The Infinite Wrench
Photograph: Courtesy New York Neo-Futurists | The Infinite Wrench
Photograph: Courtesy New York Neo-Futurists

Off-Off Broadway shows in NYC

Looking for the best Off-Off Broadway shows? Here are the most promising productions at NYC’s smaller venues this month.

Adam Feldman
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Broadway and Off Broadway productions get most of the attention, but to get a true sense of the range and diversity of New York theater, you need to look to the smaller productions collectively known as Off-Off Broadway. There are more than dozens of Off-Off Broadway spaces in New York, mostly with fewer than 99 seats. Experimental plays thrive in New York's best Off-Off Broadway venues; that's where you'll find many of the city's most challenging and original works. But Off-Off is more than just the weird stuff: It also includes everything from original dramas to revivals of rarely seen classics, and it's a good place to get early looks at rising talents. What's more, it tends to be affordable; while cheap Broadway tickets can be hard to find, most Off-Off Broadway shows are in the $15–$35 range. Here are some of the current shows that hold the most promise.

RECOMMENDED: Full guide to Off Broadway shows in NYC 

Off-Off Broadway shows in NYC

  • Drama
  • Long Island City
  • price 2 of 4
The Secret Theatre, which had a near-death experience during the pandemic, decks the halls of its new Long Island City venue with its version of Charles Dickens's haunted tale of a pinchpenny's redemption. Company founder Richard Mazda, who wrote the adaptation, also directs the show and leads the cast as Scrooge. 
  • Comedy
  • DUMBO
  • price 1 of 4
Random Access Theatre’s boozy-geeky Drunk Texts series muddles classical texts—or modern ones reimagined as classical—into a cocktail of drinking games, improv and audience interaction, in which the audiences chooses which thespians take shots. Now the gang toasts the holiday season with its highly spirited annual version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. 
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  • Comedy
  • Williamsburg
  • Open run
  • price 1 of 4
After more than a decade performing Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, an ever-changing collection of 30 two-minutes plays, the New York Neo-Futurists had to change course when piece's author pulled the rights abruptly in 2016. Now the troupe performs a different ever-changing collection of 30 two-minute plays called The Infinite Wrench. (We wrote about it here.) In 2025, the troupe moved from Manhattan to the recently established Williamsburg outpost of Chicago's legendary Second City improv-comedy factory.
  • Comedy
  • The Bronx
  • price 1 of 4
  • Recommended
Now in its 22th iteration, Charles Rice-González's holiday play, which subverts both The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol, imagines a queer Latino couple caught in a journey through time one trippy Christmas eve. Witness ’80s flashbacks, Martha Stewart dinner parties and plenty of angelic divas to light the way. Gama Valle directs this year's edition, which features Joyah Dominique, Vasilios León, Juan Cálix, SkittLeZ Ortiz and Jesse Vega.
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  • Musicals
  • Hell's Kitchen
  • price 2 of 4
Mrs. Claus, Vixen and some elves search set out on a quest to find Christmas spirit in New York City in a raunchy holiday show—with drag queens, puppets, dirty jokes and dirty dancing—directed and choreographed by burlesque artist Sassie LeFay and music directed by Stephen Murphy. Expect more naughtiness than niceness; something tells us there will be a lot of unwrapping involved. 

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