Cheap theater: Where to enjoy affordable shows in NYC

The grandest of the Lincoln Center buildings, the Met is a spectacular place to experience opera and ballet. The space hosts the Metropolitan Opera from September to May, with major visiting companies appearing in summer. The majestic theater also showcases works from a range of international dance companies, from the Paris Opéra Ballet to the Kirov Ballet. In spring, the Met is home to American Ballet Theatre, which presents full-length classic story ballets, works by contemporary choreographers and special performances and workshops for children. RECOMMENDED: 101 best things do in NYC

Visitors may think they know this venerable theater from TV’s Showtime at the Apollo. But you've got to see it to truly experience The Apollo. 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 more contemporary acts like the Roots and Lykke Li. 

New York Live Arts was formed in 2011 by a merger of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and Dance Theater Workshop. Its mission is to support and showcase dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting and educating.

When the Shubert brothers opened it for business in 1911, the Winter Garden was heralded as a music hall "devoted to novel, international, spectacular and musical entertainments." It's current longtime occupant, Mamma Mia!, certainly fits the bill. Before that, from 1982 to 2000, Cats prowled the halls. The 1,498-seat space (with one of the larger Broadway stages and a relatively low proscenium arch) will probably have audiences shaking their booties to "Dancing Queen" for a good 10 or 15 years to come.

Formerly a tobacco depot, St. Ann’s Warehouse—the adventurous theatergoer’s alternative to BAM—puts on an exciting slate of envelope-pushing theater and music performances. Not long ago, a thrilling production of Oklahoma! made the leap from St. Ann’s to Broadway, so watch this space for more rising stars.

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.

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.

This eco-conscious 90-seat rental and production space is a standout, with its stunning wood-and-concrete construction (oozing with green technologies), sweet art gallery and even—when do you rhapsodize about this downtown?—a wonderful bathroom. Since openig in 2007, it has hosted several notable works, including Samuel D. Hunter's A Bright New Boise and the musical 33 to Nothing.

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.

Founded in 2012, this arts center is led by artistic director Alec Duffy (Three Pianos, Shadows). The space's mission is to serve as a cultural hub in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, presenting cutting-edge theater, music and dance performances, expanding access to the arts, bridging audiences and educating youth. 

Lincoln Center Theater's newest space is a 131-seat venue that will showcase new plays by rising talent under the LCT3 umbrella. The Tow is also the centerpiece of a 23,000-square-foot rooftop complex, designed by noted architect Hugh Hardy of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, located on top of the Vivian Beaumont. The two-story structure (costing $41 million) also houses rehearsal and office space and includes an outdoor terrace overlooking the Lincoln Center Plaza.

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.

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 theater looks like what it once was: a 19th-century school auditorium. Painted a lovely Russian blue and still echoing slightly with teenagers past, the 99-seat Connelly has a pretty proscenium and pressed-tin ceiling—a surprising jewel box well off the beaten track. Productions that have made a stir there include Anne Washburn’s ghost-infested Apparition and Lucy Thurber’s Monstrosity, which made full use of the balcony and the seemingly limitless space.

From the outside, the SoHo Playhouse looks like what it once was: a charming, federalist rowhouse. In its long and storied past (it converted to theaterhood in the ’20s), the venue has had many masters, including Edward Albee, who produced a number of exciting premieres here during the '60s. Now the 199-seat proscenium seems incredibly tiny—when the enormously successful 2009 production of Emperor Jones played here, it seemed like the actors might get snagged on the lights. Still, the Playhouse feels like a slice of old New York, granting a certain gravitas to the many rental productions that cycle through its doors.

Walk into this revolution-red theater—with its narrow First Floor Theater, its spectacularly barnlike next-door Ellen Stewart Theatre and the groovy attic Club Theater—and you are transported back in time to the New York scene's ’60s heyday. The mama herself, the late Ellen Stewart, first opened La MaMa's doors in 1961; it has since produced major figures like Tadeusz Kantor, Andrei Serban and Ping Chong, along with younger multicultural, dance-theater and avant-garde artists.

Called the New York Improv when it opened in 1963, this Hell's Kitchen club showcased legends such as Bill Cosby, Andy Kaufman and Robin Williams during its first stint. After being closed for years, former collaborators opened this basement joint a few blocks from the original, and they showcase TV faces and other regulars from the club circuit. Expect to hear from a variety of NYC comics during the regular stand-up showcase, each one performing short sets. Before the show, be prepared that you may have to wait in line on a steep, narrow staircase before you're let in. Also, there's a two-drink minimum.

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.

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

This scrappy 70-seat space—an erstwhile garage—popped into the theatrical scene in 2002 squished into a vanishingly tiny spot on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg. Its founders, Robert Honeywell and Michael Gardner, have maintained a rattling schedule of tartly themed summer festivals (such as the Moral Values Festival), pieces by low-budget, high-concept avant-gardists like the Debate Society and Ian W. Hill, and works helmed by Honeywell and Gardner themselves.

After losing the lease on his Soho space in 2010, after nearly three decades there, Robert Lyons moved to the landmarked Archive building in teh West Village. The new space, home to the summer Ice Factory Festival and much more, remains an indispensable theatrical crucible.

Broadway's biggest venue with approximately 1,938 seats, the Lyric was created in 1996-98 by combining the adjacent Apollo and Lyric Theatres (themselves built in 1903 and 1920, respectively). Originally named the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, the Lyric was previously known as Foxwoods Theatre and before that, the Hilton. Among its noteworthy resident shows have been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Young Frankenstein, On the Town and Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Its spacious, winding, gilded lobby is one of the most beautiful on the Great White Way. The theater has two main entrance spaces; for its current production, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, it is using the one on 43rd Street.

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.

Nestled in the East Village's historic, neoclassical Colonnade Row, the Astor Place Theater opened in 1968 and, for a while, was one of the city's go-to spots for experimental theater. Since 1991, however, it has been home to the indigo aliens of Blue Man Group, who give no sign of leaving anytime soon.

Situated in the New York State Pavilion designed for the 1964 World’s Fair, the Queens Theatre in the Park opened to the public in 1993, and now contains three performance spaces: a 464-seat main stage, a 99-seat studio theater and a 75-seat cabaret space. The venue often hosts family-friendly performances and has a reasonably priced kids' series; it also offers birthday-party packages.