14 Shows to See Off Broadway This November

Catch four new musicals, Fringe hits, the return of Gatz and more

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The Public Theater: Gatz – begins November 1

The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street at Astor Place in the East Village

Previews begin November 1. Opens November 8. Closes December 1.

Decades before the dueling Great Gatsby musicals opened, innovative experimental ensemble Elevator Repair Service was wowing critics and audiences with its marathon mounting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal novel, an eight-hour affair in which an office worker reads the entire book to those around him with mesmerizing results. Winner of multiple accolades and awards, Gatz is a singular experience of endurance theatre that manages to capture the source material’s magic. Reportedly, this is the last time Gatz will be seen in NYC, so this is your final chance to be borne back ceaselessly into the past.

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Audible Theater: Strategic Love Play – begins November 1

Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane between Sixth Avenue and MacDougal Street in the West Village

Previews begin November 1. Opens November 10. Closes December 7. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

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Primary Stages: The Light and The Dark (the life and times of Artemisia Gentileschi) – begins November 2

59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East

Previews begin November 2. Opens November 17. Closes December 15.

It’s fitting that this new play about the most successful female painter of the 17th century was written by and stars Kate Hamill, the most produced female playwright in the country this season. Celebrated for her inventive takes on literary classics (Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice), Hamill became interested in Artemisia Gentileschi’s glorious work and traumatic life after seeing the artist’s paintings, including the rage-filled “Judith Slaying Holofernes,” while visiting Florence’s Uffizi Gallery on her honeymoon. After an out-of-town premiere at Chautauqua Theater Company earlier this year, Hamill’s feminist drama is brought to NYC by Primary Stages.

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Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now! – begins November 2

New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown West

Previews begin November 2. Opens November 13. Closes December 21. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

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The Cell: Communion – begins November 7

The Cell, 338 West 23rd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in Chelsea

Previews begin November 7. Opens November 13. Closes December 8.

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Theatre for a New Audience and Rattlestick Theater: We Are Your Robots – begins November 7

Theatre for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place between Lafayette Avenue and Fulton Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Previews begin November 7. Opens November 24. Closes December 8. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Obie-winning playwright-songwriter Ethan Lipton (No Place to Go, Tumacho) and two-time Tony-nominated director Leigh Silverman (Suffs) have been developing We Are Your Robots for the last few years. The premise feels particularly timely right now: Lipton and his band are robots answering the question, “What do humans want from their machines?” in song. Brain mapping, consciousness, violence and surveillance are all on their AI minds. Rattlestick Theater coproduces.

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Oud Player on the Tel – November 8

HERE, 145 Sixth Avenue at Dominick Street in Soho

Begins November 8. Closes November 24.

The International Human Rights Art Movement presents this history-based play loosely inspired by Fiddler on the Roof. Set in 1947 during the founding of Israel, Oud Player on the Tel follows two families, one Arab, the other Jewish, who initially bond only to be torn apart by politics and personal rivalries. Tom Block’s script leans into surrealism to underscore the insanity of a conflict seemingly without end. A live musician improvises on the oud, a Middle Eastern lute-like instrument, throughout the drama.

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St. Ann’s Warehouse: Burnout Paradise – begins November 12

St Ann’s Warehouse, 45 Water Street near New Dock Street in Dumbo, Brooklyn

Previews begin November 12. Opens November 17. Closes December 1.

Four intrepid performers complete a wild variety of challenges, from a Shakespeare soliloquy to cooking dinner, while jogging on treadmills in this bonkers comedy from Pony Cam about the hilariously punishing nature of multitasking. A smash at multiple international Fringe festivals, this hour-long show runs riot at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse. Laughing at exhaustion has never been so exhilarating.

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The Vineyard Theatre: 300 Paintings – begins November 12

Vineyard Theatre, 108 East 15th Street between Irving Place and Union Square East in Union Square

Previews begin November 12. Opens November 21. Closes December 15.

For five months in 2021, Australian comedian Sam Kissajukian was incredibly prolific—but he was crafting paintings, not punch lines. That period turned out to be an extended manic bipolar episode with his work reflecting what was going on in his mind. Kissajukian examines how creativity and mental health are connected in this amusing and insightful solo show, which is complemented by an exhibition of his art in the lobby.

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NYU Skirball: Sex Variants of 1941: A Study of Homosexual Patterns – begins November 14

NYU Skirball, 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square South in the West Village

Begins November 14. Closes November 24. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

The audacious collective The Civilians (Gone Missing, Pretty Filthy, This Beautiful City) crafts a music-filled fantasia inspired by a Depression-era medical study of LGBTQ+ sexuality. Co-conceived by writer-director Steve Cosson with multimedia artist Jessica Mitrani, the genre-defying show features scenes, songs and stunning images to conjure a forgotten queer community. Martha Redbone, Hedwig‘s Stephen Trask and the late, great Michael Friedman (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) contributed songs.

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New Light Theater Project: Room 1214 – begins November 15

59E59 Theaters, 59 East 59th Street between Madison and Park Avenues in Midtown East

Previews begin November 15. Opens November 21. Closes December 8.

Michelle Kholos Brooks, the audacious playwright behind the history-inspired H*tler’s Tasters, examines another real-life tragedy with Room 1214, about the Parkland School shooting. Based on interviews with a former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School history teacher, the drama finds her returning to the school one last time to memorialize students and innocence lost. Frequent Brooks collaborator Sarah Norris directs a cast led by Annabelle Gurwitch (Dinner and a Movie).

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Playwrights Horizons: This Is My Favorite Song – begins November 19

Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street between Ninth and Dyer Avenues in Midtown West

Begins November 19. Opens November 21. Closes December 13.

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The York Theatre Company: Welcome to the Big Dipper – begins November 21

The York Theatre Company at Theatre at St. Jean’s, 150 East 76th Street near Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side

Previews begin November 21. Opens November 26. Closes December 29. If you’re a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase discount tickets.

Inspired by Catherine Filloux’s play All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, this musical comedy tells the true story of a group of Amish folks and a busload of cross-dressers stranded together at a historic inn near Niagara Falls during a blizzard. Hilarity and epiphanies ensue. Jimmy Roberts (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) wrote the songs, and the book is by Filloux and John Daggett; Jekyll & Hyde Tony nominee Robert Cuccioli leads the ensemble cast.

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Arlekin Players Theatre: The Merchant of Venice – begins November 22

Classic Stage Company, 136 East 13th Street between Third and Fourth Avenues in the East Village

Previews begin November 22. Opens November 25. Closes December 22.

The Boston-based Arlekin Players completes its residency at Classic Stage Company with a radical interpretation of Shakespeare’s controversial The Merchant of Venice, a morally murky play that’s a romantic comedy for some characters, a terrible tragedy for others. Richard Tolpol, so moving in Arlekin’s Our Class, plays the complicated Shylock alongside Alexandra Silber as Portia and T.R. Knight from Grey’s Anatomy as Antonio. With this production, director Igor Golyak, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, continues to examine the impact of an ancient hate.

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