What's Happening!
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SUMMERWORKS 2026 IS ALMOST HERE! MEET THE WRITERS & DIRECTORS
Our annual line-up of three brand-new plays is approaching, featuring: TITANS by Jesse Jae Hoon, directed by Tara Elliott; DERANGEMENTS by Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, directed by Annie Tippe; and THE FAMILY DOG by Bailey Williams, directed by Tara Ahmadinejad.
We’re thrilled to be working with a few old friends and a few new ones. Show information, casts and creative teams, and full performance schedules are coming soon – but you can secure your spot now, with a Summerworks Festival Pass!
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SUMMERWORKS 2025'S SOLD-OUT CRITIC'S PICK COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE RETURNS
Tickets for Ro Reddick’s COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE are on sale now! The Summerworks 2025 Critic’s Pick, directed by Knud Adams, will return for an extended run co-produced by MCC Theater, Clubbed Thumb and Page 73. CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS & INFO
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MEET OUR NEW GROUP COHORTS!
A very warm welcome to the incoming writers and directors taking part in Clubbed Thumb’s Early-Career Writers’ Group and New Play Fellowship!
Directors Terrence I Mosley, Liz Peterson and Hanna Yurfest will work on newly commissioned plays by Max Mooney, jose sebastian alberdi and Emma Horwitz respectively – stay tuned for a Winterworks announcement.
And we’re looking forward to getting to know Alyssa Haddad-Chin, Doug Robinson, Dylan Guerra, Jan Rosenberg, Jen Diamond, Nadja Leonard-Hooper, Sarah Grace Goldman and Yulia Tsukerman in this year’s writers’ group!
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THANK YOU FOR MAKING OUR GALA A GREAT SUCCESS
Thanks to everyone who joined us to honor Crystal, Susannah, and Miriam, and to everyone who contributed to make it a truly special night.
We were moved by the warmth and generosity in the room on Monday October 6th — lots of hugs, laughter and a even few happy tears. These three are the real deal and we are lucky to know them; we’re excited to keep celebrating them and working with them for many years to come.
Actors are at the heart of what we do, and it’s not too late to support them with a gift to our 2025 gala! DONATE HERE
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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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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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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
featuring
TITANS
by Jesse Jae Hoon
directed by Tara Elliott
Jesse Jae Hoon (윤재훈) is a playwright, organizer, and occasional actor. He’s developed work with The Public Theater (EWG ’23-25), New York Theatre Workshop, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Rattlestick Theater, Ma-Yi Theater Company (’22-’24 CRNY resident playwright), The Civilians (R&D ’25-26), Yangtze Rep (Project YZ ’26), The Playwrights Realm (’22-23 fellow), Theater J, Studio Theatre, Egg & Spoon, The Parsnip Ship, and more. 2023 Ollie New Play Award; 2024 MacDowell Fellow; 2025 Yaddo Residency. MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College. jessejaehoon.com
Tara Elliott (she/they) is a director and choreographer of plays, devised works, and site-responsive performances. Recent directing includes Rachel Lin’s Dear John (Small Boat Productions/HERE Arts) and Emma Horwitz + Bailey Williams’ Two Sisters Finds a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods (Rattlestick Theater/New Georges). She is the recipient of a Venturous Theater Grant for development of experimental audio drama Pleasure Machine and a Tow Travel Grant for research in Cuba. She has developed new plays with The Playwrights Realm, New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, Rattlestick, Colt Coeur, Pipeline, Fresh Ground Pepper, LaMicro Theater, Teatro LATEA, Goethe Institut, and the Exquisite Corpse Company among others. Her work has been seen in London, Seoul, Edinburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, and Santiago, and in NYC theaters including The Public, The Cherry Lane, The New Ohio, HERE Arts, and Walkerspace. 2025 New Georges Audrey Resident. Mercury Store Residencies 2024 & 2022. 2021 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow. 2020 CoCo Resident with Colt Coeur. 2018 Drama League Directing Fellow. MFA Directing, Brooklyn College. She currently teaches Directing at NYU Tisch: Playwrights Downtown.
DERANGEMENTS
by Nadja Leonhard-Hooper
directed by Annie Tippe
Nadja Leonhard-Hooper is a writer and performer who makes plays, musicals, and movies. Her work has been seen at Joe’s Pub, Ars Nova, the Edinburgh Fringe, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Elysian, The Bell House, The Drama League, and 59E59. She has been produced by Two Headed Rep, One Year Lease Theater Company, and The Tank. Her play Funny Bone was an Ojai finalist in 2024. Her screenplay License to Drive is being optioned by Working Barn Productions. With playwright / demon wife Jake Brasch, Nadja is AMERICAN SING-SONG (A.S.S), a two-person musical theater factory that writes and performs comedic big-cast musicals. This year, their musical HOLE! will play in London, Scotland, and New York.
Annie Tippe is an award-winning director and creator of new work, music theater, and film. Off-Broadway: Octet (World Premiere; Signature. Lortel Award: Best Direction, Best Musical), Three Houses (World Premiere; Signature. Lortel Award: Best Musical), Ghost Quartet (World Premiere; Bushwick Starr. Norton Award: Best Visiting Production), Magnificent Bird / Book of Travelers (Playwrights Horizons), Your Own Personal Exegesis (LCT). Regional: HUZZAH! (World Premiere; Old Globe), Life After (Ed Mirvish CAA; Goodman, Jeff Award Nom), COWBOY BOB (World Premiere; Alley), Cult of Love (World Premiere; IAMA), POTUS (Berkeley Rep). Film: “HELP ME MARY” (Lower East Side Film Fest; Best Narrative Short), “EGG TIMER” (Austin Film Fest). Former Ars Nova Director-in-Residence, Drama League Directing Fellow, Williamstown Directing Corps. Upcoming: Cyrano @ Old Globe; Babysitters Club with Mark Sonnenblick and Kate Weatherhead.www.annietippe.com
THE FAMILY DOG
by Bailey Williams
directed by Tara Ahmadinejad
Bailey Williams is a playwright, performer and producer. Her past productions include the off-Broadway premiere Two Sisters Find a Box of Lesbian Erotica in the Woods, directed by Tara Elliott in a co-production by Rattlestick and New Georges in Spring of 2025 (which followed its workshop production at The Exponential Festival in January 2024); Coach Coach, directed by Sarah Blush, Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks 2024; Coach Coach, directed by Dara Malina, Clubbed Thumb’s Winterworks 2023; Events, dir. Sarah Blush, The Hearth at The Brick, December 2022; I thought I would die but I didn’t, dir. Sarah Blush, The Tank, May 2019; Buffalo Bailey’s Ranch for Gay Horses, Troubled Teen Girls and Other: a 90 Minute Timeshare Presentation, The Exponential Festival, January 2018. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and received her MFA from Brooklyn College in 2021. Bailey is currently the Co-director of the Exponential Festival, a Producer with New Georges, a Script Wrangler at Clubbed Thumb, and founding member of Privy Producing Collective, which gives young artists the tools needed to produce their own work. She, with her partner Emma Horwitz, run a monthly play reading series at Pete’s Candy Store called The Ecstatic Peephole (ig: @ecstaticpeephole).
Tara Ahmadinejad is an Obie-award winning director and co-founder of the live arts collective Piehole. Past Clubbed Thumb productions: Grief Hotel by Liza Birkenmeier, Lunch Bunch by Adrian Einspanier, and The Woman’s Party by Rinne Groff. Recent Piehole works: Disclaimer (Under the Radar, Drama League Award Nominee) and Christmas Mountain (WNYC’s Greene Space). Piehole’s next project, For You Alone, is in residency at HERE through the HARP program. Tara teaches directing at Queens College – CUNY. New Georges Affiliated Artist; NYTW Usual Suspect; MFA in Directing, Columbia University.
MORE SHOW INFORMATION, CASTS, CREATIVE TEAMS & FULL PERFORMANCE SCHEDULES COMING SOON!
Plus: readings of eight new plays from the Early-Career Writers’ Group!
MAY 14 – JUNE 30, 2026
at the Wild Project
195 E 3rd St, New York, NY 10009
PASSES ON SALE NOW
Starting at $75 (all fees included)
