- October 2026
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V. It may not have been written as a stand-alone work.
Although the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's works lists the play as a history play, the earlier Quarto edition of 1597 calls it The tragedie of King Richard the second.
- April 2026
The Good Person of Szechwan is a play written by the German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin and Ruth Berlau. The play was begun in 1938 but not completed until 1943, while the author was in exile in the United States. It was first performed in 1943 at the Zürich Schauspielhaus in Switzerland, with a musical score and songs by Swiss composer Huldreich Georg Früh. Today, Paul Dessau's composition of the songs from 1947–48, also authorized by Brecht, is the better known version. The play is an example of Brecht's "non-Aristotelian drama", a dramatic form intended to be staged with the methods of epic theatre. The play is a parable set in the Chinese "city of Sichuan".
- January 2026
The Pajama Game is a musical based on the novel 7½ Cents by Richard Bissell. It features a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story deals with labor troubles in a pajama factory, where worker demands for a seven-and-a-half cents raise are going unheeded. In the midst of this ordeal, love blossoms between Babe, the grievance committee head, and Sid, the new factory superintendent.
The original Broadway production opened on May 13, 1954, and ran for 1,063 performances. It was revived in 1973, and again in 2006 by The Roundabout Theatre Company. The original production won a Tony for Best Musical, and the 2006 Broadway revival won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. The musical is a popular choice for community and school group productions.
The original London West End production opened at the London Coliseum on October 13 1955 where it ran for 588 performances. Max Wall played Hines, Elizabeth Seal played Gladys, Frank Lawless played Prez, Edmund Hockridge played Sid Sorokin and Joy Nichols played Babe Williams.
- April 2024
Miss Julie is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg dealing with class, love, lust, the battle of the sexes, and the interaction among them. Set on Midsummer's Eve on the estate of a Count in Sweden, the young woman of the title, attempting to escape an existence cramped by social mores and have a little fun, dances at the servants' annual midsummer party, where she is drawn to a senior servant, a footman named Jean, who is particularly well-traveled, well-mannered and well-read. The action takes place in the kitchen of Miss Julie's father's manor; here Jean's fiancée, a servant named Kristin, cooks and sometimes sleeps while Jean and Miss Julie talk.
The plot is primarily concerned with power in its various forms. Miss Julie has power over Jean because she is upper-class. Jean has power over Miss Julie because he is male and uninhibited by aristocratic values. The count, Miss Julie's father, has power over both of them since he is a nobleman, an employer, and a father.
On this night, behavior between Miss Julie and Jean which was previously a flirtatious contest for power rapidly escalates to a love relationship—or is it just lust?—that is fully consummated. Over the course of the play, Miss Julie and Jean battle for control, which swings back and forth between them until Jean convinces her that the only way to escape her predicament is to commit suicide.
- September 2023
Dreamgirls is a Broadway musical, with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics and book by Tom Eyen. Based upon the show business aspirations and successes of R&B acts such as The Supremes, The Shirelles, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and others, the musical follows the story of a young female singing trio from Chicago, Illinois called "The Dreams", who become music superstars. The musical opened on December 20, 1981 at the Imperial Theatre, and was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical, and won six. It was later adapted into a motion picture from DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures in 2006.
