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
A note from Playwright Bailey Williams
I had the thought that I should write a play about life coaches. Many people I knew were becoming life coaches. Often they were people who had no business telling anybody how to do anything, much less live. I watched these coaches until some of them started to coach other coaches, who eventually coached coaches themselves. Now this is interesting, I thought. It’s coaches all the way down.
Something I believe, perhaps more than I believe anything, is that a person is many people inside, each called forth by context. I believe that the multiplicity inside us allows for tremendous change, for good and for evil. In other words, I believe you are a murderer!
Who are you? How did you become yourself? What choices did you make to get here? And where? And with what? And most importantly—because we do need a motive—why?
I was once in a relationship I would charitably describe as toxic and realistically describe as abusive. I could tell you all the little things she did to me, but what I’m going to tell you is what I did to her. One day, I received a job offer that would require me to move out of New York for three months. To afford it, I needed her to sublet the second bedroom of the apartment we shared. It was her music studio which sat mostly unused, accumulating junk. I asked for this favor with my full heart in my mouth and when she refused, I spat in her face.
In the suspended microsecond after I had done this and before she could react, when I was alone in the bright shimmering rage that had finally broken to the surface, I thought, this is how it happens. This is what a person feels before they kill another person.
Then, immediately, I had another thought. There weren’t any words in this thought. It was a primal awareness of being trapped behind my own eyes, subject to my own subjectivity, with no escape in sight. It was accompanied by an overwhelming, paralyzing shame.
Anyway, you are not your thoughts and your thoughts are not fixed, thank God. You are also not your body, except when you’re horribly your body, which is absolutely chock full of mysteries. Listen to your laugh, for example. What is that sound?
Plays and coaches ask how a person changes, the question that resists an answer and requires constant investigation. We will never finish this cross-examination of the human spirit. It is a case with infinite solutions.
Sometimes the actors ask me about certain lines in the play. What does this mean? I look at the line in question. What was she thinking, the person who wrote that line? I have no idea, I say. Let’s change it!