What's Happening!
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YOU'RE INVITED TO THE CLUBBED THUMB GALA
On Monday, October 6th 2025 at the Etsy Headquarters in DUMBO, Clubbed Thumb will be honoring Crystal Finn, Susannah Flood and Miriam Silverman.
These three actresses are at the very heart of what we do — as individual artists and as exemplars of their craft. Where would Clubbed Thumb be without actresses like them — and without these actresses specifically?
Crystal, Susannah and Miriam have been integral to our work for the last 15 years, and we are thrilled to announce we’ll be celebrating them at our gala this fall. CLICK FOR MORE
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THANK YOU FOR COMING TO SUMMERWORKS 2025
Whether it was your first Summerworks or your 28th, we are so pleased you could join us. CLICK HERE for some photos and essays from this season.
We’ll be spending the summer incubating and planning for the fall, but we have lot of news to share, so watch this space!
In the meantime, we’re pleased to announce that our outgoing board chair will match donations up to a total of $25,000 to support future remounts of Summerworks shows (like this season’s Deep Blue Sound). He wants us to keep it up – and so do we! CLICK HERE TO JOIN THAT EFFORT
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ANNOUNCING SUMMERWORKS 2025
Due to overwhelming demand, we’re adding performances this year – but Summerworks shows always sell out, so lock in your seats with a pass!
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THANK YOU FOR A GREAT RUN!
Spending the last two months with Deep Blue Sound has been a joy and a balm. We are deeply proud of the work, and humbled by the talent and dedication of this company of artists.
The show played for six sold-out weeks and we added as many shows as we could – but sadly, we closed this weekend. Thank you to the over 4,000 people who came to visit our island. And thank you to all the artists, staff, funders and friends who made it possible. This was a special one.
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APPLY TO CLUBBED THUMB'S 25/26 NEW PLAY DIRECTING FELLOWSHIP
New play directors who have worked at least three years outside of an educational setting, and who plan to be in NYC September 2025 through January 2026, are welcome to apply for the fellowship by completing the form HERE – applications due April 1st!
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NOW PLAYING: DEEP BLUE SOUND
Our “devastatingly beautiful” production from Summerworks 2023 returns for a limited engagement, in residence at the Public Theater. Now playing! CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS
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WINTERWORKS 2025 HAS COME TO A CLOSE
Thank you to the hundreds of people who joined as at Playwrights Downtown for the 10th annual Winterworks. We were so proud of the work these amazing artists made — and we managed to cram everyone in to share it. Congratulations especially to Directing Fellows Iris McCloughan, NJ Agwuna and Laura Dupper – read more HERE
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NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 10TH BIENNIAL COMMISSION
This year we lost one of our great comic dramatists: Christopher Durang. We’ve been reflecting on how powerful and much-needed savage humor like his is in a world like ours today. So, for the 10th Biennial Commission, please consider his work, especially from the 1980’s. Applications are due March 20th, 2025. Read more and submit yours HERE
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ANNOUNCING A RETURN ENGAGEMENT OF SUMMERWORKS 2023'S DEEP BLUE SOUND
We are thrilled to announce that Deep Blue Sound – which ran to sold-out houses at Summerworks 2023 – will return for five weeks this winter. After a wildly successful run of Grief Hotel earlier this season, we are excited to return to The Public Theater with another Summerworks hit. CLICK FOR TICKETS & INFO
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THANK YOU FOR MAKING OUR GALA SUCH A SUCCESS!
Monday night’s Gala, celebrating our dear friends and collaborators dots, was beautiful, moving and very fun. Thank you to everyone who attended, performed, volunteered, donated and otherwise supported this very special night.
See photos from the event on our Instagram (and tag @clubbedthumb if you’re posting your own)!
At the event, we raised funds in honor of dots to help us better support the designers in our community – and we happily exceeded our goal. But there’s no such thing as a late donation! If you’d like to contribute to the fund, click HERE
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OUR NEW ANTHOLOGY - ON SALE NOW
We’ve been eager to put out a second anthology since Funny, Strange, Provocative was published in 2007, and the last year finally provided us with the time to take on this long-awaited project. We are thrilled to announce that Unusual Stories, Unusually Told, published by Bloomsbury/Methuen, is now available!
In it you’ll find seven Clubbed Thumb plays that span 18 years of our history, as well as essays and interviews about the work, and the often atypical processes that led to their productions.
Read more about the book and get your discounted copy (and our first anthology) HERE
Usus, Disillusionment, and Power
by Jesse Jae Hoon
Bro Paul: “Why did you join the order?”
Bro JP: “I-D-K. It just seemed like the least evil thing.”
The first thing you notice about the Bros of Franciscan Friars Minor, as represented in T. Adamson’s Usus, is how close you immediately feel to them.
In the days leading up to the 2019 workshop of Usus I was part of, I was quite apprehensive about exploring religion, having not grown up as a person of faith. How could somebody who’d never known God, who barely stepped inside Synagogue save for family Bar Mitzvahs, possibly understand people who followed the letter of Christ to the point of self-induced poverty?
When the Bros’ central teaching of living only off what’s necessary to survive is challenged by the ever-growing Church, they embark on a journey of disillusionment that I found immediately familiar. In their crisis of trust in their Church, the Bros have a profound realization of the difference between their faith and the institution of Faith™.
I did not grow up religious – I avoided Synagogue and opted out of a Bar Mitzvah (yes, even though the parties are always fun). As a Millennial Chicagoan in a public college prep school, my religion was The American Dream. I entered high school after President Obama was elected – the promise of linear progress stretched out before us, the guarantee of reward for hard work and superior intellect.
Young people, raised on opining on “hope” and “change,” have emerged into adulthood as every American promise has been eaten away – by debt, by war, by austerity, by corruption, by an ongoing pandemic, by a culture that values opulence and individualism over humanity.
Our hard work has been repaid with more precariousness. Our trust in our democratic institutions has been rewarded with shuttered libraries and gutted school budgets. Our commitment to education has been met with debt (and, more recently, police). When we push back, we’re told to stay in our place, to put down the avocado toast and go back to work, and, above all, to be grateful for what we have.
So we begin to hate ourselves. We tell ourselves that we’re the problem for not saving right or not working hard enough, that, as the Bros chant in prayer, “I am a stupid dumb trash boy.” Because if we can’t twist ourselves into a shape that still fits into the system’s design, surely we must simply be built wrong, we must have done something. Why else would the infallible Church abandon us like this?
Unless the problem is not us at all.
No, we don’t practice celibacy. No, we don’t live in self-induced poverty. But we all understand the profound horror of realizing that the system we’re in is not synonymous with learning, progress, and the collective good. The danger is letting ourselves become disillusioned with these values themselves.
A Church is not God. A university is not education itself. A political system is not truth.
As you watch the Bros of Franciscan Friars Minor try to hold onto their faith, I hope you will resolve to never lose yours.