{"id":240083,"date":"2026-05-22T01:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T01:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240083\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T01:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T01:04:32","slug":"a-beloved-theater-festival-is-back-let-the-adventures-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/240083\/","title":{"rendered":"A Beloved Theater Festival Is Back. Let the Adventures Begin."},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 1996, Clubbed Thumb<\/a> has been running Summerworks, an annual mini-fest of one-act plays that occupies a unique spot on the Venn diagram of New York theater. The fare is not aggressively experimental, but it is also quirkier than what you\u2019ll see at major Off Broadway venues \u2014 though some Summerworks plays have moved on to that tier, like Ro Reddick\u2019s \u201cCold War Choir Practice,\u201d<\/a> which recently transferred to the nonprofit MCC Theater. And it\u2019s not as bulky or commercially minded as what you\u2019ll see on Broadway, though Heidi Schreck\u2019s \u201cWhat the Constitution Means to Me\u201d<\/a> did end up there in 2019, two years after premiering at Summerworks.<\/p>\n

So what is Summerworks? The mission statement of Clubbed Thumb, whose artistic director is the co-founder Maria Striar, asserts that the company \u201ccommissions, develops and produces funny, strange and provocative new plays by living American writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen a fair number of those shows, and what\u2019s striking is how many have actually fulfilled that tall order \u2014 like the Ethan Lipton Wild West \u201cTumacho\u201d<\/a> (2016), a play with music; Jaclyn Backhaus\u2019s historical adventure \u201cMen on Boats\u201d<\/a> (2015); and Trish Harnetiaux\u2019s comedy about shoe-store employees, \u201cTin Cat Shoes\u201d<\/a> (2018). The series has also nurtured a striking collection of playwrights (Gina Gionfriddo, Sarah Ruhl, Will Arbery, Clare Barron) and directors (Pam MacKinnon, Anne Kauffman, Robert O\u2019Hara). Even when productions come up short, they can leave a sort of mental contrail, like this year\u2019s series opener, \u201cTitans.\u201d<\/p>\n

That show, by Jesse Jae Hoon, uses an often comic tone to convey the stress, and sometimes outright danger, of living in an American town in 2026 when you are an immigrant, or not white, or not wealthy, or all of the above. The characters include Fran (Shannon Tyo), who works \u201cfront desk at the Marriott next to the Wegmans\u201d and gets close to Farida (Layan Elwazani), who manages a \u201cchicken place.\u201d The high schoolers Riyo (Megan Lomax) and Bel (Marvelyn Ramirez) try to create their own manga. It\u2019s tough to be a kid in a world in which people are brutally pulled from their cars, a world that has safety protocols for tornadoes and fires, but also active shooters, pandemics and neo-Nazis.<\/p>\n

This topical approach is relatively rare at Summerworks. Ben Brantley described a production<\/a> as having \u201cthe appeal of one of those wayward trips to nowhere people find themselves craving when the weather turns warm, preferably in an open convertible at lazy speeds.\u201d That could be said of many of the series\u2019 shows, even if occasionally the absurdism and whimsy curdle into affectation and \u201caren\u2019t-I-clever?\u201d mannerisms.<\/p>\n

If \u201cTitans\u201d doesn\u2019t hit the bull’s-eye on all three of Clubbed Thumb\u2019s mission-statement targets, it may be because Tara Elliott\u2019s quite funny production comes up short on the strange and provocative front. But I know some of it will linger in my mind, like the way disappearances are staged with a blackout and a powerful rattle. Or maybe it will be the sharp line readings from an ensemble that also includes the charismatic Irene Sofia Lucio, who recently played the Italian free spirit Isidora in \u201cLiberation\u201d on Broadway.<\/p>\n

No matter what, odds are high that you will see some of the best actors New York City has to offer in an 89-seat room tucked away in the East Village. I love big spectacles as much as anybody, but being able to watch Maryann Plunkett bring to life the most subtle of emotions, as she did with staggering understatement in Abe Koogler\u2019s \u201cDeep Blue Sound,\u201d<\/a> from just a few feet away feels incredibly precious. I\u2019m looking forward to this kind of acting wizardry \u2014 in a register likely to be very different \u2014 in the series\u2019 next two shows: Nadja Leonhard-Hooper\u2019s \u201cDerangements\u201d and Bailey Williams\u2019s \u201cThe Family Dog.\u201d That last one, in particular, has an intriguing cast that includes Talene Monahon (the \u201cMeet the Cartozians\u201d author); the comic experts Sarah Steele and Jennifer Van Dyck; and one of the \u201cStereophonic\u201d stars, Tom Pecinka.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also impossible to talk about the Summerworks experience without bringing up its home since 2013, the Wild Project<\/a>. This venue has a large garage door that rolls up to leave the lobby open to the street, which helps make it a welcoming space integrated into its neighborhood. (How many theaters are barricaded like fortresses?) Audience members spill out onto East Third Street, chatting outside before and after shows. This only underlines what feels like Clubbed Thumb\u2019s continued interest in how small groups of people function, what binds us together and what divides us, and what forms an identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cTitans\u201d very much belongs to this vein, which I would describe as American civic as a counterbalance to American gothic. In our times of division and suspicion of the other and the different, Summerworks endures. It\u2019s a small light, but it shines bright.<\/p>\n

Summerworks 2026
\u201cTitans\u201d runs through May 26; \u201cDerangements,\u201d from June 1-12; and \u201cThe Family Dog,\u201d from June 18-30, at the Wild Project, Manhattan; clubbedthumb.org<\/a>. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since 1996, Clubbed Thumb has been running Summerworks, an annual mini-fest of one-act plays that occupies a unique…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34067,93822,3056,9,24,55,54,56,93823,905,85499,93821,93820],"class_list":["post-240083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-clubbed-thumb","tag-derangements-play","tag-festivals","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-the-family-dog-play","tag-theater","tag-theater-off-broadway","tag-titans-play","tag-wild-project-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}