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Kevin Matthew Wong's Benevolence, one of many innovative shows at the Under the Radar Festival. Photo by Jae Yang.
Catch cutting-edge performances at Under the Radar, The Exponential Festival, Prototype and more
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January is the month when lots of Broadway shows close and Off Broadway takes a while to start up again. But there are still plenty of thrilling performances to see at seven annual theatre festivals. Adventurous audiences can check out innovative, multimedia and experimental works at bargain-basement prices. Our guide helps you navigate the myriad offerings.
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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Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South at Thompson Street in the West Village
January 3-11.
Pioneers Go East Collective curates this queer dance, film and performance festival at Judson Memorial Church showcasing radical and raucous works. This year's offerings include SLAMDANCE punk lessons (January 10-11), the latest installment of multimedia artist Ian Andrew Askew's exploration of punk and blackness; dancer-choreographer Suzzanne Ponomarenko in excerpts from their in-development Tapestries (January 3 and 5) and Sugar Vendil's Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia (January 6-7), a memoir of a Filipinx American childhood. Tickets are available on a sliding scale.
See the full Out-FRONT! Festival lineup.
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Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street in Soho
January 3-March 29. At press time, several International Fringe Encore Theatre Series shows were available to TDF Members. Log in and search for International Fringe Encore Series.
The cozy Soho Playhouse has been importing Fringe Festival favorites from around the world for years. This edition features 15 shows, some funny—the tuneful romp I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical (February 6-28), the Jurassic Park parody Hold on to Your Butts (February 7-March 15), the unapologetic Elouise Eftos: Australia's First Attractive Comedian (March 5-15)—others provocative—and her Children (January 14-February 13), an NRA-themed riff on Mother Courage; a pair of plays about sex work: Puttana (January 15-25) and Body Count (March 3-29).
See the full International Fringe Encore Theatre Series lineup.
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Multiple venues in Brooklyn
January 5-February 8.
Founded in 2016, The Exponential Festival is, like its home borough of Brooklyn, eclectic and eye-opening. With 24 genre-defying offerings at nine venues, this cornucopia of quirk has an anything-goes vibe that ranges from highbrow—a dark comedy clown show about the Greek god Pan PANICMOM (January 22-24 at Brick Aux); Maria Reads a Book: Higher Eyes on Aricama (January 15-17 at JACK); the absurdist romp I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty (January 30-February 7 at The Brick)—to whoa-brow—the trans-goth dance fantasia FAGGOTICA (January 14-22 at Brooklyn Art Haus), Ann Marie Dorr's interactive solo i'm going to take my pants off now (January 3-17 at Life World); Hannah Mitchell's exploration of the trad wife phenomenon Trad (January 22-25 at Loading Dock).
See the full Exponential Festival lineup.
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Multiple venues in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens
January 7-25. At press time, a few Under the Radar shows were available to TDF members. Log in and search for Under the Radar.
The 21st edition of this cutting-edge theatre festival is bigger than ever with 32 productions running at more than 20 venues across the city. With so many disparate performances to choose from, it's tough to pick favorites. But we are particularly intrigued by 12 Last Songs (Saturday, January 17 at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre), an epic 12-hour performance featuring 30 real-life NYC workers doing what they do; Mabou Mines' stage adaptation of Samuel Beckett's radio play All That Fall (January 8-18 at Mabou Mines); Bellow (January 7-18 at Irish Arts Center) tracing the life and legacy of Ireland's premier accordionist, Danny O'Mahony; Kevin Matthew Wong's powerful journey of self-discovery Benevolence (January 7-18 at Lincoln Center's Samuel Rehearsal Studio); Dream Feed (January 9-25 at HERE), a "psychedelic live concept album" from family band The HawtPlates featuring Tony nominee Kenita R. Miller; The Ford/Hill Project (January 7-11 at The Club at La MaMa), verbatim transcripts of the Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford hearings performed by Elizabeth Marvel, Amber Iman, Josh Hamilton and Jon Michael Hill; Obie-winning solo performer Roger Guenveur Smith's In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat (January 7-18 at New York Theatre Workshop); PETRA (January 8-12 at Park Avenue Armory), Half Straddle's adaptation of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant ; Dahlak Brahwaite’s autobiographical hip-hop musical Try/Step/Trip (January 8-25 at A.R.T./New York Theatres); Elevator Repair Service's remarkable stage adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses (January 13-February 15 at The Public Theater); and Watch Me Walk (January 14-February 8 at Playwrights Horizons), Anne Gridley's darkly funny play about her rare disability.
See the full Under the Radar Festival lineup.
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Stella Adler Studio of Acting, 65 Broadway between Rector Street and Exchange Alley in the Financial District
January 8-18. At press time, a few PhysFestNYC shows were available to TDF members. Log in and search for PhysFestNYC.
This festival spotlights physical theatre, an underappreciated genre that encompasses mime, clown, dance, performance art, circus and puppetry. The 11-day event includes workshops, panels and more than two dozen shows, all just $20 to $30 per ticket. Best bets include Bill Bowers' acclaimed autobiographical solo show It Goes Without Saying (January 13) about his career as a mime and actor; Parallel Exit's comedy I'll Take It (January 17) featuring three agile performers discovering unexpected ways to interact with a box; The Marble In My Mouth, a physical manifestation of grief (January 9-10) and a selection of shorts from PhysFestNYC's producer Broken Box Mime Theater (January 16-17).
See the full PhysFestNYC lineup.
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Six venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn
January 9-19.
For its 13th edition, Prototype presents five innovative operas, none of which you'd catch at the Met, though two previous titles, Angel’s Bone and Prism, did snag the Pulitzer Prize for Music. The themes, musical styles and short-attention-span lengths are decidedly contemporary and push the boundaries of the genre. Highlights include Hildegard (January 9-14 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College) inspired by the 12th-century German Benedictine abbess/polymath St. Hildegard von Bingen; the NYC premiere of Richard Foreman and Michael Gordon's stylish satire What to Wear (January 15-18 at BAM Harvey Theater) and Precipice (January 8-11 at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre), about a young woman trying to make her way in the American West. Also on the schedule: a communal sing-along on January 11 in Times Square and a concert celebrating festival founder and producer Beth Morrison on January 7 and 8 at National Sawdust in Brooklyn.
See the full Prototype lineup.
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The Apollo Stages at The Victoria, 233 West 125th Street between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevards in Harlem
January 23-31.
For its 17th edition, this beloved fest showcasing up-and-coming Black playwrights relocates to Harlem. Its name is a nod to James Baldwin's seminal book The Fire Next Time and it has helped launch the careers of Dominique Morisseau, Jocelyn Bioh, Antoinette Nwandu, Roger Q. Mason, C.A. Johnson, Charly Evon Simpson, Marcus Gardley and many others. Its signature event is the 10-Minute Play program featuring six different shorts tackling more hot-button topics than your Twitter feed, including what it means to be Black and queer, the evolution of the civil rights movement and a superhero satire about gentrification. Ken-Matt Martin directs the playlets.
See the full Fire This Time Festival lineup.
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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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