‘The Adding Machine’
Elmer L. Rice’s 1923 experimental drama gets a refresh, starring Daphne Rubin-Vega as Mr. Zero, a worker outraged at being replaced by a machine, opposite Jennifer Tilly as his wife; Sarita Choudhury as his colleague; and Michael Cyril Creighton as everyone else. Scott Elliott directs for the New Group, with revised text by Thomas Bradshaw. (Through May 10, Theater at St. Clement’s)
New York City Fringe Festival
Formerly called the Frigid Fringe Festival, this event spreads 75 shows among multiple stages: Under St. Marks, Wild Project and the Chain Theater in Manhattan, and the Rat NYC in Brooklyn. As with all fringe fests, a spirit of adventure comes in handy. (Through April 19)
‘Silver Manhattan’
The downtown musician Jesse Malin recounts the story of the spinal stroke that paralyzed him from the waist down in 2023, in this amiable musical memoir directed by Ellie Heyman. At the top of the show, Malin makes the most jaw-droppingly punk-rock entrance I have ever seen. (Through April 19, Bowery Palace)
Teatro Fest NYC
With the English-language stage premiere of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” making a splash in Chicago, New York audiences can catch Marco Antonio Rodriguez’s earlier Spanish-language adaptation, “La Breve y Maravillosa Vida de Oscar Wao,” at Repertorio Español — one of 10 Latino companies in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx taking part in the festival. (Through April 30)
‘Seagull: True Story’
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sends a wave of horror through a company of theater artists in Moscow, where objecting freely to the war is not an option. Alexander Molochnikov, this play’s creator and director, remixes his own life with Chekhov’s “The Seagull” to make a highly political backstage drama, which had a brief, red-hot run at La MaMa last year. (Through May 3, Public Theater)
‘The Approach’
If Mark O’Rowe’s play about two estranged sisters and their longtime friend sounds familiar, it might be because of the socially distanced production that streamed from Dublin during the pandemic shutdown. Carmen M. Herlihy, Kate MacCluggage and Danielle Ryan star in this new staging, directed by Conor Bagley. (April 3-May 10, Irish Repertory Theater)
‘Scorched Earth’
Passionate feelings about land and the right to its ownership figure in this dance-theater work by the Irish choreographer Luke Murphy (“Volcano”), whose story of a cold case about a dead developer takes inspiration from John B. Keane’s play “The Field.” (April 3-19, St. Ann’s Warehouse)
‘Off the Record: Acts of Restorative Justice’
This new theater piece by James Scruggs is described by a publicist as “radically interactive” — and if you experienced his immersive carnival “3/Fifths,” you know he does not pussyfoot. Created with Thomas Giovanni, a lawyer and criminal justice advocate, this show is intended to foment change in the U.S. criminal justice system. (April 5-19, Here Arts Center)
‘For Colored Girls’
Ntozake Shange’s canonical choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf” opened on Broadway 50 years ago. Now it has been adapted into an opera, with Shange’s text set to the composer Natalie Brown’s music. Ellenore Scott directs this one-night-only staging. (April 6, Jazz at Lincoln Center)
‘Rheology’
As they did last year at the Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn, the playwright-director Shayok Misha Chowdhury (“Public Obscenities”) and his physicist mother, Bulbul Chakraborty, perform this show together. Their theatrical ritual is a kind of preparation for his presumed eventual loss of her. (April 14-May 16, Playwrights Horizons)
‘What Happened Was …’
Before Tom Noonan made a two-character indie film about a couple on their first date, he wrote and directed it as a play at his East Village theater. Following Noonan’s death in February, Ian Rickson revives the stage version, with Cecily Strong and Corey Stoll. (April 14-June 14, Minetta Lane Theater)
Brits Off Broadway
A solo comedy that makes an argument for collective resistance, Victoria Melody’s “Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak” (April 15-May 3) is first out of the gate in this annual festival. The month’s lineup also includes Elena Mazzon’s “Clara: Sex, Love and Classical Music” (April 22-May 10), about the composer Clara Schumann, and Tim Gilvin and Alex Kanefsky’s “Cable Street” (April 26-May 24), a new musical about ordinary Londoners protecting their home against fascists. (April 15-June 28, 59E59 Theaters)
‘Kenrex’
This ultra-American tale, transferred from London, is true-crime drama as parable: the story of a brutal Missouri thug who kept his small town in submissive terror for years until, apparently, the people fought back. Jack Holden performs this solo play, which he wrote with Ed Stambollouian, who directs. (April 15-June 27, Lucille Lortel Theater)
‘The Receptionist’
Adam Bock’s workplace comedy isn’t the comfy show it seems before the darkness seeps in, along with the moral unease. Sarah Benson directs this Second Stage revival, starring Katie Finneran, Mallori Johnson, Nael Nacer and Will Pullen. (April 15-May 24, Pershing Square Signature Center)
‘Hamlet’
Expect comedy amid the mortality in this National Theater production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, starring Hiran Abeysekera (“Life of Pi”) in the title role, and directed by Robert Hastie (“Operation Mincemeat”). (April 19-May 17, Harvey Theater)
‘Dear Everything: A Musical Uprising for the Earth’
Jane Fonda is the star attraction here, narrating the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Earth Day performance of this eco-musical, which in an earlier incarnation was called “Wild: A Musical Becoming.” Directed by Diane Paulus, it has a book by V, formerly known as Eve Ensler. (April 22, Howard Gilman Opera House)
‘Moby Dick’
The experimental master Robert Wilson, who died last year, directed, designed and lit this Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus production, which touches down at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The British singer-songwriter Anna Calvi composed the music. (April 29-May 3, Howard Gilman Opera House)
‘73 Seconds’
A 64-seat planetarium in downtown Manhattan becomes the theater for this grief-tinged new solo show by Jared Mezzocchi, inspired by a family story he didn’t know when he was growing up: His mother used to work at NASA. Aya Ogawa (“The Nosebleed”) directs for En Garde Arts. (April 29-May 18, Lower Eastside Girls Club)
‘Well, I’ll Let You Go’
In this quiet heartland play by Bubba Weiler, Quincy Tyler Bernstine portrays a woman unmoored by the death of her husband and newly unsure she understood the life they shared. A hit last summer in Brooklyn, Jack Serio’s production migrates to Midtown Manhattan with its stellar cast largely intact, and Matthew Maher taking over the narrator role that Michael Chernus played. (April 30-June 20, Studio Seaview)
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