Target Margin Theater is kicking off a three-week festival called The Nonsense Lab at its Sunset Park home starting September 17, running through October 3. The lineup features three productions with six performances each, plus three one-night music and performance events, all built around a theme the company is simply calling nonsense.
The festival will take place at The Doxsee, Target Margin Theater's venue at 232 52nd St. in Brooklyn, according to the Red Hook Star-Revue. Tickets start at $20 and are on sale now at Target Margin's website. That pricing reflects the company's long-standing mission to keep experimental performance accessible to the neighborhood surrounding the theater, according to BroadwayWorld.
Artistic Director David Herskovits said the work by choreographer Caroline Fermin, Associate Artistic Director Adam M. Kassim, and puppeteer Kathleen Kennedy Tobin epitomizes the lab festival's purpose, per a press release cited by the Star-Revue. Herskovits founded Target Margin Theater in 1991 on the belief that divergent, non-realistic art can reveal deeper human truths than strict realism, according to American Theatre. He has led the company for more than three decades, reimagining classical texts and producing experimental laboratory work.
Three New Works Anchor the Festival
Fermin's piece, titled Let Me Be An Animal, is a dance that explores the slow, awkward, sweaty, and questioning parts of ourselves, per the Star-Revue's description. Fermin is a Juilliard BFA graduate, a founding member of Gallim Dance, and a current faculty member at Barnard College and Marymount Manhattan College who previously choreographed Target Margin's Show/Boat: A River at NYU Skirball, according to Barnard College. Her festival piece also examines somatics and identity in an era shaped by algorithms and biohacking, per the same account.
Kassim's contribution, We'll Jump Off That Bridge When We Get There, is a five-person performance about politics, pop culture, and history, according to the Star-Revue. Kassim, a Palestinian American director with an MFA from Boston University, previously directed FAGGOT/TERRORIST for Target Margin's 2025 Degenerate Lab and received a Lucille Lortel Theater commission for his play In the Space Between, according to his website. His new piece uses a five-person cast to critique contemporary politics and pop culture.
The third production, The Charnel House, is a puppet show by toy theater creator and puppeteer Kathleen Kennedy Tobin exploring memories of past lives in New York City, per the Star-Revue. Tobin first developed tabletop puppet work for Target Margin's 2012 Lab at The Bushwick Starr and previously designed toy theaters for the company's production of Uriel Acosta: I Want That Man! at The Chocolate Factory, according to Target Margin Theater. Her festival piece uses shadow puppetry and toy theater to depict love during apocalyptic times.
A Sunset Park Institution With Deep Roots
Target Margin Theater operated as an itinerant troupe across New York City for 25 years before opening The Doxsee, its first permanent home, in November 2017. The 3,250-square-foot venue is named after founding member and resident lighting designer Lenore Doxsee, according to American Theatre. Over its 35-year history, the company has earned four OBIE Awards, including one in 1998 for its production of Mamba's Daughters, and has produced more than 50 mainstage shows and 130 laboratory projects, per the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Beyond the three headline productions, the festival's schedule includes single-night public events, among them a TMT Community Café on September 22 designed to foster informal dialogue between visiting artists and the surrounding neighborhood. Community Cafés are a recurring part of how Target Margin Theater connects with local Sunset Park residents. The company also runs its SPACE program, offering 1,000 hours of free studio and rehearsal time annually at The Doxsee on a first-come, first-served basis to support independent New York City performing artists who otherwise face steep barriers to affordable rehearsal space.
Setting Up a Season-Long Theme
The Nonsense Lab functions as the opening act for Target Margin's 2026–2027 season, which is built around theme-driven responses to social and political chaos, according to a July 21 season announcement from BroadwayWorld. That season culminates in March 2027 with PROJECT 251, a new company-created work directed by Herskovits that uses the Declaration of Independence and Dadaist art to examine modern American political absurdity. Target Margin Theater has also hosted work from ensemble group The Goat Exchange, which Hoodline recently covered in connection with a separate Manhattan production.
The Doxsee sits near the Sunset Park waterfront and is accessible via the 53rd Street R train station, according to BroadwayWorld. What remains an open question, given the neighborhood's diverse immigrant population, is how these absurdism-focused, experimental works will land with the local community that Target Margin's low ticket prices and free programming are designed to reach.
