Staff Picks No. 130
Collage Revisited (1988, 2025) Story/ (2013) : Bill T. Jones, Arnie Zane, Janet Wong, Barrington Hinds, Jada Jenai, Shane Larson, Danielle Marshall, Jacoby Pruitt, Babou Sanneh, Hannah Seiden, Philip Strom, Mak Thornquest, Rosa Allegra Wolff, Charles R. Amirkhanian, Blue Gene Tyranny, The Orion String Quartet, Pauline Kim, Conrad Harris, Celia Hatton, Andrew Janss, Robert Wierzel, Liz Prince
New York Live Arts (Live Artery)
January 10th-12th 2026
A two-part offering from the legendary Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Part of a legacy project for the Company, Collage Revisited is a retreading of The History of Collage, the last collaboration between Jones and Zane before Zane's death, evoking a period where the two artists challenged what dance could be within the 1980s New York art scene. Story/ is a continuation of the Company's investigation in using John Cage's Indeterminacy as choreographic tool-- an employment of a "random menu of movement". This is performance theory and history come to life through iterative process, a must-see for anyone who cares about art not being made in a vacuum.
Staffer: Leah Plante-Wiener
Quiet Noise Volume Two: Art's 1,000,063rd Birthday : Awkard Silence, Zhenya Sklar, Lorenzo Sanjuán, Omen Project, Marija Kovačević, Serhiy Ruskyy, Shiloh Blue
The Q Train
Saturday January 17th 2026
Here's how this works: at 2 pm, you get on the Q train at Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue. You stay on the Q train until you get to Avenue M. A journey of noise artists performing... on the train. Field recordings, improvisation, collaborative noise; performance honouring the subway as its own instrument. An irresistible, once-in-a-blue-moon offering.
Staffer: Leah Plante-Wiener
Mami : Mario Banushi
Skirball (UTR)
January 7th-10th 2026
This will be my first Under the Radar show of the season, and I'm excited to see what the fuss is about: The Guardian calls Mario "a rising star who represents the new face of Greek theatre," and the play explores the depths and heights of motherhood in multimedia fashion, so...bring your mom as a plus one? If she's cool with nudity, violence, and smoke, of course.
Staffer: Billy McEntee
Watch Me Walk : Anne Gridley, Eric Ting, Asli Bulbul, Jian Jung, Lux Haac, Kate McGee, Tei Blow, Noah Lethbridge, Thomas Jenkeleit
Playwrights Horizons (UTR/SoHo Rep)
January 14th-February 8th 2026
Anne Gridley, Nature Theatre of Oklahoma co-founder, downtown theatre wizard (most recently seen in THE BARBARIANS as Madam President) brings her new work to UTR via Soho Rep. Anne’s got Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia, and while ostensibly this work is about HSP, I suspect there’s something under the surface we are not prepared for! Which is my go-to for this kinda work, as you may well know, especially from one of our great downtown theaters.
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
DIRT : Sour Milk (Carsen Joenk, Anna Jastrzembeski, Christina Tang), Most Unwanted Productions, Dani Turner
The Tank
January 22nd-February 18th 2026
Sour Milk is making some of my favorite work in the city, and you'd be dumb to miss the chance to rebuild NYC with a group of strangers at the Tank in a remount of their delightful DIRT. Game theatre! Democracy experiment! What more could you want?
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
/:secondplace : Kaye Hurley, Eva Wolfson, T Mitsock, Kedian Keohan, Jacqueline Scaletta, Ásta Bennie Hostetter, Michael Hernandez, Wyatt Bertz, Sarah Jones
Brick Aux (Exponential)
January 8th-10th 2026
First of all - This is like an experimental theater fantasy league team.
Second of all - It is at Brick Aux, which I looooove and I KNOW that Kedian works well in that space (I got to try to do very serious work in the office while DeliaDelia!: The Flat-Chested Witch was rehearsing)
Third of all - This description “beauty, survival, and what it means to keep creating at the end of the world.”
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
DARKMATTER : Cherish Menzo, Camilo Mejía Cortés, Niels Runderkamp, Gagi Petrovic, Michael Nunes, Morgana Machado Marques, JustTatty.com, Renée Copraij, Benjamin Kahn, BOИSU, Shari Kok-Sey-Tjong
Performance Space New York (UTR)
January 13th-18th 2026
I am really, really looking forward to this one. Cherish Menzo is an artist who "seeks the Uncanny, the Enigmatic, and the Monstrous" to "materialize speculative forms and fictions." Sexy. Together, Menzo and Camilo Mejía Cortes play with detaching their bodies from external perception through Afrofuturism, chopped and screwed hip-hop, and black holes. Expect defamiliarization, distortion, dissonance.
Staffer: Leah Plante-Wiener
Letters from Tyra : Derek Smith, Sarah Blush
The Brick (Exponential)
January 8th-18th 2026
A riff on national AND Italian themes? Sign this paisan up. I'd say the performances I've seen Derek give approach clowning, but there is nonetheless a true human beneath the wackadoo antics. Maybe this play, an Exponential delight, will lean harder into buffoonery, and I wouldn't resist. To put it in Tyra speak, we are all rooting for you.
Staffer: Billy McEntee
I have been looking forward to this return+ since April, when the word that raced around town was that Derek captured all the hearts and souls and other at ?!:New Works. And on a split bill with Isa Spector?! It almost makes me believe in god.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Ellen Winter & Kate Eberstadt : Ellen Winter & Kate Eberstadt
Joe’s Pub
Sunday January 18th 2026
Two of theater's coolest composers right now unite for a concert at Joe's Pub, performing songs from their recent and forthcoming albums in a collision of stars I think we'd all be remiss to, er, miss! If you've not listened to either of their music, or seen either perform, you are in for a treat!
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
All That Fall : JoAnne Akalaitis, Bruce Odland, Thomas Dunn, Jennifer Tipton, Jeri Coppola, Karl Franklin Allen, Ben Hawkins, Katherine Wilkinson, Rakesh Palisetty, Andreea Mincic, Matt Otto
Mabou Mines (UTR)
January 8th-18th 2026
One of our foremost interprets of Beckett, JoAnne Akalaitis, returns to the playwright with one of his radio works, ALL THAT FALL, a masterpiece of both the radio form and of the greater Beckett oeuvre. His radio works have inspired stagings by some of our zaniest theatermakers, but Akalaitis has been at it since the beginning (her take on CASCANDO is legendary) and, in many ways, ALL THAT FALL is his saddest. I think you’re in for a rare treat, an unmissable one at that.
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
Of all the shows I am seeing this month, this is the one that was like - “I will regret it if I do not go.” And everyone knows I refuse to make decisions I know I will regret… Learning that it was happening felt like remembering why I moved to NY.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
The Mushroom : Normandy Sherwood, Nikki Calonge, Christina Tang, Johnny Gasper, Nicolas Noreña, Julia Gu 谷曦, Alei Russo, Adrienne Swan, Susannah Millonzi, Jack Woods, Madelyn Barkocy, Sarah Samonte
Target Margin (Exponential)
January 8th-11th 2026
In 2023, I got my shit rocked by Normandy Sherwood's Psychic Self Defense, which was an hourlong fantasia of curtains, veils, and miracles of theatrical fabrication. Now, I am bouncing off the walls with excitement for The Mushroom and whatever altered state I'm sure it will hypnotize me into. This one is for audiences craving sensory delight, outrageous reveals, and a good giggle. (Also: we're talking nine performances over the course of four days, which is certifiable crazy behaviour, which is hot.)
Staffer: Leah Plante-Wiener