Across the DMV, theater fans are buzzing with the anticipation of what will take center stage in the 2024–25 season. Programming for the current season (2023–24) will run through the early summer, but several local theaters have already made grand gestures to announce and promote their upcoming season. This year features world premieres, Broadway transfers, and more than one noteworthy name in the process.
Last year, we highlighted some of the key takeaways for the current season, noting that D.C. theaters were gearing up for a “long journey ahead” to recover from the pandemic. In September, City Paper contributor Jared Strange offered readers a closer look into the high-stakes process, acknowledging that “regional nonprofit theaters across the country are facing a serious financial pinch, prompting some to lay off staff, some to pause programming, and others to close down entirely. […] It’s down to leaders and staff to thread a tricky programmatic needle while balancing the books.”
Yet, unexpected trends and surprises continue to shake up the industry. The summer months, for instance, witnessed heavy disparagement regarding what appears to be an ever-escalating crisis in the American theater. From the Washington Post and the New York Times to select features in American Theatre, the financial struggles faced by the nonprofit theater industry, plus a growing hesitancy from many audiences to return, were met with a “doom and gloom” mentality by reporters. Meanwhile, gems such as Annalisa Dias’ “Decomposition Instead of Collapse” offered a more hopeful yet cautionary point of view. Theaters across the country are responding to these warnings, with some facing the brunt of these articles’ critiques more than others.
Over the past year in D.C., nonprofit theaters witnessed leadership step down, while new faces stepped up. Some venues reopened, others closed. The Professional Non-Profit Theatre Coalition headed to Capitol Hill in September, and on April 9, the Supporting Theater and the Arts to Galvanize the Economy (STAGE) Act hit the Senate floor. Finally, at the end of 2023, longtime theater critic Peter Marks announced his resignation from the Post, prompting many in the theater world to fear for the city’s future investment in arts journalism.
So where are we now? Local theaters are pulling out bells and whistles for this go-around: star-studded casts, Broadway mega-musicals, and huge funding opportunities. All these efforts seek to leave an impression on an industry in need of support. While only a sprinkling of announcements have been released as of April 15, each of the following season lineups holds promise, pizzazz, and an overwhelming amount of inertia after a year of pushback.
In whatever downtime existed between The Lehman Trilogy and their much-awaited off-site production of Macbeth, Shakespeare Theatre Company couldn’t wait to share the news that film actor and Broadway darling Matthew Broderick will make his STC debut in the Sinclair Lewis-adapted satire Babbitt this October. Artistic director Simon Godwin will direct a whopping three plays next season, including the 2024–25 opener, Comedy of Errors, premiering Sept. 10 and featuring Alex Brightman and David Fynn; a new version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya starring Hugh Bonneville (of Downton Abbey fame); and All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, which welcomes 2023’s King Lear, Patrick Page, back to STC after his Broadway run of the same production. Rounding out the company’s season will be Tom Stoppard’s recent Tony winner Leopoldstadt, John Kani’s Kunene and the King, and a new adaptation of Frankenstein by Emily Burns.
Elsewhere in the region, Round House Theatre announced their season will open in September with Mfoniso Udofia’s Sojourners, directed by Valerie Curtis–Newton. Udofia is also one of Round House’s Equal Play commissioned playwrights, an initiative that seeks to combat ongoing financial inequities while encouraging underrepresented voices in the American theater. A Hanukkah Carol, or GELT TRIP! The Musical resumes its place in the holiday slot after last year’s last-minute omission. Heidi Schreck’s celebrated solo show, What the Constitution Means to Me, makes its D.C. premiere, though the director and lead actor have yet to be announced. Part of the National Capital New Play Festival, Sharyn Rothstein’s Bad Books, which was previously presented as a reading during the 2023 festival, will star local acting legends Kate Eastwood Norris and Holly Twyford, who we just saw in Studio Theatre‘s At the Wedding. Finally, Round House’s 2024–25 season concludes with Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph’s King James, a moving story about unexpected friendships and the vitality of sports fandom.
Olney Theatre Company kicks off fall of 2024 with a political opener, Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground, opening Sept. 27, followed by three lighthearted romps: Disney’s Frozen: The Musical; Sara Bareilles’ Broadway hit Waitress; and the American premiere of Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini’s Sleepova. Knowing a good time when it sees one, Olney Theatre follows suit with a world premiere musical: Joriah Kwamé’s Little Miss Perfect, plus Ins Choi’s Kim’s Convenience (inspiration for the Netflix series of the same name). Olney will also present A Chrismas Carol during the holiday months, and their main stage will host the now-homeless Synetic Theater’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream during the summer of 2025.
Theatre J continues to center Jewish voices in and beyond the D.C. community with the regional premiere of Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, which opens Oct. 30. New artistic director Hayley Finn programs two solo performances in the 2024–25 season with Ari’el Stachel’s Out of Character (co-produced with Mosaic Theatre) and the return of Sun Mee Chomet’s How to Be a Korean Woman after a brief run in 2023. Plus, back-to-back dramas, José Rivera’s Your Name Means Dream and Andrea Stolowitz’s The Berlin Diaries, which speak independently to the nature of intergenerational trauma and connection within the Jewish community.
The most recent to announce (beyond its co-pro with Theatre J), Mosaic Theatre Company will kick off its 10th anniversary season on Sept. 5 when it takes audiences back to 1959 for a rendezvous with the incomparable Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, which will be staged as an immersive cabaret. Produced in partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University, The Art of Care promises to create an unmissable theatrical event with an all-star D.C. cast. Erika Dickerson–Despenza’s cullud wattah addresses the still-unresolved clean water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and Brent Askari’s Andy Warhol in Iran stages a political comedy about the power of artistry. Both pieces promise to challenge the confines of linear time to help better the “here and now.”
Several of our local big-name theaters have yet to pull back the curtain on next season, but in the meantime, there’s plenty left of the 2023–24 season to look forward to—not to mention the upcoming Helen Hayes Awards on May 20, which could heighten the intrigue for the productions already on this list. From Woolly Mammoth to Studio, Arena Stage to Folger, this list will continue to grow. But as any eager audience member knows, anticipation can be half the pleasure.