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 note from playwright Nadja Leonhard-Hooper

Are you a “female” of reproductive age? Have you noticed that strange things are happening around/ inside you? I feel I turned 31 or however old I am (just checked- 32), and everyone started talking about having babies. Every very sensible nonbinary people started talking about giving birth as something the body was “made to do.” What the duck? I’m excited about having kids someday, but this made me feel a little amboyvalent about the whole thing. I can’t even imagine how disturbing this would be for someone who finds the idea of having kids disgusting.

Almost everyone I know who as a uberus has something scary and unexplained going on with their body. Why is that? Why are there no answers? I know why. It’s the P word :( You know which P word I mean. So then you look for answers outside of the doctors office- Pussy power!! And Mama you find yourself in an alt right pipeline with raw milk transphobes who think it’s your divine calling to procreate in a nap dress.

Do you think this play too hard on men? Or, then again- is the play actually too easy on men? This concern is a pendulum that swings back and forth: I’m going too easy on men → I’m going too hard on men → i’m being a defender of men! → I’m being so cruel to the poor men…  My hope is that this is good, actually, because that’s how I feel in real life. I should be more forgiving..i should be more vengeful…I should be more understanding…I have to stop trusting these fuckers! I just think it’s very hard to be a man. I do. I think being raised as a traditional man is an abusive thing to do to a child. The only people who have really firm ideas about how men should behave seem to be complete psychopaths. Not that it’s any easier to be a freemale..foymal…fee-maile? Best to be a slug. Best…to be a slug. 

I would like to write beautiful serious plays about the experiences that many people are having right now: getting flashed and groped and raped, and having rapists in power always and forever. And having abortions and miscarriages, and being forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, and dying of miscarriages because they can’t access care that’s labeled abortion care. And giving birth in auto body shops because they can’t go to a hospital without risk of deportation. And giving birth in a courtroom right here in Brooklyn. And being forced by a judge present on zoom to have a caesarean against their will. And having mysterious pains for decades and being disbelieved and abused by our medical system, especially if they are not white. I would like to write beautifully and seriously about this, but unfortunately I am a completely perverted demento, and my scream for reproductive justice for all people must come in the form of a fart joke.

In closing, my primary goal with this play is to make you laugh and to surprise you. I myself crave surprise, because it reminds me that the world can be different from how it is right now, and I can be different from how I am right now.

I’m very grateful to Clubbed Thumb. This play was so clearly evidence that I should be in some sort of intensive therapy and instead they gave me my Off Broadway debut and I will love them forever for that.