Cheap theater: Where to enjoy affordable shows in NYC

After a recent refurbishment, this downtown stalwart is now one of the most comfortable experimental spaces, what with its cozy lobby café (1 Dominick) and relatively impressive multimedia capacity. The upstairs space—long, wide and low—has played host to recent smashes like Taylor Mac’s epic The Lily’s Revenge, while the downstairs 70-seat black box sees new works by everyone from Karinne Keithley to Tina Satter. HERE’s strength lies in its come-one-come-all attitude, its absurdly generous grant and commissioning programs, and a genuine warmth that is largely thanks to the venue’s doyenne and founder, Kristin Marting, and the community of artists who call HERE a second home.

Imported to the U.S. from Sweden in 1876, this venue is the coziest in all of NYC. Employing handmade marionettes and beautiful sets, the resident company mounts citified versions of well-known stories.

RECOMMENDED: 50 best New York attractions Visitors may think they know this venerable theater from TV’s Showtime at the Apollo. But as the saying goes, the small screen adds ten pounds: The city’s home of R&B and soul is actually quite cozy. Known for launching the careers of Ella Fitzgerald, Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo, among others at its legendary Amateur Night competition, the Apollo continues to mix veteran talents like Dianne Reeves with younger artists such as the Roots and Lykke Li. 

The civic-minded Oskar Eustis is artistic director of this local institution dedicated to the work of new American playwrights but also known for its Shakespeare productions (Shakespeare in the Park). The building, an Astor Place landmark, has five stages, plays host to the annual Under the Radar festival, nurtures productions in its Lab series and is also home to the Joe’s Pub music venue.

This full-scale, multilevel theater produces the most professional—and inventive—children’s theater in NYC. The lineup often features European imports, and spans all genres, from opera to step dancing to puppetry.

The intimate space, once a cinema, is a fine setting for dance. Of the 472 seats at the Joyce, there’s not a single bad one. Companies and choreographers who present work here, including Ballet Hispanico, David Parsons and Doug Varone, tend to be more conventional than experimental. The Joyce also hosts out-of-town crowd-pleasers like Pilobolus Dance Theatre. During the summer, when many theaters are dark, the Joyce continues its programming. At the Joyce Soho, emerging companies present work nearly every weekend. • Other location: Joyce Soho, 155 Mercer St between W Houston and Prince Sts (212-431-9233). Subway: B, D, F, M to Broadway–Lafayette St; N, R to Prince St; 6 to Bleecker St. $15–$20. Cash only.

Camp is still in session at Abrons. However, there are COVID safety protocols. Masks must be worn at all times and everyone age 12 and older must show proof of vaccination. Campers will enjoy weekly water activities, weekly field trips, and will receive daily instruction in dance, music, theater, and visual arts.

At this retro storefront theater, kids sit cross-legged on mats in front of the stage while grown-ups hunker down on bleachers behind them. All the productions, which are largely adaptations of well-known fairy and folk tales, are written by the theater’s artistic director, Nicolas Coppola.

The Roundabout Theatre Company's first Broadway property, this venue opened as the American Airlines Theatre the summer of 2000. Since then, it has been home to a series of revived classics (several by Shaw and Pinter) and golden-age musicals (The Pajama Game). Beautifully restored and redesigned in a pleasing red, gold and brown palette, the venue has comfortable seating and wide aisles (unlike many older spaces). In 2024, the theater was renamed in honor of the Roundabout's longtime artistic director and chief executive, Todd Haimes, who died in 2023.  

Steps on Broadway offers classes in many styles with some of the finest teachers in New York.

Located on West 45th west of Eighth Avenue, this building originally opened for business as the Martin Beck Theatre in 1924. Since 2003 it has been known as the Al Hirschfeld, after the immensely prolific and long-lived theater caricaturist. Seating capacity is 1,292 for plays and 1,282 for musicals. In recent seasons, it has hosted several major musical revivals: Guys and Dolls, The Sound of Music, Kiss Me Kate and most recently, Hair.

There aren’t many entertainment options along Tenth Avenue, but one is worth the trek: A jewel box of a theater with a heady, well-selected repertory of comedy, cabaret and music shows in an environment that’s focused more on the performance than on the cash register at the bar. The monthly variety show Showgasm is an excellent sampler pack of rising talents.

As well as the New York City Ballet (nycballet.com), the recently rechristened David H. Koch Theater is also home to the New York City Opera.

Soho Rep isn’t the last word in downtown experimental theater: Better than that, it’s often one of the first words, championing major voices at key points in their careers. Its astounding list of alums includes Richard Maxwell, Young Jean Lee, Adam Bock, Annie Baker, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, David Adjmi, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Anne Washburn, Aleshea Harris and Jackie Sibblies Drury (whose Fairview, which premiered there, won the Pulitzer Prize). And Soho Rep’s low ticket prices, including 99¢ Sundays, help keep some of the city’s bravest, boldest and wildest theater within the reach of all New Yorkers. 

This chic, state-of-the-art venue, which comprises an Off Broadway space and two smaller theaters, is home to a lot of worthy programming, such as the annual Brits Off Broadway festival, which imports some of the U.K.’s best work for brief summer runs. The venue boasts three separate playing spaces. Theater A, on the ground floor, seats 196 people; upstairs are the 98-seat Theater B and a 70-seat black-box space, Theater C.

The Tank, an adventurous multimedia performing-arts collaborative and talent incubator, spent years wandering from venue to venue, including a long stint in a small upstairs space on 46th Street. In 2017, it moved into the Midtown digs formerly occupied by Abingdon Theatre Company. Its two main spaces are the 98-seat June Havoc Theater and the 56-seat Dorothy Strelsin Theater. Rosalind Grush and Meghan Finn currently serve as the company's artistic directors.

Founded in 1888 by Edwin Booth, Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman (among other notables), the Players Club sits in a Greek Revival townhouse overlooking Gramercy Park. It's basically an old-style gentlemen's club (though, needless to say, women are welcome nowadays) and is one of those eccentric curiosities that become rarer by the day in NYC. Many events are open to members and their guests only.

One of the city’s most important not-for-profit companies, Manhattan Theatre Club spent decades as an Off Broadway outfit before moving into the 622-seat Samuel J. Friedman Theater in 2003. But it still maintains a 299-seat pied-à-terre at New York City Center, where it presents some of its best material–such as Lynn Nottage’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner, Ruined. Sign up for the free 30 Under 30 Club to get tickets at both theaters for $30.

Signature Theatre, founded by James Houghton in 1991, focuses on exploring and celebrating playwrights in depth, with whole seasons devoted to works by individual living writers. In 2012, it moved to a home base equal to its lofty ambitions. Designed by star architect Frank Gehry, the new Signature Center comprises three major Off Broadway spaces: a 299-seater main stage, a 199-seat miniature opera house and a malleable courtyard theater named for the late Romulus Linney.

Nearly 30 years after it started hosting experimental performances in a loft on the Bowery, this plucky organization has opened its gorgeous new space a few blocks away on the Lower East Side. A lounge, mainstage theater and studio all support the work of emerging artists, including the annual Hot! festival of work with LGBT themes.

This homey 60-seat black box (up some seriously steep stairs) is a mere block and a half from the subway, and only 15 minutes on the L train from Union Square. The space has become one of the best curated spots in the city; it supports up-and-coming stage talent like William Burke and avant-garde veterans such as Target Margin Theater and Cynthia Hopkins, as well as a variety of performance art and multimedia performances.

Formerly a movie multiplex, this center—one of the last bastions of commercial Off Broadway in New York—impresses with its shiny, space-age interior and five stages, were it presents such campy revues as The Gazillion Bubble Show.

Former artistic director of American Ballet Theatre and White Oak Dance Project, Mikhail Baryshnikov is something of an impresario. His home base—on a stark overpass near the Lincoln Tunnel—includes several inviting studios, the Howard Gilman Performance Space (a 192-seat theater), and superb facilities for rehearsals and workshops. The newly renovated Jerome Robbins Theater, at 238 seats, is an intimate, refined addition to the New York scene. The Wooster Group is the resident company.

Founded in 1996, this cozy, well-appointed black-box venue has presented avant-garde experimentation and politically provocative satires. After 20 years on White Street, the Flea relocated in 2017 to a new complex a few block south in Tribeca. Artistic director Niegel Smith and producing director Carol Ostrow oversee three new playing spaces: the Sam, mamed for theater agent Sam Cohn, which seats 120; the Peter, named for the late playwright A.R. Gurney, which seats 72; and the Siggy, named for actor and Flea cofounder Sigourney Weaver, which seats 44. The company is also home to the Bats, a youthful training company that performs in many of its productions. 

Tucked away on West 41st Street, this is the southernmost Broadway house, and it was home to Rent for more than a decade. Known throughout the years as the National, the Billy Rose and the Trafalgar, the David T. Nederlander Theatre was renamed in honor of the patriarch of the Nederlander Family.