You need to sit down at the computer with your parents and their 2024 tax return (if you are starting college in 2026).
The NPCs on each college website vary…and ask for different information beyond the basics. I would suggest you do the college specific ones. There are some college specific ones that do use the College Board NPC, but not all do.
Have you or your parents run the NPC for NYU? You should not be applying ED anywhere unless both (1) It is your top choice; and (2) Either you are fine being full pay or the NPC shows it as likely to be affordable. Clearly a budget of $20,000 per year is not even remotely close to being enough to support “full pay” at NYU so hopefully whatever the NPC says is going to be okay.
Others can comment. I don’t know how that works.
You can run through one directly and see if it gives you the same answer. Hopefully your parents, not you, entered the data.
Yes, NPC’s are a must, as most of us have said. My interpretation of what the OP has said, though, is that his immediate family legitimately qualifies for enough aid to afford full-need-met schools like NYU and CMU (or at least I certainly hope so given the ED application 
), but that extended family may pitch in as needed.
However… the premise that you’d preemptively foreclose on otherwise-excellent options like UMass-Amherst and BU, just because more people from your high school go there than you’d prefer, is a little hard for me to wrap my head around. Even if 50 kids from your school went to each of these universities each year, that would still comprise less than 1% of the undergrad population, and there would quite likely be nobody from your school in your particularly BFA program.
Absolutely, once you have decisions and financial aid packages in hand and need “tiebreaker” criteria, your preference to go farther away to a school where you wouldn’t know people from HS is a fair thing to consider. But not applying at all, and potentially putting family members in a position of having to scrape up a lot more money to fund your education because you ruled out otherwise top-notch options close to home, seems unwise to me. You already have limitations on what will work, financially and geographically/culturally/politically. I don’t think imposing additional, arguably-frivolous limitations up-front makes sense.
Yes, SUNY Purchase would be a great one to add - it’s a flagship-match campus, and Massachusets is included in that. It was also trans-friendly even back when that was very rare. Agreed that shooting your shot at Yale could be worth trying too, if an ED acceptance to NYU doesn’t come through.
I don’t have time to research this at the moment, but how about Marymount Manhattan which is being taken over by Northeastern - is their Theatre Tech major going to continue?
Not to mention, when your budget is limited, this is just one thing that you don’t really have the choice to consider - although Salem State seems to have a strong program but OP mentioned UM-B which is a BA vs Salem which has a BFA and a lot $27k b4 merit aid.
Sorry - I see you touched on the distance point later.
Given OPs privates are need aware at their expected cost is a huge concern, especially with less full pay intl applying. Yale, therefore, does make sense or other need blind schools that have the desired major.
I wonder what the NPC would say for Fordham/Lincoln Center. They offer a BFA in Theater with a concentration in Design & Production.
With their location, you’re right there with the heart of the theater district a few blocks away. You can walk to it in 5 minutes. Loads of opportunities for internships, jobs, contacts, etc.
Yes, worth running the NPC for Fordham LC. Perhaps worth applying even if the NPC doesn’t come out favorable because they have some full tuition and full-ride scholarships, including at least one that is earmarked for a Theater student.