Playwrights’ Center is thrilled to announce its 2026-27 public season of staged readings: ten brilliant new plays across three differently focused programs, launching December 7. This will be the second public season held at the Center’s new home in Saint Paul.
Producing Artistic Director Nicole A. Watson sees the season announcement as an exciting opportunity to welcome the public to the Center. “This year will take us into the past, present, future, and the world beyond…from K-POP to 20th century seances. These incredible playwrights are bringing their unique voices to the Center for a season that offers something for everyone. We are beyond excited to welcome audiences into the process and witness this exciting new work move from page to stage.”
Ruth Easton New Play Series
One of the most generous new play development opportunities in the field, the Ruth Easton New Play Series has sent more than half of its plays on to full productions around the world. This season’s four playwrights will workshop their plays with a hand-selected team of collaborators, and bring audiences into the artistic process over the course of two staged readings.
Plays and playwrights will include:
they say hearing is the last sense to go by Core Writer Maya Macdonald (December 7-8) tells the story of a family in the throes of a health crisis but, as Maya says, this “isn’t one of those ‘plays’ about loss where the dead come back to answer all the unanswerable questions. This is a ‘play’ where we speak to our dead because they say hearing is the last sense to go. Fingers crossed.”
GUNNER by Core Writer Jasmine Sharma (March 8-9) is “a complicated love story anchored by the intersection of personal politics and private actions.” Sharma says “With midterms around the corner, I am excited to explore how the negotiation of ambition is perennial. This is my Usha Vance play.”
Eat the Rich by Affiliated Writer Gemma Irish (April 5-6) “…came from a place of rage. Once you start noticing all the ways the super-rich are ruining this planet for the rest of us…you can’t stop.” Gemma’s hilarious revenge fantasy was workshopped last year at the Center, and she’s excited that it will see a broader audience this season.
ayóó’áníínísh’ní by Core Writer Blossom Johnson. Blossom wrote a short version of ayóó’áníínísh’ní (which means “I love you” in Navajo) in the Navajo language and “loved the characters so much that I wanted more people to see them. Navajo people have always recognized more than two genders but colonization has done so much damage to our community. I wrote this play for my nadleehi, dilbaa and two-spirit community because our youth deserve to become elders.”
In the Lab
The Center’s In the Lab series celebrates experimentation and pushes theatrical boundaries, providing a safe space for playwrights to test new ideas in front of an audience.
Plays and playwrights will include:
A Train Unloads its Sorrow by Affiliated Writer b Dang (January 15). b Dang mixes devised and scripted elements in their work and will perform in this innovative piece. “To enter the abandoned train tunnel in Providence, you have to traverse a strange pool of standing water. When you finally climb through, some light spills in illuminating your close surroundings. But, the cavernous body stretches far beyond your vision or any flashlight. It dares you to enter. That’s the feeling I’m after with this play, really.”
Guns in Trees by Brandy N. Carie (February 5) is a play about Minnesota beavers, a Wolf, and a human family striving to prepare for every possible danger. Brandy says “I’m excited to develop this play at Playwrights’ Center because it is a love letter to my roots. I wrote this play to explore what it means to both belong and not belong in the place where you are from and what it takes to love the imperfect people who raised us.”
PHENOMENON by Affiliated Writer elle thoni (February 19) is a spirited play about a post-World War I séance that asks the audience to join hands around the table as witness, participant, and skeptic. It celebrates theater as, in elle’s words, “…a place where, together, we sit in the dark and reach for something beyond our known lives. What are we searching for together? And what happens if we find it?”
Fridays@4
This season marks the return of the popular Fridays@4 series, inviting audiences deeper into the new-play development process by offering play readings accompanied by programming curated by the playwright.
Plays and playwrights will include:
Sing For Me by Core Writer Cris Eli Black (March 26). A Black singer-songwriter discovers that her record label plans to replace her public image with an AI-generated white avatar. Cris says “I’m excited for an audience to see this show and start conversations around it – about the state of the world, about art, about what they would do in the situation that the play presents, and how we can maintain our humanity in a time where it’s becoming less valued.”
Hedda and George by Core Writer Sandra Daley-Sharif (April 30). Always “drawn to the iconic Hedda Gabler – I wanted to see what she’d look like inside a Black family carrying the weight of legacy, ambition, and unspoken wounds. Setting the play in Maya Angelou’s real Harlem brownstone gave me a container: a house full of ghosts, gifts, and expectations. This play asks what we inherit without ever being asked if we wanted it.”
Loom by Core Writer Charlie Oh (May 21) is set in “the middle of the Luddite rebellions” with a cast of eight actors playing over 60 roles in this riff on the Shakespearean history play. Charlie says “I can’t wait to come back to Playwrights’ Center with a play that challenges an ensemble of actors to do something difficult – if not impossible – creating an entire world with just their words, their talent, their creativity.”
Producing Artistic Director Nicole A. Watson is eager to help create and explore the worlds imagined by these playwrights. “The Center continues to be the meeting place where people gather around the arts in celebration and civic dialogue, and we hope everyone will join these ten amazing artists to be a part of the conversation.”
In addition to the three scheduled series, we look forward to continuing our Artists in Conversation events scheduled in response to artist visits and local happenings, as well as our Member Open Play readings, featuring new plays selected from the Center’s 2,500 member playwrights around the world. Spring will include the annual Fellows Showcase and an event to get a sneak peek at new works from the McKnight Theater Artists. Our PlayLabs Festival will resume in 2027.
Tickets to the public season are free; donations accepted and appreciated.
2026-27 SEASON: PLAYS, PLAYWRIGHTS, SYNOPSES (by date)
December 7-8 | Ruth Easton New Play Series
they say hearing is the last sense to go
By Maya Macdonald, Core Writer
Sarah’s brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor – the kind that slowly takes away speech until communication and language take on new forms. But this isn’t one of those plays where the dead come back to answer all the unanswerable questions. It’s a play where you speak to the dead because they say hearing is the last sense to go. So, fingers crossed.
January 15 | In the Lab
A Train Unloads its Sorrows
By b Dang, Affiliated Writer
In Providence, Rhode Island, the East Side Railroad Tunnel was constructed and opened in 1908 by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, cutting through town and bypassing the one great hill. Fast forward to today: the railroads are cemented over, the tunnel is unused…except by the occasional spirit resting uneasy in the darkness. Part documentary/archival project, part labor history, part ghost story, part ambient/noise bath, this piece swirls together the aesthetics, forms, and histories of the region into the blaring horn of a train that once held us.
February 5 | In the Lab
Guns in Trees
By Brandy N. Carie, Core Writer
Minnesota beavers Reggie and Ronnie struggle to build a lodge before the frost sets in, but dreams of ancient Giant Beavers keep drawing Reggie toward a fantasy of power and safety that feels foolishly out of reach. Ronnie tries to convince Reggie that it’s better to be safe and small than brave and dead, even as she develops a dangerous secret friendship with the local Wolf. Meanwhile, a human family strives to prepare for every possible danger, blindly tearing the forest apart. When the oldest daughter, Al, arrives, she’s running away from a life in the city where she never felt like she fit…only to find that the woods don’t feel like home any more, either.
February 19 | In the Lab
PHENOMENON
By elle thoni, Affiliated Writer
After World War I, Americans became obsessed with contacting their dead. At a time when inventions like the phonograph and camera proved that the deceased could be seen and heard, the séance was the latest technology that allowed them to be felt. Spiritual mediums became the new pop icons, none more so than the salacious seeress known simply as “Margery” to her fans and the “Witch of Lime Street” to her enemies – including Harry Houdini himself. When Houdini called on Scientific American to prove the legitimacy of mediums once and for all, Margery agreed to risk everything to put her powers to the test. PHENOMENON is an invitation to that fateful séance, where the audience will be asked to join hands around the table as witness, participant, and skeptic. Should we believe in this greater intelligence? Or have we unwisely made ourselves part of the con?
March 8-9 | Ruth Easton New Play Series
GUNNER
By Jasmine Sharma, Core Writer
GUNNER follows a hypothetical law school study group struggling with their public politics, private ambitions, and the undeniable romance of mentorship/friendship. Right or wrong, happy or unhappy, are we different people for different people? This is my Usha Vance play.
March 26 | Fridays@4
Sing For Me
By Cris Eli Blak, Core Writer
A Black singer-songwriter finally gets her big break, only to discover that her record label plans to replace her public image with an AI-generated white avatar. As she struggles to retain ownership of her voice, her art, and her identity, she must decide whether survival in a digital-first music industry is worth the cost of invisibility.
April 5-6 | Ruth Easton New Play Series
Eat the Rich
By Gemma Irish, Affiliated Writer
Alfie has grown up in a clan of justice warriors, hunting and eating the rich. His worldview is thrown into question when he meets Clara, a member of a clan with different dietary habits. As Alfie questions everything he thought was true, he sparks a reckoning in his mother Sheena – leader of the Cannibals. Can the matriarchs of each clan find a path forward that ensures their survival, with their full humanity intact? Eat the Rich is a revenge fantasy, an interrogation of wealth and human value, and a comedy about how we change our minds.
April 30 | Fridays@4
Hedda and George
By Sandra Daley-Sharif, Core Writer
A caged bird, a haunted piano, and a marriage on the edge of collapse. Inspired by Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Hedda and George follows a newly married power couple – a MacArthur-winning Black author and his wife, a formidable PR strategist from a Black Wall Street dynasty – as they move into the Harlem brownstone once owned by Maya Angelou. Beneath the wedding gifts and champagne, old wounds resurface: covert incest, addiction, ambition, and the question of what it costs to build a legacy on someone else’s foundation.
May 10-11 | Ruth Easton New Play Series
ayóó’áníínísh’ní
By Blossom Johnson, Core Writer
Piccadillys, K-POP, and queer joy in a small town? Say less. A tender, hilarious, dance-your-heart-out coming-of-age story in which three teens with a shared love of K-POP and piccadilly (snow cones topped with pickles and Kool-Aid) open a piccadilly snow cone stand in the hopes of raising enough funds to buy concert tickets.
Get ready to laugh, cry, and move your body as you root for three Navajo teens scheming their way to Vegas while navigating love, loss, and coming out.
May 21 | Fridays@4
Loom
By Charlie Oh, Core Writer
A family caught in the middle of the Luddite rebellions fights to stay together as the forces of history rip them apart. A cast of eight actors plays over 60 roles in this riff on the Shakespearean history play about what it means to be human, and what we sacrifice to preserve our humanity.