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Elizabeth Marvel and Elizabeth Yeoman, who costar in And Then We Were No More, which opens at La MaMa this month. Photo by Michael Avedon Photography.
A play by an Oscar nominee, Elizabeth Marvel in a drama by Tim Blake Nelson and other Off-Off Broadway picks
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Adventurous audiences know that some of New York City's biggest theatrical thrills—and lowest tickets prices—are found on the smallest stages. But with dozens of shows running Off-Off Broadway every day, it's tough to figure out what's worth your time and money. That's why we've rounded up 10 promising indie theatre productions opening in September, all offering tickets starting at $35 or less. Even better, TDF members can see some of these shows for as little as $11 to $23! Not a TDF member? Consider joining our Go Off-Off and Beyond program, which gives you access to discount tickets to Off-Off Broadway shows for a one-time fee of five bucks.
If you're a TDF member, log in to your account daily to see what we're selling as ticket inventory changes frequently.
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The Tank, 312 West 36th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West
Begins September 4. Closes October 12. Tickets are $28 to $53, but if you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase $12 tickets.
Savon Bartley's searing solo show explores manhood and memory as he shares what it was like growing up without a father in Chicago. After a well-received developmental run at the Under the Radar fest, the playwright-performer presents a full-fledged engagement of his compelling coming-of-age tale, delivered in verse to a blues soundtrack.
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HERE, 145 Sixth Avenue at Dominick Street in Soho
Previews begin September 10. Opens September 12. Closes September 28. Tickets are $10 to $120.
Playwright-performer Eisa Davis (Bulrusher, Angela's Mixtape) has an Obie Award, was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize and most recently co-created the Warriors concept album with Lin-Manuel Miranda. So we're very excited to see what her new show is all about. A world premiere presented by HERE in association with The Movement Theatre Company, Essentialisn't fuses performance art, original soul songs and lyrical dialogue to explore how music has helped Black folks reclaim their own narrative.
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Theaterlab, 357 West 36th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West
Previews begin September 10. Opens September 15. Closes September 28. Tickets are $27.50 to $71.50.
Liba Vaynberg specializes in plays about the Jewish experience. Her last drama, the well-received The Gett, centered on a woman trying to obtain a Jewish document of divorce. For her world premiere The Matriarchs, she explores the secret lives of Jewish girls as six teenagers question orthodoxy and their place in the patriarchy during at their weekly Talmud lesson. Dina Vovsi directs.
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59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East
Begins September 10. Closes October 11. Tickets are $27 to $32.
Stage and screen vet Hend Ayoub (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo on Broadway, Trust No One on Netflix) wrote and performs this autobiographical solo show about growing up Palestinian in the State of Israel. Performed in English, Hebrew and Arabic, Home? explores her multicultural upbringing and her immigrant journey to the United States. Ayoub created the show prior to October 7, 2023, yet she's aware the ongoing violence in the Middle East reframes her story. It also makes her humurous and wistful play even more important as she recalls a time when she lived in an integrated community of Arabs and Jews.
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La MaMa's The Downstairs, 66 East 4th Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue in the East Village
Begins September 12. Closes September 28. Tickets are $10 to $75.
Celine Song, who earned an Oscar nomination for her screenplay for Past Lives, penned Family about three haunted half-siblings who reunite in the wake of their father's death. Alec Duffy originally directed this production in a Brooklyn apartment for just 30 spectators. While this encore engagement may be staged in a traditional theatre, the play remains highly unconventional and absurd, a darkly comic look at the horrors of being related by blood. Presented by the Obie-winning company Hoi Polloi.
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Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street in Soho
Begins September 17. Closes October 5. Tickets are $35.50 to $55.50, but if you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase $15 tickets.
After earning rave reviews in her native Australia at various comedy festivals, Lou Wall brings her solo romp about truth, humor and the internet to Soho Playhouse. In Breaking the Fifth Wall, Wall shares a crazy story about the time she offered a bed for free on Facebook Marketplace and ended up getting into it with an unstable woman named Eileen. But where does the truth end and Wall's fantastical imagination begin? Using PowerPoint and punch lines, the stand-up parses how memes, pop culture and the performative nature of social media have made it almost impossible to tell from fact from fiction.
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Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street in Soho
Previews begin September 17. Opens September 19. Closes October 12. Tickets are $24.50, but if you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase $11 tickets.
When comedian Chanel Ali appeared in a TV commercial for the now-defunct DNA testing company 23andMe, she hoped it would jump-start her career. She had no idea it would totally change her life. After her mother descended into mental illness, Ali was brought up in foster care. But through 23andMe she connected with a 30-year-old brother she didn't know about, who led her to the dad she had never met: a decorated police officer whose secrets were suddenly exposed. A hilarious and harrowing journey of familial discovery.
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The Tank, 312 West 36th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West
Begins September 18. Closes October 12. Tickets are $28 to $53, but if you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase $15 tickets.
Stephen Foglia's gender-bending riff on Greek mythology finds five disparate men role-playing as Dionysus' fervent female followers on a mountaintop. But what begins as an exercise in shedding their masculinity becomes a desperate quest to stay alive as their bacchanalian adventure becomes life-changing in unexpected ways. Phillip Christian Smith directs.
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La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 East 4th Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue in the East Village
Previews begin September 19. Opens September 28. Closes November 2. Tickets are $49 to $99, but if you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase $23 tickets.
Tim Blake Nelson may be best known as a character actor, with memorable turns in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the HBO series Watchmen and Lincoln. But he's also a writer whose plays explore the intersection of history and ethics, such as the Holocaust drama The Grey Zone about prisoners who ushered their fellow Jews into the gas chambers, or Socrates about the philosopher's corruption trial. His new play, And Then We Were No More, is set in the not-too-distant future and examines the moral murkiness of the death penalty as a lawyer fights for justice for an inmate who seems fated to die in a new "painless" killing machine. Mark Wing-Davey directs a cast led by stage and screen star Elizabeth Marvel (House of Cards, Homeland, Other Desert Cities).
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WP Theater at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, 2162 Broadway at 76th Street on the Upper West Side
Previews begin September 20. Opens October 5. Closes October 26. Tickets are $44-$109, but if you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase $21 tickets.
WP Theater hosts the New York premiere of Monet Hurst-Mendoza's Torera, about a young Mexican woman who dreams of becoming a bullfighter, a rarity on that male-dominated scene. Thankfully, her childhood friend is the son of a celebrated toreador and is willing to train her on the down-low. But soon the pals discover their biggest challenges lay outside the ring as secrets come to light. Tatiana Pandiani directs this new play, presented in partnership with The Sol Project, Long Wharf Theatre and Latinx Playwrights Circle.
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Raven Snook is the Editor of TDF Stages. Follow her on Facebook at @Raven.Snook. Follow TDF on Facebook at @TDFNYC.
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