Fear not, New York! There is plenty of joy waiting to be felt despite the quiet darkening of our days and falling back in time. A unique crossover—Halloween festivities, the New York City Marathon, and changing of the clocks. Perhaps, a greater change is to come at the polls on November 3rd, where I hope all of our readers who were able, exercised their critical right to vote.
For those seeking respite from the cold and dark, November holds a number of new stories waiting to be told. Co-curated by longtime collaborators Dev Bondarin and Cara Reichel, Prospect Musicals presents Chorus-Verse: 2026 Musical Theater Lab, In Concert. For one night only on Thursday, November 12th at 7:30 pm, writers Ruth Fishman & Miguel Sutedjo, Greta Gertler Gold & Greg Kotis, Miranda Holliday & Jameson May, Diana Lawrence, Kelley Makenna & Alyssa Sunew, Nina Osso & Jerome Walker, Bryce Palmer & Andy Roninson, Nico Raimont, Benjamin Walton & abs wilson, explore how an ensemble of choral voices can evoke new theatrical worlds in nine hot-off-the-presses, original short musicals. The performance will take place at Symphony Space and feature twelve vocalists, supported by chorus members of the Manhattan School of Music. This is the 20th year of Prospect Musicals’ Musical Theater Lab, In Concert, uplifting and prioritizing the next generation of musical theater practitioners.
From November 11th – December 6th, the 2026 La MaMa Puppet Festival will run for all ages across their various spaces. Productions feature international works from Iran (Husks) and Colombia (Everything That Follows), including three world premieres and one New York premiere. Festival Director & Curator, Denise Greber says, “As La MaMa enters its 65th season, we’re thinking deeply about the idea of oneness—about what connects us, even in our differences, and the ways theatre can bring us together. Puppet theatre—with its ability to transform objects, bodies and imagination—offers a particularly powerful space for that exploration.” Artists include Deniz Khateri, Tom Lee, Lisa Kaplan, Mathew Duvall, Federico Restrepo, Denise Greber, and Amanda Card.
The festivities continue at UNDER St. Marks from November 3rd – 15th with this year’s Gotham Storytelling Festival, presented by FRIGID New York. The theme for this year’s festival: Stranger in a Stranger Land. Hear stories about people being where they are not from—as a traveler, an immigrant, an emigrant, an expat, a displaced person, or simply moving to a big city (or small town).
Lastly, the East Village’s beloved Theater for the New City highlights a number of shows this month worth noting: Boy Santos by Juan Villegas and directed by Ian Gordon runs from November 5th – 29th at the Johnson Theater. In this piece, Charlie Santos is visited by memories of his childhood in Spanish Harlem, 1962. He sees the street games, the legal & illegal enterprises, the captives of heroin, the desperate poor and a traumatic event he believes may have caused the death of his infant brother. It is a true and universal tale of Puerto Ricans who came to New York for a better life.
The second piece to catch is How to Get to Heaven from the Crawfish Pond by Melanie Maria Goodreaux. Directed by Goodreaux with Christopher Bello, witness a blend of magical realism, surreal comedy, spirituality, and poetry. Set in Louisiana, this show asks what we owe the people we love before, and perhaps even after, death. Other works this month include The Flowers of Forest Hills, The Bird is Done, and Astoria.
