the week of may 23-29, 2025
grifters, the steel industry, acrobats
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Graphic Design: Elizabeth Morton | Editorial Support: Ryan Adelsheim
world premieres
George Brant’s Rust: A Story of Grit and Steel is now playing through May 25th at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland. The adaptation of Eliese Colette Goldbach’s memoir—“the true story of one woman’s experience in the steel industry, her struggle to find peace, and the courage she summoned to rebuild her life”—is directed by Laura Kepley.
Kate Tarker and Dan Schlosberg’s The Counterfeit Opera runs May 29 - June 15 at Little Island in NYC. Dustin Wills directs the “new take on the legendary satire The Beggar’s Opera, [setting] the antihero robber Macheath in the streets of 1850s Manhattan, where grifting gangs and working women find themselves too poor to win, but too smart to fail.”
Ryan Nicole Austin, Beau Lewis, and Adesha Adefela’s Co-Founders starts performances May 29th at A.C.T. in San Francisco. Jamil Jude directs and Juel D. Lane choreographs the hip-hop musical about “an underrated young Oakland coder who hacks her way into the most competitive startup accelerator in San Francisco.”
Nikhil Mahapatra’s Love You More runs May 29 - June 19 at The Tank in NYC. The “play about 3 sisters, but actually only 2 sisters, being sisterly, and figuring out what that means when you’re all that’s left” is directed by N // Nicky Maggio.
Jordan Tannahill’s Prince Faggot starts performances May 30th Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in a co-production with Soho Rep. Shayok Misha Chowdhury directs the “meta-theatrical satire [in which] an ensemble of queer, trans, and nonbinary performers reckon with how the forces of power, privilege, and colonization play upon their lives as the playwright offers a central provocation: what if queer people dared to imagine a future monarch having a life that resembled their own?”
productions
Noël Coward’s Private Lives starts performances May 23rd at The Alley Theatre in Houston. Director KJ Sanchez sets the timeless comedy in 1930s South America as “divorced couple Elyot and Amanda accidentally find themselves honeymooning with their new spouses in adjacent rooms.”
Gloria Calderón Kellett’s One of the Good Ones runs May 24 – June 22 at The Old Globe in San Diego. The comedy about “generational differences and cultural assumptions colliding when Yoli brings her new boyfriend home to meet her Latino American parents” is directed by Kimberly Senior.
Danny Tejera’s Toros starts performances May 24th at Rec Room Arts in Houston. Lily Wolff directs the Madrid-set work about “three twentysomething third-culture-kids struggling to grow up, take responsibility, and find a version of reality to believe in.”
Emily Burns’ adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein runs May 27 - June 29 at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Burns also directs her reimagining of “the gothic science fiction masterpiece as a chilling exploration of the horror within humanity and what it means to create a new life.”
Robert O’Hara’s adaptation of Hamlet starts performances May 28th at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. The “new, Hitchcockian noir take on the Shakespearean tragedy” is also directed by O’Hara.
Brent Askari’s Andy Warhol in Iran runs May 29 - June 29 at Mosaic Theater Company in Washington, DC. Serge Seiden direct the work “combining high stakes with hijinks to imagine an encounter between Andy Warhol and an Iranian revolutionary.”
The 7 Fingers’ Duel Reality starts performances May 29th at Seattle Rep. The physical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with “two feuding families facing off in an epic competition of acrobatic talent and skill” is directed by Shana Cooper.
R. Eric Thomas’ Glitter in the Glass runs May 29 - June 15 at Theatre Exile in Philadelphia. Ontaria Kim Wilson directs the darkly comic drama about “a Black mid-career artist attempting to replace a Confederate monument in Baltimore with her artwork, catapulting her into a journey that takes her back before the Middle Passage and out beyond the bounds of this planet.”
Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky starts performances May 29th at Trinity Rep in Providence, RI. The intimate 1930s Harlem-set drama about “four friends’ lives changing forever upon the arrival of a mysterious stranger from Alabama” is directed by Jackie Davis.
Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2 is now playing through June 8th at Pasadena Playhouse in California. Jennifer Chang directs the “audacious spin-off diving into the messy reality of what it means to be a woman living on your own terms in 1894.”
The Red Bull Theater production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid is now playing Off-Broadway at New World Stages through June 29th. The “brilliant satire of doctors, lawyers, and would-be patients who take self-care to staggering levels of pathological solipsism” is directed by Jesse Berger in a new translation by Mirabelle Ordinaire.
2025-26 season updates
Woolly Mammoth announced its 2025-26 season. The DC theatre’s line-up includes Riki Lindhome’s Dead Inside (performed by Lindhome and directed by Brian McElhaney), Nia Akilah Robinson’s THE GREAT PRIVATION (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) (directed by Mina Morita, co-pro with Company One), Ali Viterbi’s The World to Come (directed by Howard Shalwitz, co-pro with Theater J), Julia Masli’s ho ho ho ha ha ha ha (performed by Masli and directed by Kim Noble), Sasha Velour’s Travesty, and Justin Weaks’ A Fine Madness (performed by Weaks and directed by Raymond O. Caldwell).
Diversionary Theatre announced its 2025-26 season. The San Diego-based LGBTQIA+ theatre will produce JC Lee’s To My Girls (directed by Jesse Marchese), Jonathan Larson’s RENT, and two world premieres: Shakina’s Manifest Pussy (directed by Sherri Eden Barber) and Harrison David Rivers, Nini Camp, and Sherri Eden Barber’s Straddle.
Irish Repertory Theatre announced its fall/summer season. The NYC theatre’s line-up includes Conor McPherson’s The Weir (directed by Ciarán O’Reilly) and Leo McGann’s The Honey Trap (directed by Matt Torney).
award season
The Helen Hayes Awards were announced on Monday. The annual DC-area theatre honors included 41 award categories. (It’s a long but fun night!) Out-of-towners are always surprised when I talk/brag about the sheer volume of work produced here, but the DC region has a real, vibrant ecosystem of theatres. 165 eligible productions were under consideration this year: 57 musicals, 108 plays, and 37 world premieres. (I’ve been a Helen Hayes judge in the past and they put in work.)
The most awarded productions were Douglas Carter Beane’s The Nance at 1st Stage (4), Marshall Pailet’s musical Private Jones at Signature Theatre (4), Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson’s Mexodus at Mosaic Theater Company (3), and Jocelyn Bioh’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding at Arena Stage (3).The Drama League Awards were announced. Oh, Mary! won Outstanding Play and Direction of a Play, while Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day and the Simon Stephens’ solo adaptation of Vanya tied for Outstanding Revival. In the musical categories, Maybe Happy Ending won Outstanding Musical and Direction of a Musical, while Sunset Blvd. picked up Outstanding Musical Revival and Distinguished Performance for Nicole Scherzinger.
Charlene Adhiambo and Amy B. Tiong are the 2025 recipients of the Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship. Each winner receives “a $25,000 stipend for each year of matriculation at select writing programs across the country, with up to $75,000 available to subsidize living expenses not covered by tuition.” Created in honor of Lorraine Hansberry, the fellowships “aim to support the next generation of women and non-binary playwrights of color.”