What's Happening!

  • SUMMERWORKS 2025'S SOLD-OUT CRITIC'S PICK COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE RETURNS FOR SIX WEEKS - TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

    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. Friends of Clubbed Thumb have access to $45 tickets throughout the run – 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

SUMMERWORKS 2016

at The Wild Project 195 E. 3rd St. (between Ave. A & B)

EVERY ANGEL IS BRUTAL

by Julia Jarcho
directed by Knud Adams

with Jiehae Park, Susannah Perkins, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Jenny Seaston, Pete Simpson and Amelia Workman

set by Marsha Ginsberg
costumes by Sydney Maresca
lights by Bradley King
sound by Peter Mills Weiss
fight choreography Michael G. Chin
production stage manager Sonja Thorson

If “you share my bottomless appetite for women kicking ass” then “hie thee to the first installment in the Clubbed Thumb Summerworks Festival…it’s not just that Julia Jarcho is one of our more compelling playwrights; it’s that Angel mashes up all the action-lady tropes of pop culture…then imports the whole shebang into downtown experimental theater. That, naturally is where it gets really weird.”
– Helen Shaw, Time Out NY

May 27 – June 6, 2016

THE TOMB OF KING TOT

by Olivia Dufault
directed by Portia Krieger

with Brad Bellamy, Manik Choksi, Bianca Crudo, Carmen M. Herlihy and Annie McNamara

set by Carolyn Mraz
costumes by Tilly Grimes
lights by Barbara Samuels
sound & original composition by Lee Kinney
production stage manager Corinn Moreno

This “sweet and spiky new tragicomedy” from Olivia Dufault is “strikingly bold and assured.” A “pitch-perfect” cast!
CRITICS’ PICK!!
– Ben Brantley, The New York Times

June 11 – June 21, 2016

TUMACHO

a play with music by Ethan Lipton
directed by Leigh Silverman

with Bill Buell, John Ellison Conlee, Randy Danson, Gibson Frazier, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jennifer Lim, Omar Metwally, Jeremy Shamos and Danny Wolohan

set by David Zinn
costumes by Anita Yavich
lights by Jennifer Schriever
music director Mike Brun
production stage manager Megan Schwarz Dickert

An “impeccably inane horse opera by Ethan Lipton, directed with cantering wit by Leigh Silverman…Tumacho is the platonic theatrical version of the artfully anarchic, shrewdly mindless comedies we wait for every summer to hit movie theaters, often in vain. In other words, there’s no need to hold out for the rebooted Ghostbusters for as long as Tumacho is in town.”
CRITICS’ PICK!! 
– Ben Brantley, The New York Times

June 27 – July 9, 2016

Playwrights Horizons & Clubbed Thumb Present

MEN ON BOATS

by Jaclyn Backhaus
directed by Will Davis

With Jocelyn Bioh, Hannah Cabell, Danielle Davenport,Danaya Esperanza, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Birgit Huppuch, Elizabeth Kenny, Layla Khoshnoudi, Kelly McAndrew and Kristen Sieh

set by Arnulfo Maldonado
costumes by Ásta Bennie Hostetter
lights by Solomon Weisbard
sound by Jane Shaw
production stage manager Erin Gioia Albrecht

July 20 – August 21
Opening night: Monday, August 1, 2016

Men On Boats was originally produced by Clubbed Thumb in Summerworks 2015.