The Public Theater

Off-Broadway’s The Public Theater announces star-studded artistic protest demonstration ‘The People’s Filibuster’ live and livestreaming on January 31

The Public Theater announced today that it will hold The People’s Filibuster – a public artistic demonstration of support and solidarity for the people of Minnesota – on Saturday, January 31, from 11...

Latino family’s struggle with upward mobility in ‘The Other Americans’ Off-Broadway at The Public Theater

Following its 2024 world premiere at DC’s Arena Stage, the limited-engagement Off-Broadway debut of The Other Americans, a new play written by and starring Emmy winner John Leguizamo and directed by...

Off Broadway Alliance Awards announced for 2025

This afternoon, the Off Broadway Alliance – an organization of Off-Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals – announced the winners of the 14th Annual...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with record-breaking Tony winner Kara Young

Born and raised in Harlem, Kara Young, whose parents immigrated to NYC from Belize, has not only smashed the clock on her proverbial “fifteen minutes of fame,” she has also just broken the Broadway...

Four short and cryptic plays by Caryl Churchill in ‘GLASS. KILL. WHAT IF IF ONLY. IMP.’ Off-Broadway at The Public Theater

Considered one of the greatest, most inventive, and groundbreaking British playwrights of our time, Caryl Churchill, now in her 80s, continues to write enigmatic and provocative new works in her...

A revealing deep dive into the Japanese national art in ‘SUMO’ Off-Broadway at The Public

As one of the world’s oldest forms of organized competition, the origins of sumo wrestling – Japan’s national art or kokugi, combining sport, sacred Shinto ritual, and cultural tradition – dates back...

Debating the pros and cons of gentrification in ‘Good Bones’ Off-Broadway at The Public

Philadelphia-based Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames (Fat Ham) is back Off-Broadway at The Public Theater with the NYC premiere of his latest work Good Bones, directed again by The...

A sharp-witted quasi-autobiographical look at the complexities of race, casting, and politics in ‘Yellow Face’ at Broadway’s Roundabout Theatre Company

Self-described as an “unreliable memoir” by three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony winner David Henry Hwang (the first Asian American playwright to receive the award), Yellow Face, which made its...

NYC’s 12th annual Pride concert ‘Night of a Thousand Judys’ comes to Joe’s Pub on June 3

Grammy Award winner Nathan Lee Graham, Tony Award nominee Grey Henson, Grammy Award winner Nicole Zuraitis, Antwayn Hopper, violinist and vocalist Edmund Bagnell, Tammy Faye Starlite, Timothy Hughes,...

15 Questions in 15 Minutes with Broadway’s Nikki M. James

After originating the role of Civil Rights leader, NAACP co-founder, and prominent Black Suffragist Ida B. Wells in The Public Theater’s Off-Broadway premiere of Shain Taub’s Suffs (tracing the...

When people won’t agree to disagree in ‘The Ally’ Off-Broadway at The Public

Tony-winning playwright Itamar Moses considers the unyielding investment in personal agendas that drive the socio-political divide in our country, around the world, and throughout history in his new...

Reading selections of recent releases for theater-lovers

The winter of 2023 saw the release of a range of books on the performing arts and artists that run the gamut from autobiography and biography to a reference volume on a popular theatrical genre in the...

Historical parallels of insatiable avarice in ‘Manahatta’ Off-Broadway at The Public Theater

In 1626, Peter Minuit, a Netherlandish merchant and Director General of the Dutch West India Company, purchased the island of Manahatta (or “Island of Many Hills”) from the Lenape people, who did not...

Recent releases of books and albums from the NYC stage

Catch up on your reading and listening with these four selections of recent book and music releases from artists and shows of the New York stage, including an original cast album, the second volume of...

Audible Theater celebrates its 5th anniversary at Off-Broadway’s Minetta Lane and previews the upcoming season

On Monday evening, September 18, Audible Inc., the leading creator and provider of premium audio storytelling, hosted a celebration of the 5th anniversary of Audible Theater, in its Off-Broadway home...

Immersed in the socio-political excesses of the Philippines’ Marcos regime in ‘Here Lies Love’ at the Broadway Theatre

From the moment you enter the Broadway Theatre, your senses are bombarded with the sounds, look, and feel of a dance club of the disco era, and you are totally immersed in the glitz and glam of its...

Chronicling our pandemic times with humor, heart, and a sense of community in ‘Plays for the Plague Year’ at NYC’s Joe’s Pub

With the COVID-19 closure of theaters on March 12, 2020, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner and The Public Theater’s Writer-in-Residence, decided to put the time in lockdown to good...

Migguel Anggelo’s emotional journey to an authentic self in ‘LatinXoxo’ at NYC’s Joe’s Pub

This year marks the eighteenth annual installment of The Public Theater’s internationally renowned Under the Radar Festival celebrating innovative new theater from around the world, while giving a...

Aggressively reimagined Off-Broadway revival of ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ at The Public Theater

Lorraine Hansberry’s classic 1959 American drama A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a Black woman to have a Broadway production; it’s now the first work by the acclaimed playwright to...

Nearly verbatim reenactment of the 1965 debate of ‘Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge’ Off-Broadway at The Public Theater

On February 18, 1965, The Cambridge Union – the oldest continuously running free speech and debating society in the world, founded at England’s Cambridge University in 1815 – hosted a debate between...

Free Shakespeare in the Park’s ‘As You Like It’ fills NYC’s Delacorte Theater with the joy of love and community

When the reimagined musical production of As You Like It, co-adapted by Shaina Taub (who also created the music and lyrics) and Laurie Woolery (The Public Theater’s Director of Public Works, who also...

A current deconstruction of ‘Richard III’ from NYC’s Free Shakespeare in the Park

The 60th season of The Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park has opened at the Delacorte Theater with a new production of Richard III, directed by Tony Award nominee Robert O’Hara (Slave...

Pulitzer Prize winner ‘Fat Ham’ makes its blockbuster NYC debut Off-Broadway at The Public

The distinguished judges for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama most definitely got it right with their top recognition of James Ijames’ hilarious, heartfelt, and uplifting tragi-comedy Fat Ham, now in...

PBS documentary ‘American Masters: Joe Papp in Five Acts’ features the life and work of the founder of Off-Broadway’s Public Theater

To commemorate this summer’s 60th anniversary season of Free Shakespeare in The Park, presented at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, PBS is broadcasting a new documentary in its popular arts...

Off-Broadway’s ‘Suffs’ offers a rich, funny, and timely musical history lesson on women’s rights

Playing an extended world-premiere Off-Broadway engagement at The Public Theater, the ambitious sung-through musical Suffs, with book, music, and lyrics by Shaina Taub, who also leads a large...

Playwright James Ijames previews the Off-Broadway production of ‘Fat Ham’ at The Public

Critically acclaimed multiple award-winning Philadelphia-based playwright, director, actor, and educator James Ijames, an Associate Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, a Co-Artistic Director...

Groundbreaking choreopoem ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf’ makes a powerful return to Broadway

Last seen in NYC in 2019, in the Off-Broadway revival of poet/playwright Ntozake Shange’s groundbreaking genre-defying “choreopoem” at The Public Theater (where it was first presented in 1976, and was...

A variety of genres, styles, and moods in three concerts on the NYC cabaret scene

No matter what your taste in music and entertainment, NYC’s legendary nightclubs have it, as proven by three selections that kicked off the week at don’t tell mama, Birdland, and Joe’s Pub. And though...

New Mexican/American musicals ‘Desaparecidas’ and ‘¡Americano!’ coming soon to NYC

A one-night-only concert and a limited-engagement musical are coming this week to NYC stages, created and performed by a talented roster of Latin American musical-theater artists. Both promise to be...

Off-Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Awards announced 2022 live return and special honorees

The Lucille Lortel Awards, created by the Off-Broadway League in 1985, and presented annually to recognize Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway, will return to a live in-person celebration on Sunday,...

Audible’s masterful return of the devastating docudrama ‘Coal Country’ at Off-Broadway’s Cherry Lane Theatre

After the world-premiere production of Coal Country, which opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on March 3, 2020, was unexpectedly cut short by the closure of theaters necessitated by the...

Streaming selections from BPN, Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater, and Club44 Records

If the cold weather and COVID are keeping you inside, here are three star-studded streaming selections for listening and viewing this month that will keep you entertained in the warmth and safety of...

In honor of World AIDS Day, historic ‘Normal Heart’ to screen today

A Q&A afterward will feature Emmy Award-winning director Paris Barclay and members of the predominately BIPOC and LGBTQ cast.

It’s a busy summer for Jaime Lozano

Mexican-born musical multi-hyphenate Jaime Lozano is having a blockbuster summer, with both online and live appearances, in addition to his work on the hottest film to hit the screens. As part of the...

Get ‘A First Look at English with an Accent’ by Migguel Anggelo

Though the coronavirus pandemic has temporarily halted public access to live in-person shows at Joe’s Pub, the popular Astor Place venue has continued to entertain audiences with a free series of...

Coming soon from Red Bull, The Public, and MasterVoices

Three favorite NYC companies have new offerings making their virtual debut next week, in a variety of genres and styles. So whether you prefer a dramatization of a classic epic poem, an original audio...

The Public’s bilingual podcast of ‘Romeo y Julieta’ to star Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o

Director Saheem Ali continues his audio exploration of William Shakespeare’s canon with Romeo y Julieta – a new bilingual podcast of The Bard’s beloved classic Romeo and Juliet – collaborating with...

The Public Theater’s ‘Under the Radar Festival’ begins streaming this week

For the first time in its seventeen-year history, The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival will be going completely virtual in 2021, with twelve days of free performances beginning on Wednesday,...

Live and online this week

While the pandemic shutdown of Broadway continues, New York theater artists continue to reach out to fans with virtual presentations and a few live Off-Off-Broadway events that will keep...

The Public Theater examines the ‘SHIPWRECK’ of our nation in a four-part audio drama

In a co-production with DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (where SHIPWRECK made its American debut in February), The Public Theater presents the New York audio version premiere of Anne Washburn’s...

A benefit livestream on ‘Angels in America’ will help amfAR to fight COVID-19

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS research) has temporarily expanded its nearly four-decade study of infectious diseases and their impact on marginalized...

Apple Family Productions’ ‘Incidental Moments of the Day’ concludes the Zoom trilogy

Since 2010, audiences have been following the dinnertime conversations of the fictional Apples, an ordinary white middle-class family in upstate New York. The live on-stage performances were a running...

New album releases of ‘The Michael Friedman Collection’ and ‘In the Heights’ from Ghostlight Records

Ghostlight Records, an independent leader in original cast recordings of Broadway musicals and solo albums by its stars, has announced two new releases in the world-premiere series of The Michael...

Alt-cabaret artist and actor Kim David Smith talks about his new live album and his musical inspirations

Cabaret sensation Kim David Smith just released his first concert album Live at Joe’s Pub earlier this month, recorded during one of his recurrent sold-out performance at the iconic downtown nightclub...

A telling and powerful serial podcast of ‘Richard II’ by The Public Theater

Although COVID-19 has caused the cancellation of this year’s outdoor summer performances of free Shakespeare in the Park, it hasn’t stopped The Public Theater from offering another installment of its...

A heart-piercing tribute to frontline COVID responders in ‘The Line’ from The Public Theater

With the country hitting new daily highs as COVID-19 surges well beyond hot spots such as New York, New Jersey, and Connecituct, the Public Theater has produced a love letter to the medical community...

The Public Theater’s ‘The Line’ relays true pandemic stories from New York’s first-responders

As the coronavirus wreaks havoc on the world, and on live theater on and off Broadway, The Public Theater has responded with a virtual world premiere of The Line – an original Zoom docudrama with a...

Off-Broadway selections streaming this week from Red Bull, Mint, and The Public

From an expert conversation about a Shakespearean classic to a series of three rarely produced period-pieces to a documentary drama about NYC’s front-line workers in the current coronavirus pandemic,...

How to join the ‘Hamilton’ revolution

Founding Father Alexander Hamilton (ca. 1757-1804) was a key figure in the American Revolution, so it’s only fitting that the stage musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda (book, music, and lyrics)...

Significant streaming for the week of the 4th

While most of us will be celebrating Independence Day remotely this year, there’s a significant selection of virtual performances by New York theater artists that will enrich your 4th of July week. In...