Skip to main content
Shop Merch Add a Show Listing
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

About the Theatre

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY (TNC) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning community cultural center that is known for its high artistic standards and widespread community service. One of New York’s most prolific theatrical organizations, TNC produces 30-40 premieres of new American plays per year, at least 10 of which are by emerging and young playwrights. Many influential theater artists of the last quarter century have found TNC’s Resident Theater Program instrumental to their careers, among them Sam Shepard, Moises Kaufman, Richard Foreman, Charles Busch, Maria Irene Fornes, Miguel Piñero, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Vin Diesel, Oscar Nuñez, Laurence Holder, Romulus Linney and Academy Award Winners Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody. TNC also presents plays by multi-ethnic/multi-disciplinary theater companies who have no permanent home. Among the well-known companies that have been presented by TNC are Mabou Mines, the Living Theater, Bread and Puppet Theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and COBU, the Japanese women’s drumming, and dance group.TNC also produced the Yangtze Repertory Company’s 1997 production of BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, which was the only play ever produced in America by Gao Xingjian before he won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature. TNC seeks to develop theater audiences and inspire future theater artists from the often-overlooked low-income minority communities of New York City by producing minority writers from around the world and by bringing the community into theater and theater into the community through its many free Festivals. TNC productions have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and over 42 OBIE Awards for excellence in every theatrical discipline. TNC is also the only Theatrical Organization to have won the Mayor’s Stop The Violence award.

Upcoming Shows

ASTORIA

ASTORIA

Nov 5 – Nov 22, 2026

A new family drama by Richard Ploetz explores themes of mortality, the fallibility of memory, and the meaning of home.

Boy Santos

Boy Santos

Nov 5 – Nov 29, 2026

Charlie Santos is visited by memories of his childhood in the tenements of Spanish Harlem, 1962. He sees the street games, the legal and illegal enterprises, the captives of heroin, the desperate poor and a traumatic event he believes caused the death of his infant brother. It...

How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond

How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond

Nov 5 – Nov 22, 2026

Playwright, director and poet Melanie Maria Goodreaux returns to her longtime creative home, Theater for the New City (TNC), with the world premiere of How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond, a darkly comic Louisiana love story about death, desire, family, faith and the...

The Flowers of Forest Hills

The Flowers of Forest Hills

Nov 5 – Nov 22, 2026

Set after World War II, “The Flowers of Forest Hills” follows a family who emigrates from Austria to Queens. We see three generations of women, including a girl, a mother and a grandmother (as part of a cast of seven characters) as they adapt to life in the United States. Family...

SantaCon The Play

SantaCon The Play

Dec 3 – Dec 20, 2026

New York City's annual SantaCon. Many residents consider it the worst day of the year. Who among us hasn't been going about their life on a brisk December morning only to realize, with slowly encroaching dread, that there are an unusually high number of Santas about? And in the...

Getting COMPLETE

Getting COMPLETE

Jan 14 – Jan 31, 2027

Getting COMPLETE... what happens when the bully grows up!

Articles

Past Shows

123 total · showing 11–20

The Needless Burden of Conscience

The Needless Burden of Conscience

Jun 4 – Jun 7, 2026

After almost twenty years of employment, Eileen Redman is in the running for a once in a lifetime work promotion. Eileen fears that this opportunity may be taken from her when she learns that another candidate for the promotion has hacked her very personal photos and made them...

A Package Full of Memories

A Package Full of Memories

Apr 30 – May 17, 2026

In present day, a package of photos and documents from two lives provide the stories of the play. A guide, along with actors, brings the memories to life. Maxene and Sarah in 1930’s Alabama face the dangers of racial prejudice in the Jim Crow South. Anya and Elina in a shtetl...

THE DECAY OF A ROSE

THE DECAY OF A ROSE

Apr 9 – Apr 26, 2026

Written and directed by the award-winning playwright Victor Vauban Júnior, this theatrical production is premiering at the Theater for the New City on April 9th. The production explores crucial moments in lives of Graham and Leah, a biracial couple in love who contend with...

Freedom for a Night

Freedom for a Night

Feb 19 – Feb 22, 2026

Through aerial performance, spoken word, song, and dance, the iconic “dangerous” women of ancient Greek mythology step out of the shadows and reclaim their narratives. Characters including Medea, Medusa, and Circe tell their stories in their own words, challenging the myths that...

The Popes of Farragut Street

The Popes of Farragut Street

Nov 6 – Nov 23, 2025

Melanie Maria Goodreaux’s New Play, THE POPES OF FARRAGUT STREET, Premieres at Theater for the New City

Not Our Home, Not Our Home

FeaturedNot Our Home, Not Our Home

Sep 25 – Sep 28, 2025

A darkly funny, haunting story of asian guilt and belonging, blending comedy, horror, and drama in a striking new immigrant play.

New Play
Breaking the Trust

Breaking the Trust

Sep 2 – Sep 17, 2025

Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival, Crystal Field, Exec.Dir., presents the NY premiere of Breaking the Trust, a darkly humorous new play written by Bill Rogers, directed by Gerald vanHeerden. Inspired by true events, the play finds four sisters reuniting in their...

BroadwayWorld TV


Blue Gum, Brooklyn  in Off-Off-Broadway Blue Gum, Brooklyn
Matthew Corozine Studio Theatre (10/09-10/25) PHOTOS
54 Below DUELS Volume III: Halloween Edition in Off-Off-Broadway 54 Below DUELS Volume III: Halloween Edition
54 Below (10/25-10/25)
Broadway Magic Hour in Off-Off-Broadway Broadway Magic Hour
Broadway Magic Hour: Magic Show (7/25-1/02)
Falling Into Now in Off-Off-Broadway Falling Into Now
Greenroom42 (10/24-10/24) PHOTOS
Finishing School in Off-Off-Broadway Finishing School
Hampton Theatre Company (10/15-11/01)
Frankenstein  in Off-Off-Broadway Frankenstein
Manes Studio Theatre of Long Island (10/09-10/31) PHOTOS
Kate, Allie and the '86 Mets in Off-Off-Broadway Kate, Allie and the '86 Mets
Asylum (11/05-11/10)
No nos merecemos soñar in Off-Off-Broadway No nos merecemos soñar
Teatro LATEA (10/28-10/30)
Professor Lammergeier's Evening of Poe's Poetry & Prose in Off-Off-Broadway Professor Lammergeier's Evening of Poe's Poetry & Prose
Stag & Lion Theatre (10/31-11/01)
Trump and Melania in Off-Off-Broadway Trump and Melania
american theatre of Actors (10/28-11/01)