The 18 best Off-Broadway and indie theaters in Brooklyn

By Anna Rahmanan

There’s no time like the fall to take in a play. Although Broadway gets the world’s attention when it comes to the city’s theater scene, there is much (good!) to be said about Off-Broadway and indie theaters as well — many of which call Brooklyn home.

Let’s start with the basics: The main difference between Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters is the number of seats on premise. Broadway theaters usually boast a capacity of 500 or more and are found around Times Square in Manhattan, while Off-Broadway houses can accommodate 99 to 500 guests. As for indie theaters, also known as Off-Off-Broadway destinations, those host even fewer guests at once and the productions mounted inside of them are often of experimental nature. If Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions strike a chord, they can eventually step up to larger venues where they are able to sell more tickets per night.

Brooklyn itself is home to a vast array of non-Broadway theaters that capture the diversity of audiences (and talent!) that make up the cultural character of the city. Here, alphabetically, is a list of the best theaters in Brooklyn for catching a play. Here are a few worth checking out.

BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange
421 5th Avenue, Park Slope
Since its 1991 founding, BAX has strived to fuse the concepts of performing arts and social justice through an incubator program that focuses on a variety of crafts, from dance to theater, movement and more. In addition to the shows that it mounts, the space offers artist residencies, access to a practice lab, youth education programs, affordable rehearsal studios and more.

Billie Holiday Theatre
1368 Fulton Street, Bedford-Stuyvesant
The award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre is the first Black theater to send a hit play to Broadway. “The River Niger,” written by Joseph A. Walker, tells the story of a Black family in Harlem. Billie Holiday Theatre has itself been telling such stories for decades, championing authentic representations of the African diasporic experience through the performing arts since 1972. Some of the country’s most recognized Black artists have honed their skills on this stage, including Smokey Robinson, Jay-Z and Samuel L. Jackson.

BRIC
647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene
Founded in 1979 as the “Fund for the Borough of Brooklyn,” BRIC is best known today for its annual Celebrate Brooklyn! summer concert series. But BRIC’s mission goes well beyond that to include supporting artists, students and media makers of all kinds. Which, naturally, includes theater — like the recent one-woman show “Unbossed & Unbowed” about Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, or BRIC’s annual “Under the Radar Theater Festival.”

Brooklyn Academy of Music
30 Lafayette Avenue, Fort Greene
One of the most renowned multi-arts destinations in all of New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music plays host to a variety of productions that span genre and theme — from opera to film, theater, dance and more. But that was not always the case. Founded back in 1861, the destination was originally built as the home of the Philharmonic Society of Brooklyn. Throughout the years, though, after the structure burned to the ground and eventually moved to its current facility, different types of productions were mounted inside. Today, the cultural destination prides itself on the scope of programming that it is able to put forward yearly.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts
2900 Avenue H, South Midwood
Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, Brooklyn College’s concert hall, hosts classical music acts and adjacent productions at affordable prices in a midcentury building that practically becomes a character in many of the shows it hosts.

The Brooklyn Mirage
140 Stewart Avenue, East Williamsburg
Open seasonally from April through November, the Brooklyn Mirage is an open-air space that is part of the larger Avant Gardner event venue in East Williamsburg. From a 200-foot-tall LED wall to a top-notch sound system and evergreen plants, the destination is the ideal space for immersive experiences, from concerts to more eclectic theatrical productions.

Cocktail Magique Theatre by Company XIV
17 Wyckoff Avenue, Bushwick
The Cocktail Magique Theatre is one of two adjacent spaces by Company XIV in Bushwick, this one home to a widely praised magic (well, “magique”) show, free jazz Sunday sessions and what they call lipstick readings. It’s a cabaret-like, extravagant, almost circus-y venue that screams Bushwick.

Gallery Players
199 14th Street, Park Slope
Considered the premiere Off-Off Broadway theater in Brooklyn, this intimate arts center in Park Slope usually mounts three musicals and three plays a season. On the 2024-2025 roster, you’ll find “Kinky Boots,” “Something Rotten!,” “Metamorphoses” and more.

Jalopy Theatre Company
315 Columbia Street, Carroll Gardens
Founded by husband-and-wife duo Geoff and Lynette Wiley back in 2006, the Jalopy Theatre and School of Music is dedicated to the championing of traditional roots music. The nonprofit’s multifaceted space offers both a variety of classes for students of all ages and mounts productions that range from fundraisers to musical performances.

Brooklyn Masonic Temple
317 Clermont Avenue, Clinton Hill
The Brooklyn Masonic Temple is an architectural marvel: built in 1907 as a replica of King Solomon’s Temple, it features the sorts of marble staircases and Masonic murals that add a touch of pizzazz to any production that is mounted on site. The venue is available for rent for private events as well.

National Sawdust
80 N 6th Street, Williamsburg
National Sawdust is a nonprofit music producer and venue in Brooklyn that puts on cultural programs rooted in sound, from modern interpretations of music benefiting from the state-of-the-art spatial sound system on site to operas and more. The venue’s name calls out to the building’s original tenant: a sawdust factory by the same moniker that occupied the space in the early 20th century.

Puppetworks
338 Sixth Avenue, Park Slope
Perhaps the most creative theater in terms of productions around Brooklyn, Puppetworks is an intimate space where marionettes take on versions of classic tales — from “Alice in Wonderland” to “The Wizard of Oz” and more. First established by artistic director Nicolas Coppola back in 1980, the company initially mounted productions inside a Greenwich Village theater before moving to its current space in Park Slope in 2000.

St. Ann’s Warehouse
42 Water Street, Dumbo
Truly a Brooklyn art institution, St. Ann’s Warehouse was first founded at St. Ann’s and the Holy Trinity Church in 1980, when the space was converted into a classical music venue. In 2000, the destination relocated to Dumbo, taking over a former spice milling factory. A ton of noteworthy musicians have since then taken the stage — including Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright and David Bowie. Theatrical productions are also mounted here, accommodating audiences of up to 1,500 folks. In 2016, guests were treated to a production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” and, in 2020, Ruth Negga took to the stage in a production of “Hamlet.”

Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Place, Fort Greene
Fans of Shakespeare are surely very familiar with the Theatre for a New Audience, a nonprofit destination that focuses on producing Shakespeare dramas and other classics. Perhaps the most well-rounded attempt at bringing the playwright’s work in front of a diverse audience, sometimes even modernizing the mounted productions, the Theatre for a New Audience is nestled among other entertainment venues in Fort Greene — including the Barclays Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Mark Morris Dance Center. You can consider the area the borough’s live entertainment district of sorts.

Théâatre XIV by Company XIV
383 Troutman Street, Bushwick
Théâatre XIV by Company XIV is Cocktail Magique Theatre’s “sister venue.” Here, burlesque is queen: from creative magic shows to traditional satire that plays on the very concept of excess, a visit to the venue will tickle all of your senses and remind you of the beauty and excitement involved in living in a city like New York, where creativity reigns supreme.

The Brick Theater
579 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg
Think of The Brick as an artistic incubator: set up in an actual brick-walled garage, the venue hosts a rotating cast of comedy gurus, theater pros and experimental artists who hone their respective crafts on stage. What’s more: tickets to any of the productions are relatively affordable — so you might want to consult the venue’s calendar weekly (they present close to 300 live performances every year!).

Triskelion Arts
106 Calyer Street, Greenpoint
Lovingly dubbed the Trisk by its frequent visitors (a term that refers to the process of brainstorming and turning ideas into actions), Triskelion Arts presents shows featuring dancers, comedy and improv acts and even clowning communities. The institution boasts two separate stages: the Muriel Schulman Theater and the Douglas Elliman Studio Theater, usually the site of less formal spectacles.

Triple Promise Academy for the Performing Arts
155 Bay Ridge Avenue, Bay Ridge
Primarily a school offering courses in all types of performing arts, Triple Promise is also a rehearsal space and a site for shows of all sorts mostly produced and starred in by the students of the school. What’s better than getting to catch productions while supporting would-be artists?