What's Happening!

  • SUMMERWORKS 2026 IS ALMOST HERE!

    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.

    Running May 14 – Jun 30 at the Wild Project. TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

  • 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

  • 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!

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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!

    CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO & TO BUY YOUR PASS NOW

  • 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.

    Click here for photos, essays and a link to buy the play!

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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 response to Titans
by Bailey Williams

If you’re searching for a bitter digestif to Jesse Jae Hoon’s galvanizing, zippy Titans, and if chewing on your own mind isn’t enough (more on that later), I’d turn to the back of the Grove Weidenfeld edition of Wallace Shawn’s Aunt Dan and Lemon for an essay from the author. In it, Shawn elaborates on his lifelong artistic theme: “the difference between a perfectly decent person and a monster is just a few thoughts.” His argument is very simple. Once you morally compromise in the name of your own comfort, your thoughts take on a life of their own. That morally compromising thought is not going to simply go away; it is going to evolve into a series of permissions and excuses to allow for maximum comfort until your morality has “sickened and died in your own skull.”

Do you consider yourself a good person? Do you act in accordance with your highest values? Or, like me, when you watched Titans did you find yourself narrativizing why, exactly, you do not have Signal downloaded on your phone? Why, in your phone’s library, there are 10,000 videos of your own cat instead of anything moderately helpful to anyone, anywhere? Why, at that very moment, faced with a banner that states “Meet Your Neighbors” and your seat neighbors are indeed meeting each other and having a perfectly lovely conversation, you stare straight ahead? Jesse’s play is full of good, moral people and you know this because of their relentless action. A teacher advocates for her students’ safety, despite the reticence of the school bureaucracy. A chicken shop manager brings food to a terrified neighbor, then gently coaxes her into doing the same for others. A mother disrupts traffic, a tow truck lady refuses to tow. They do not complain, despair, or give up. They do not stand in a casual semi-circle drinking natural wine and bemoaning the president, the news, the war, the terrible things that are happening in this country.

This is how you behave, says Titans, watch and learn.

I do not want to be a bad person. But I sat in a dark theater, watched a play, and said to myself: but I donate. As I watched heroes “become brave,” my mind made excuses and filled the vast psychic space between me and the play with reasons, really good reasons, why I am not doing what should be done. Isn’t that interesting? Faced with literal instruction, I refused to be taught. Instead I began the old, familiar process of devoting myself to the altar of my own comfort.

There are no antagonists on stage in Titans because I am the antagonist. ICE is the enemy, sure, but the enemy is also the ways, every day, I let my mind relax to the horror. You might be the antagonist too. I can’t see inside your skull. I don’t know what gives me more of that old comfort feeling. The fact that I alone might be deficient… or the fact that there might be more of us lurking in the dark of the theater.

So now what? We have a manual— a little zine— giving us some ideas. Do we dare to disrupt ourselves? Or do we let yet another excuse make the case for itself and grow accustomed, once again, to the frailty of our morality? There will be a new horror tomorrow. What will you think about it? More importantly, what will you do?