibles is a story about how the different generations Gen Z, Millennials and Baby Boomers …within stereotypes…deal with their aging and their finances. Subjects that we so often tend to tread lightly on or not at all. The grandmother is in a nursing home convalescing from a hip injury, ready now to resume her well-earned .. comfortable life.
LBJ: The Play
Venue: Paradise Factory
Dates: Now through October 30
Learn more and get tickets: www.lbjtheplay.com
A 5th grade teacher hires local performer Sunny Zimmerman to give a simple historical presentation as LBJ. The only problem? Sunny’s gone method. They’ve been living and breathing as LBJ, and LBJ has decided that this is his one chance to salvage his legacy – with an ambitious theatrical production. As his vision doesn't go according to plan, the boundaries between actor and role become increasingly blurred.
The Infinite Wrench
Venue: Asylum NYC (123.E 24th St)
Dates: October 16, 17, 23, 24, 30, & 31
Learn more and get tickets: nynf.org/tiw
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.
Brownstone Steps Play Festival
Venue: South Oxford Space
Dates: October 17 & 18
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.ticketsignup.io/TicketEvent/BFest2026
BFest presents its first ever complete lineup of women playwrights, for 5 plays of timely stories by, for or about women and the families we hold dear. Join us
WordOut Theater Presents: un/reality — One-act Festival
Venue & Dates:
Caveat - October 17 & 18
The RAT - October 24 & 25
Learn more and get tickets: https://wordoutfestival.campsite.bio/
A festival of six new one-acts from rising playwrights performed over two weekends at Caveat in Manhattan and The RAT in Brooklyn. Each work considers opposing views on an often startling shared reality. Sharp satire, techno-philosophy, surrealism, and grounded human drama are all represented in the full program. Plays were chosen via a submission process and developed through a series of collaborative workshops over the past year.
Show Up, Kids!
Venue: The Rat
Dates: October 10, 17, 24 and November 7, 21, & 28
Learn more and get tickets: https://showup-theshow.com/
This interactive show for kids 3-10 years old puts a wildly comedic twist on the traditional kids’ show. When the main attraction is a no-show, hapless host Bebe gets the kids (and their grownups) to help create a comedy show on the spot by choosing plot, props, characters, costumes, and settings - resulting in a wildly unpredictable, one-of-a-kind, 45-minute laughfest. Now in its 8th year!
The Oldest Profession
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Dates: October 17, November 6 & 7, December 18
Learn more and get tickets: https://theoldestprofession.org/upcoming-shows/
The Oldest Profession is a mad dash through 10,000 years of history from a sex worker’s perspective. Kaytlin Bailey is reframing the story of western civilization from a mesmerizing new angle. Weaving history, stand-up comedy, and lived experience in a fast-paced and profoundly moving hour-long solo show. The performance is punctuated by a projected art history slideshow.
Fertile Ground
Venue: Green Space
Date: October 18
Learn more and get tickets: https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/QrJDGlVYM4BFePmqHWmNxg
Welcome to our 2026-2027 Season of Fertile Ground! Fertile Ground is a monthly new works series for emerging choreographers and experimenting, established professionals. Six artists present a work-in-progress and receive audience-driven feedback in a post-performance discussion (with wine!) moderated by Artistic Director, Valerie Green. With your constructive input you can help artists cultivate and grow their work!
Suffragists From The Stage
Venue: New Perspectives Studio
Date: October 19
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/suffragists-from-the-stage-a-concert-reading-slide-show-tickets-1998990672914
Join us for a 75-year journey exploring the Women's Suffrage Movement and the role that theatre women played in winning the vote! This special presentation is being offered for free as part of CULTURE CRAWL, a week-long series of events from the Hudson Yards/Hell's Kitchen Arts Alliance.
International Party Girl
Venue: Brooklyn Art Haus
Date: October 20
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/international-party-girl-tickets-2002179228971
A dark comedy and immersive theatrical experience that dives into loneliness, club culture, and the isolating search for connection. At its center is IPG, the ultimate party girl, trapped in the smoking section of a nightclub and teetering between the DJ booth and a breakdown. Through live music, 2000s celebrity-addict interviews featuring some of pop culture’s most infamous party girls, and an internal monologue that reveals the lonely girl beneath the persona, IPG invites the audience deep into her world.
The Sorcery Aisle
Venue: Under St Marks Theater
Dates: October 21 & 23
Learn more and get tickets: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1528/
A wizard and two witches walk into a big box store. What happens next is a comedic bubbling concoction of the everyday relatable and mythical enchantment with a dash of New York.
words a god had taught him
Venue: Box of Moonlight
Dates: October 22-25
Learn more and get tickets: Ghostlighttheatrenyc.org
After being slighted by his commanding officers, Greek warrior Ajax determines to make the men he's fought so long for pay the ultimate price. But when his violent plan goes awry, the Trojan War hero and his family must grapple with a horrifying future. Juxtaposing classic text with found language and songs from American military history, words a god had taught him stages the vengeful actions of a grieving soldier to examine our complicity in imperial occupation and its inevitable blowback.
"User Agreement"
Venue: The Makers’ Space
Dates: October 22 - November 8
Learn more and get tickets: https://makersensemble.org/useragreement
The Makers’ Ensemble presents the NYC premiere of O’Neill Finalist Ben Holbrook's "User Agreement," directed by Dante Green. Set in the near future, potential soulmates Sy and Theo navigate their bond in a world enhanced by the wonders of technology, AI, and the occasional talking octopus. Building a relationship based on good music, deep conversation, and strong boundaries feels natural to them. But their beautiful bond finds itself struggling against a world turned upside-down by the demons of human nature and the need for capital - causing them to wonder if it’s possible for two simple souls to truly connect in a society designed to be more complex than ever.
Women Who Eat
Venue: Atelier @ Theaterlab
Dates: October 22 - November 8
Learn more and get tickets: https://theaterlabnyc.com/atelier-theaterlab-women-who-eat/
In this absurd dark comedy, six women recovering from eating disorders on a remote island are stranded when the electricity is cut to their residential facility during a hurricane. After running out of food, the inhabitants are forced to grapple with whether or not they want to survive, and if they can accept the women they become. It’s a dog-eat-dog world- and these are some hungry bitches.
The O Commons Immigrant Artists Mutual Aid
Venue: The People's Forum & via Zoom
Date: October 23
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-o-commons-immigrant-artists-mutual-aid-tickets-2000485054650
The O Commons is a new mutual aid network for migrant artists and cultural workers. We are coming together to share knowledge, resources, experiences, and creative practices around the realities of making art and building a life in the United States.
HAUNTED at The Hidden Jewel Box
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Dates: October 23 & 24
Learn more and get tickets: jewelbox.eventbrite.com
This October, in the most unsuspected place, bring your charms, and your heart, and enter the doll house for a night you will never forget. In the heart of Midtown manhattan there is a home to all the dolls who have resided for the last hundreds of years. Come into our home and be part of our ceremony where we all become young again. A uniquely New York evening of live music, dance, story telling, and burlesque. Join the cult of The Love Show.
Conditioning - A New Play
Venue: Spark Theatre Festival at TADA! Youth Theatre
Dates: October 23 & 25
Learn more and get tickets:
Oct 23: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sparktheatrefestival/2345902
Oct 25: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sparktheatrefestival/2354136
One act play about two trans men who meet through weight-lifting training. Kel, in his mid 20s, is stealth and struggles with accepting his transness as anything but a detriment. Charlie, in his late 20s, transitioned later in life and sees his transness as an inherent part of his masculinity. As Kel trains Charlie on external strength, Charlie trains Kel on internal strength. The two discuss love, sex, dysphoria, and masculinity across three traditionally hegemonic masculine settings: the gym, the bar, and the bedroom.
Mille secrets de poussins
Venue: Le Skyroom at L'Alliance New York
Date: October 24
Learn more and get tickets: https://lallianceny.org/event/mille-secrets-de-poussins-2/
Accompanied by animated videos and multimedia effects, the performer, who acts as both storyteller and puppeteer, leads the audience into a playful world. Designed for audiences 3 and up, the show draws on the playful, poetic, and bizarre questions and answers that fill Claude Ponti’s work. Everyone is invited to travel freely to the other side of the pages and discover the magical world of the chicks
Lightkeeper: A New Play by Julia Labusch
Venue: The Rat NYC
Dates: October 28 & 29
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.theratnyc.com/event-list
Lighthouse keeper Deán Dreck has been all alone for four years. The war has just ended, and the world outside is finally quiet. Faced with the answer to a question he has refused to ask, Deán chooses instead to play a game of pretend. But soon his imagination gets the better of him as faces from his past attempt to guide him toward an impossible decision: To finally leave the lighthouse.
Mirlitons
Venue: Le Skyroom at L'Alliance New York
Dates: November 4-6
Learn more and get tickets: https://lallianceny.org/event/mirlitons/
In this performance, it’s an encounter between two voices and bodies: choreographer François Chaignaud and beatboxer Aymeric Hainaux. The audience is presented with a total saturation of frequencies and muscles in this energetic performance, as the artists engage in a percussive duel. Through their voices, feet, arms, props and costumes, Chaignaud and Hainaux create a duet that is as uncategorizable as the word mirliton.
War and Peace. Places of War.
Venue: Collapsable Hole
Dates: November 6 & 7
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/war-and-peace-places-of-war-tickets-2002485858107
A group of everyday people step into the chapters on war, which many readers skimmed through in War and Peace. They have questions: What is war? What does it feel like to be in a war? Why does war happen? How can we tell who has won? They examine the battles, reenact moments, play characters, and invite you to witness with them what happened then and is happening now.
Play Without Ceasing
Venue: Bechdel Project
Date: November 7
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/play-without-ceasing-tickets-2001402444588
Play Without Ceasing is a queer, campy, witchy theatrical reckoning with evangelical Christianity, religious trauma, and the rise of Christian nationalism. Written and performed by Wren Phoenix and directed by Ash Marinaccio, this part-docudrama, part-revival, part-queer exorcism turns sermons into performance, testimony into ritual, and religious wreckage into something unruly, funny, furious, and liberating. Come to church. Bring your baggage. Leave with your glitter.
Refrigerator Stories: A Search for Home
Venue: Scholes Street Studio (Brooklyn)
Date: November 8
Learn more and get tickets: https://refrigerator-stories.josdirkx.com
Ever feel like you're almost home, never quite? Come spend an evening with people who feel it, too. On Sunday 8 November at 8:00pm, Jos Dirkx brings a workshop performance of her solo show with music, Refrigerator Stories: A Search for Home, to Scholes Street Studio in Brooklyn. An intimate evening of real life stories and original songs about belonging and where to find home after a life lived across many countries, with music by Emmy-winning composer Sacha Hoedemaker. The show is performed in English.
SESTERCENTENNIAL
Venue: The Vino Theater
Dates: November 9 - 12
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sestercentennial-tickets-2002734470714?aff=oddtdtcreator
SESTERCENTENNIAL is a new hour long solo play written in the second person that contemplates race’s inescapable role in American politics and social life. You are Hamza Beshara, a conservative Bangladeshi American hosting an indoor barbecue for your (white) best friends on July 4, 2026 - America’s 250th Birthday. But something is clearly amiss, forcing you to reflect on your relationships to your culture and friends, and the divisions and contradictions, longstanding and new, that exist between them and within yourself.
First and Last
Venue: ARTX
Dates: November 10-22
Learn more and get tickets: https://www.openvariationstheater.com/first-and-last
2003, Washington Heights. Morris, a cash-strapped real estate agent, is showing a decrepit rental to Maeve, an artist’s assistant desperate for a place to live. Amid broken elevators, feuding neighbors, and the ghost of a dead kitten, a routine apartment showing becomes more than they both bargained for. Offbeat and heartfelt, FIRST AND LAST is about the people who enter our lives, if only for a chapter, and the strange way memory edits life down to its most vivid arrivals and departures.
Lucie Pohl: Old as Mold
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Date: November 12
Learn more and get tickets: oldasmold.eventbrite.com
Comedian Lucie Pohl tapes her first comedy special presented by the New York Comedy Festival! Old As Mold is a new solo comedy hour diving into the chaos and wisdom of life as a woman over 40 but somehow still under 5”5.
A Night With Mr. Wonderful
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Date: November 13
Learn more and get tickets: mrwonderful.eventbrite.com
Experience the unforgettable journey of Sammy Davis Jr. in A Night With Mr. Wonderful, a dynamic variety show capturing the icon at the height of his global fame. Set against the vibrant 1960s and 1970s, this production fuses spectacular live performances of hits like Mr. Bojangles with the gripping story of Davis’s evolution from superstar to a fierce activist fighting racial inequality. Beyond the glamour, it reveals the intense personal and professional struggles he faced navigating a white-dominated industry. Driven by themes of resilience and the unifying power of music, this vibrant celebration is a must-see for anyone who loves history, legendary songs, and stellar live theater.
Pearl Necklace
Venue: The Hidden Jewel Box Theater
Date: November 14
Learn more and get tickets: pearlnecklace.eventbrite.com
Pearl Necklace is a dirty comedy dripping in burlesque glamour, vintage decadence, and a touch of film noir. Telling stories from her glamorous—and not-so-glamorous—life, Natalie Perlin brings a comedy that’s sharp and wicked, yet unexpectedly sweet and melancholy, finding humor in the timeless, titillating absurdity of being a woman in the modern world. Definitely not for pearl clutchers. After all, Pearl Necklace is more than just jewelry.
The Wayfaring Strangers
Venue: The Pit
Dates: November 15 and December 13
Learn more and get tickets: https://tinyurl.com/waystrangeape
Join The Wayfaring Strangers at The PIT on October 11 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.
Losing Your Bag
Venue: Le Skyroom atvL'Alliance New York
Dates: November 19–21
Learn more and get tickets: https://lallianceny.org/event/losing-your-bag/
Making its English-language premiere, this one-woman piece is a collaboration between renowned French playwright Pascal Rambert and actress Pauline Chalamet. The play follows a young woman with a Master’s degree, who is—temporarily—a window cleaner. Over the course of the performance, she expresses her anger at social stratification and grapples with loneliness, in a world divided between “people who succeed and people who are nothing.”