59E59 Theaters Unveils Winter 2027 Season Lineup

59E59 Theaters has announced its Winter 2027 season, featuring seven productions that range from new plays and solo performances to contemporary takes on literary and theatrical figures including Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf and Tennessee Williams.

“What excites me about this season is that no two productions approach theater in quite the same way” said Val Day, Artistic Director of 59E59 Theaters. “We're welcoming new voices, continuing relationships with artists and companies we admire, and making room for work that still is taking shape. We want 59E59 to be a place where artists can take risks and audiences can encounter something unexpected.”

The season includes Twilight Theatre Company's An Audience with Virginia Woolf: Writing One's Mind, advocating for women's creative freedom using Woolf's own words, written and performed by Lucy Stevens, and Brian Dykstra's funny and complex love story The Two of You, both directed by Margarett Perry; LAByrinth Theater Company's annual LAB: STRIPPED series featuring Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent) and Aaron Mark's Gertrude, or Asparagus Soup in August; New Light Theater Project and 5th Wall Theatre's haunting intergenerational reflection on our shared humanity, Stories to Tell at the End of the World by Gina Femia; and MB Adaptors' FLIGHT, written by Kari Margolis, a visceral solo performance based on Tennessee Williams' short story “Episodes in the Life of a Clerk.” 

These productions join the previously announced: Red Bull Theater's GOD'S SPIES: The Making of King Lear by Bill Cain, which imagines Shakespeare quarantined during the plague of 1603 as he confronts his next creative challenge, and Primary Stages' Aasif Mandvi: A Work in Progress, a funny and deeply personal solo show written and performed by Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show, Sakina's Restaurant) about immigration, ambition, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves. Primary Stages will also present Beth Hyland's BABY SHOWER KATIE, an irreverent comedy about two best friends confronting divergent dreams around motherhood and the lives they imagined for themselves.

Full casting and creative teams for select productions will be announced at a later date. More information about the full season can be found below. For details regarding tickets and performance schedules, visit www.59E59.org.

About the Shows 

Theater A

January 19 - February 14
Red Bull Theater presents

GOD'S SPIES

The Making of King Lear

By Bill Cain

Directed by Nathan Winkelstein

What do you write after you have written the world's greatest play? 

Hopefully, not another Timon of Athens. Fortunately for Shakespeare, he is caught in the middle of the pandemic of 1603 and theaters are closed for a year. The plague opens his eyes to the mysteries of life and death when he is quarantined with a young Puritan lawyer and a mature streetwise prostitute. 

Will Shakespeare thrive creatively? Will his follow up play be as disappointing as his last? Or will he write his masterpiece?

Theater B

January 9 - February 6 

Primary Stages presents

Aasif Mandvi: A Work in Progress 

Written by and Starring Aasif Mandvi 

Directed by Kimberly Senior 

A funny, furious, and deeply personal solo show about the stories we tell ourselves, how long they hold, and what's left when they finally don't. Part immigrant epic, part celebrity confession, part 3am parental spiral, Aasif Mandvi traces the journey of the immigrant boy who crossed an ocean to chase the American dream, mastered every room he was never supposed to be in, and perfected the art of making the right people comfortable, only to realize that all along, the joke was on him. 

Part of the inaugural Primary Stages Studio Series

The Studio Series offers artists a professional space to test their boldest ideas. Here audiences are invited into the living process of making theater, witnessing work evolve across a limited run where no two nights will be the same.

Theater C 

LAByrinth Theater Company presents

LAB: STRIPPED

LAByrinth Theater Company presents LAB: STRIPPED, staged works in progress. More than a reading, but not quite a production, STRIPPED keeps the focus on the script with minimal technical elements and actors holding scripts.

Daphne Rubin-Vega stars in
Gertrude, or Asparagus Soup in August 

A historical horror fantasy

By Daphne Rubin-Vega and Aaron Mark

Directed by Aaron Mark 

In 1914, Gertrude Carlton's husband, Julian, murdered seven people at Frank Lloyd Wright's personal home and studio in Wisconsin. She was held in custody for two weeks, given $7, put on a train to Chicago, and was never heard from again. Finally, Gertrude reveals her side of the infamous story that's been debated for over a hundred years. Gertrude, or Asparagus Soup in August is a one-woman historical horror fantasy that confronts class, race, celebrity, and the bloody consequences of the American Dream.

Theater B

February 11 - March 14

Twilight Theatre Company presents

An Audience with Virginia Woolf Writing One's mind

Written and Performed by Lucy Stevens

Directed by Margarett Perry 

1931. Virginia Woolf delivers an erudite critique of patriarchy and reveals her brilliant yet troubled mind. She dives deep into her own stream of consciousness from The Waves, Orlando, To the Lighthouse, and her polemic essay, A Room of One's Own. Woolf's clarity on women when “writing one's mind” champions writers from our past to inspire the voices of our future. 

Created from excerpts of Woolf's own writings and directed by Margarett Perry (Polishing Shakespeare), Lucy Stevens returns to 59E59 after her sold out run of Gertrude Lawrence: A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening.

Theater A

February 27 - April 11 

Primary Stages presents

BABY SHOWER KATIE

By Beth Hyland

Directed by Jaki Bradley

Best friends Rebecca and Hannah are at a crossroads: Rebecca desperately wants a child, while Hannah can't imagine anything worse. 

Across four baby showers (thrown for three different women named Katie, coincidentally), Rebecca and Hannah are forced to confront their divergent dreams, the absurd expectations placed on mothers, and the terror and uncertainty that can surround pregnancy. Beth Hyland's irreverent new comedy asks what happens when the life we have been told to want no longer fits the person we are becoming.

Theater B

March 18 - April 25 

Twilight Theatre Co. presents

THE TWO OF YOU

By Brian Dykstra

Directed by Margarett Perry

Parker and Hank have a perfect life. She does something, he does something else. They've created their ideal world: no kids, a penthouse in Boston, successful careers, and an active social life. 

That is, until a 21-year-old girl shows up claiming to be the daughter Hank never knew he had. Her sudden appearance threatens the cushy life that the couple had happily taken for granted, forcing them to confront uncomfortable questions about the choices they've made and their plans for the future.

Employing Brian Dykstra's signature wordplay and humor (Polishing Shakespeare, Not Nobody), this is a funny and complex love story made to reinvent itself. 

Theater C

March 4 - 20

New Light Theater Project and 5th Wall Theatre
In association with Pendragon Theatre

present

Stories to Tell at the End of the World

By Gina Femia 

Directed by Tabatha Gayle and Kaitlin Paige Longoria 

Performed by Kleo Mitrokostas

Spanning centuries within the same wooded area, three young women with interlocking stories slowly build their familial mythology across generations. As each character faces a collapse of their world, the trees become a witness to choices that resonate across time. 

Intimate, haunting, and unforgettable, Stories to Tell at the End of the World reflects upon one family's shared humanity.

Theater C

March 25 - April 24 

MB Adaptors presents

FLIGHT

A play by Kari Margolis 

Based on the short story “Episodes in the Life of a Clerk” by Tennessee Williams

Performed by Jarod Hanson 

There is a commotion on Washington Avenue: someone has fallen from the roof of the Continental Shoe Company.

Set in Depression-era St. Louis, Edward Schiller is a quiet inventory clerk and secret poet trapped inside a monotonous world that despises tenderness and creative expression. When his private poems are discovered, Schiller's inner life is turned into soul-crushing evidence against him.