The third Circle Theater Festival fills AMT Theater for three weeks, Monday, October 26 through Sunday, November 15, with 20 new shows and tickets from $15 to $53.
RJ Theatre Company and TAL Media run the festival at AMT Theater, 354 West 45th Street. Its pitch to artists is a professional Off-Broadway-standard production at a fraction of the usual cost, and to audiences, low prices. Five of the programs are double bills, and most play six times across the three weeks. Tickets are through the festival's Linktree or by phone at (917) 388-2630.
We have already covered two of the shows: Hold and Unreached Things. Here is the full program, in the festival's own four strands.
Psychological thrillers
Hamlet Split Apart (October 30; November 1, 4, 8, 11, 15) is Emma Tadmor's 60-minute adaptation, which she also directs, splitting the Prince across three performers, the youngest nine years old. It drew on Freud and on research into dissociation, and first played Off-Broadway at the Flea in 2023. Tadmor co-founded the festival and runs RJ Theatre Company.
WUNDRLND (October 28, 31; November 2, 8, 9, 15), written by Gabriel Arriaga and directed by Michael Segal, turns Alice in Wonderland into a survival game in a world run by abandoned children.
One bill (October 27, 30; November 5, 6, 12, 15) pairs Egg, And How I Learned to Save Myself, a wordless movement duet by Nicole Burgio Wong and Jo Kramer Bailey set inside an EMDR therapy session, with Inside My Head, Zak Sandler's one-man musical about living with bipolar disorder, directed by Ariella Carmell. Sandler plays piano throughout.
Another (October 26; November 1, 3, 8, 9, 15) pairs Bryce Gerson's solo thriller Hold with Good Grievers by Ashlyn Hughes, directed by Mark Blane, in which a government program gives a grieving patient 24 hours to heal.
Intimate dramas
Nude Portrait (October 29; November 1, 5, 7, 12, 14) brings Elizabeth Berridge, of the film Amadeus, back to the stage after 20 years, in a new play by her daughter, Sadie Bones. Ed Bianchi, whose TV directing includes The Wire and Deadwood, directs, and Suzanne Di Donna, Dylan Pitanza and Chloe Margot complete the cast. An ex-wife, a new girlfriend and the young couple next door end up arguing about what living with an artist costs.
The Day Intuition Died (October 27, 28; November 4, 8, 11, 14), written and directed by Talya Dayan, the festival's other co-founder, follows a woman sitting for a portrait by her former teacher and lover in a Brooklyn studio. The painting is made live onstage.
A double bill (October 27, 31; November 2, 6, 10, 13) pairs The Prospectors, devised by The Second Sex and directed by Liadin Stewart, about two 1920s sex workers whose marks turn out to be dead, with Jenn Ficarra's Mine And Yours And Yours And Mine, directed by Margot Leach, set on the night before a husband's memorial.
The bill for Unreached Things (October 28; November 1, 2, 8, 9, 15) adds Delete Me by Maria Koronellou, directed by Valentina Piombi, in which a man finds photographs of a life he has no memory of.
Coming of age
Mokeb (October 26, 31; November 4, 7, 10, 14) is the first play by Pakistani American writer Hannah Dehradunwala, directed by filmmaker Darine Hotait. A cast of six women follows a New York freelancer on the Arbaeen walk, the 86-kilometer pilgrimage from Najaf to Karbala in Iraq.
Across a Wicked Weed (October 28; November 1, 3, 7, 11, 15), by Adir Lev Mann and directed by Maya Mills, spends one winter night in Asheville, North Carolina, with a couple who may be ending a five-year relationship.
Ivy Day (October 29; November 1, 3, 8, 10, 13), written and directed by Arianna Muñoz, puts six high school seniors in a room waiting on college admissions decisions. It was nominated for Best New Play at the 2025 Standing Ovation Awards.
Off Island, Rebecca Davidson Packer's cycle of five autobiographical plays directed by William Balzac, plays in two parts: Part 1 (plays one to three) on October 29 and November 5 and 12, Part 2 (plays four and five) on October 31 and November 7 and 14.
Musicals
Loud & With Feeling (October 30, 31; November 6, 7, 13, 14) is by DeafBlind theater maker Spencer J. Vigil, directed by Jules Dameron: a pop-synth score following a group of queer students through the first 24 hours of a sit-in.
Becoming Vegan (October 27, 31; November 3, 7, 10, 14), by Sarah Clemency and directed by Dana Lee Capanna, is a musical comedy about a vegan who falls for a woman secretly eating meat.
Ivy and the Poison (October 26; November 1, 4, 8, 11, 15) is Netta Toledano's emo-punk song cycle about a breakup, which Toledano wrote and performs, directed by Kelsey Bray.
Loving This Year (October 26, 31; November 2, 7, 9, 14), with book, music and lyrics by Chelsea Gabrielle Rose, follows three generations of one family through 2020.
