Staff Picks No. 158
Miss Slampig USA Pageant : Meaghan Robichaud
C’mon Everybody
Tuesday August 18th 2026
I’m gonna let Meaghan’s words speak for themselves:
“GTFO out of your rum, take a sip from the bubbla, eat a fluffanuttah, pick up ya dunks, and get your whore ASS to Miss Slampig USA Pageant where six contestants compete to be crowned the biggest NEW ENGLAND WHORE IN ALL OF THE UNITED STATES (or all of Brooklyn).”
Basically, YOU could be Miss Slampig USA. Wow!
Staffer: Leah Plante-Wiener
Shelf Life : Michael Galligan, Shari Hazlett, Erica Enriquez
Horseradish Grocery
July 30th and August 6th 2026
Clown about town Michael Galligan presents two evenings of performance in a grocery store. You read that right — bear witness of grocery aisle activations and produce coming to life at Bushwick fruits-and-organic-granola staple Horseradish Grocery. Awesome.
Staffer: Leah Plante-Wiener
Decapitratix : Live Animals Onstage!
22 Commerce Street, Brooklyn
July 30th-August 2nd 2026
A newer experimental, DIY company will always entice me, and this one is an Oscar Wilde adaptation — win win. We're here to promote short runs and new works, and this one is about deconstructing text, spectacle, and community building. Check it out.
Staffer: Billy McEntee
Shterna and the Lost Voice : Magid Ensemble
Teatro LATEA
August 13th-16th 2026
My OTHER International Puppet Fringe pick, a crankie-centric Eastern European folklore, Yiddish diasporic work from the new troupe Magid Ensemble! And guys, an original klezmer score. Come on!
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
Parlor Walls
TV Eye
Saturday August 8th 2026
I will be in Ohio but you should be at TV Eye. Perhaps you have seen Alyse Lamb do wild ass solo performance mingling horror films, synth and exquisite costuming at The Brick? Or maybe you have seen her in Title:Point shows? But if you have not seen her absolutely shred with her band, Parlor Walls, you gotta go to this show.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Osni the Flare : Tristan Allen, Gideon Broshy
Cassette
Saturday August 8th 2026
An original work of puppetry and music by the sublimely talented Tristan Allen, whom I will always be eager to label as a puppeteer to know. Allen has a mesmerizing grasp on puppeteering as an extension of the self, wielded to weave darkly erotic tales and a charged relationship between puppet and puppeteer. Not to miss.
Staffer: Leah Plante-Wiener
A Midsummer Night's Dream : Anna Barrett, Faye Strange Bascon, Jerett Benjamin, Olivia Bodner, Connor Bullock, Jessica Kantorowitz, Wiley June, Lola Lama, Ally McIntyre, Santiago Mallan, Isa Nicdao, Nicholas Salem, Michela Richards, Sebastian Zuniga
Starr Bar
Monday August 3rd 2026
A one-night only Midsummer's that I have no idea what to expect from but I am hoping for beauty, chaos, and whimsy. The cast boasts some seasoned Brooklyn actors doing really cool things and this is sure to be another one of them. A one-show only Monday night production at a Bushwick bar is truly the stuff DIY dreams are made of.
Staffer: Alex Aguirre
The Vessel : Brendan George, Peter Charney, Will Ingram, Anastasia Locke, Sofonyas, Tony DiBernardo, Talya Braverman, Yiyuan Li, Emma Hasselbach, R.S. Dennis, Nicole Yagar, Through The Tollbooth Co.
59E59
Monday July 20th 2026
Through The Tollbooth Co., responsible for the 2023 hit A EULOGY FOR ROMAN, return to 59E59 about New York’s favorite terrible public art installation, which, I need to confess, I genuinely thought was called “the Shawarma” for a hot minute. I had no clue it was “the Vessel.” Anywho, catch this before it sells out like hotcakes.
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
Champagne Dreams : 3 Sticks
Teatro LATEA
August 12th-16th 2026
You should check out ALL of the International Puppet Fringe, but this is one of my personal picks based off of a person I trust reposting about loving this at Cincinnati Fringe (s/o Blake Bolan!). Green screen tech? Object theater? Color me intrigued AF.
Staffer: Reuven Glezer
Proper Nouns, Duchess, Cameron Stuart, Psalter
Future Space (5-84 Woodward Avenue)
July 17th-19th 2026
I have been itching to get out to a show show. And this is a show show. I am going for Cameron Stuart, but I am excited to hear music by bands I do not yet know in space I have not yet visited.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister