Staff Picks No. 26: NYE Edition
Less Lonely: Jes Tom
Greenwich House Theater
Closes January 6th 2024
What's good about this show is that there are hilarious jokes about dildos, the true (subjective) differences between L, G, B, and T people, and the ups/downs of polyamory. What's great about this show is that in the time of year when many theatres are parading their touristy spectacles for families, us cognoscenti have an intimate tale of one person's transition we can listen to together.
Staffer: Travis Amiel
Open Mic Night: Peter Mills Weiss, Julia Mounsey, Kate McGee
Performance Space New York
January 5th - January 18th 2024
Many try but none deliver the way these three do. The elements are too specific, beautiful and chaotic to copy. It is like trying to copy a chef's sauce recipe. Good luck.
Open Mic Night is one of a few shows I am thrilled I will get to see again this January (having seen it in June), in whatever new form it takes because of the constantly shifting world we live in. To spend time eulogizing in a shifty ol world is often confusing. To make a performance piece involving the act of eulogizing brings the balance of pain and loopiness I have found myself to experience at memorials.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Being Up in Here and All the Other Businesses that Don’t Concern You OR When You See a Buncha Black People Running, What Do You Do?: Marissa Joyce Stamps
The Brick Theater
January 4th - January 13th 2024
I don't need a reason. It's fucking Marissa. I'd literally watch anything she does, and be better for it, as would you.
Staffer: kanishk pandey
Those Movable Pieces: Nicolás Noreña and Timothy Scott
We Are Here Bushwick
January 11th - January 14th 2024
A slow dance? A workout sequence? Slapstick? Superstitious rituals? Each of these buzz words gets me all a-tingle but I know Nico and Timothy will have something even more exquisite and intriguing in store. I was at We Are Here last year for "cryptochrome," which I loved, and I'm excited to see how this vast space will be used anew. Go!
Staffer: Billy McEntee
Hubris Always Gets You In The End: Banana Bag and Bodice
The Doxsee at Target Margin Theater
January 5th - January 20th 2024
This Staff Pick is pretty straightforward.
If you know Banana Bag and Bodice, you will go because you would never miss a single thing they do. But don't wait until the last minute to get your tickets, ok?!
If you do not know Banana Bag and Bodice, this is the moment you have been waiting for. Nothing that you think is interesting, cool, special, weird about NY theater would exist without them. This is the one show that I am seeing as multiple times in January, harkening back to 2005 when I think I saw Panel/Animal 6 times in two weeks.
Special additional note to this Pick - If you cannot afford a ticket, DM me. If you want to meet me in Williamsburg and lyft down to Sunset Park together, DM me. No Excuses. I will carry your ass there.
Staffer: Theresa Buchheister
Deepe Darknesse: Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein
Collapsable Hole
January 13th - January 15th 2024
I caught this show back in June and I think it changed my life!!! I'm so glad it's coming back, and in the same venue too- I bought my ticket for the Jan run back at the beginning of December and I suggest you try to get a ticket as soon as possible!
Staffer: hillary gao