DISPATCHES FROM DOMINO PARK: SUGAR! SUGAR! in the Summer of New York

by Leah Plante-Wiener

Pussypaws Puppetry / photo: Leah Plante-Wiener

In the year 2026, June settles upon New York like a dream. Pride Month is afoot and the Knicks are winning, with Zohran as our mayor and this summer’s more apocalyptic weather yet to come. New Yorkers everywhere sink their teeth into a city-wide craving for community, mass gatherings, and celebrations with strangers. Simply put, the city has been struck by a great spirit of neighbourliness. It’s been declared online, but it’s even more real in the streets: this is the Summer of New York. 

My June settles upon me like a fog. Work is slow, my air conditioning is brimming with mold and unusable, my lawyers are finishing up my O-1 visa application and there’s nothing for me to add. A little aimless and rather unmotivated, I spend much time yellowing my bedsheets with sweat, wondering if it is better to be overheated or unmedicated. The saving grace of this period of sweltering atrophy presents itself in my weekly Wednesday pilgrimage to Domino Park, where SUGAR! SUGAR!, curated by Theresa Buchheister, Annabel Thompson, and Alessandra Gómez, turns my Summer of New York into reality. 

Here is a series of observations, superlatives, and musings from SUGAR! SUGAR! 2026. 

Quote for the season: “Domino Park is the BBL of public space,” Malcolm-X Betts

Accessory for the season: Crackhead Barney’s ninety-nine red balloons

Set piece for the season: Scaffolding (HOLE PICS, Malcolm-X Betts) 

Transcendent instances of fabric use: 

-Kat Sotelo’s scissor lift dress 

-Buffy and her shroud, with support from the wind

-Isa Spector’s multipurpose red fabric, equally sublime as both wine and decapitated head

Inaugural Gazelle of North Brooklyn: Lena Engelstein

Phrase I say the most on SUGAR! SUGAR! opening night: “Wow! Everyone’s here!” 

Moment that meets me exactly where I’m at (third summer in a row hung up on the same guy): MTHR TRSA does “Nothing Compares 2 U”

Moment that best captures the state of things: The audience clapping for Two Trees Management during special thanks and Charlene crying out, “Don’t clap for them!” 

Moment that makes me go yeah, I could raise a kid in NYC:Toddler dances along to Julia Antinozzi’s choreography

Duo that makes me go yeah, I could get married:Star & Stan

Song that I am reminded is basically perfect: Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky”, courtesy of Cherry Jaymes

Biggest lore drop: DeliaDelia’s two sisters (Aeon Andreas, Maxi Hawkeye Canion), who have graciously left the swamp to shake ass for us 

Chekhov’s gun: Buffy’s bag of sugar, introduced at the top of HOLE PICS and ultimately poured onto her by MTHR TRSA, also making for the most deliciously literal moment of the month (SUGAR HOLE alive and well) 

Favourite audience member: Guy who has clearly just finished a run but decides to hang for the night, stretching shirtless in the first row 

Least favourite audience member: Middle aged guy who gets weirdly close to film MTHR TRSA pouring sugar onto Buffy, implicating his poor beagle, who didn’t ask to be part of this 

Favourite Pussypaws puppets:

-The stripper and her very long legs

-The good patient and her many organs

-The bisexual devils on the hunt for a threesome

Imminent battle of the bands: Isa Spector’s grapes versus Kat Sotelo’s construction crew

Am I Scared or Am I Turned On Award: Gus Mahoney as Dionysos 

Dance lift that makes me crave intimate physical contact with another person like a mf: The one that happens about halfway through Julia Antinozzi’s piece in one of few moments of contact between dancers thus far, which makes me gasp, and sigh, and long for better for myself

Night of Most Vehicles: Malcolm-X Betts (U-Haul truck) + Kat Sotelo (motorcycle, two scissor lifts)

Original tune that gets stuck in my head: Pussypaws Puppetry’s “Life is Not a Taylor Swift Song”

Most topical happening: DeliaDelia playing basketball 

Snippets of text that got me thinking:

-”The end is not my style,” Isa Spector

-”All of this work and look what it’s got me,” Malcolm-X Betts

-Brendan Germaine’s monologue on wanting to be remembered after death

Artists that I am HONOURED! to have donated fabric to, without knowing what it would be used for, and what a delight it was to find out: Pussypaws Puppetry 

Meltiest popsicle available at the refreshment stand: The goat milk caramel situation 

Food item we need more of next year: Pizza

Overarching theme: DESIRE! DeliaDelia longs to be real girl and taunts her basketball competitors with “gay boy”; Pussypaws Puppetry turns disabled artists’ tales of sex and love into song and dance; Julia Antinozzi stages choreography to ambient breakup music where dancers touch only in fleeting moments; Isa Spector adapts the Bakkhai; HOLE PICS does as HOLE PICS does; Malcolm-X Betts paints the hottest gay guys you’ve ever seen and beats up a mattress with a baseball bat; Kat Sotelo asks if this is beautiful and sits on cake. SUGAR! SUGAR! 2026 is a horny, sticky dreamscape ripe with longing, where bodies reach for each other, what is beyond them, and what is tucked away within them. 

Public bathroom I wish was open after 10 pm: Domino Sugar Factory

Will I be attending all four SUGAR! SUGAR! programs next year? Yes :)

Should I be entrusted with programming one of these? YES PLEASE GAWD THERESA EMAIL ME