City Lit Theater Unveils 2026-27 Season Featuring KING HEDLEY II and More
The season will feature a world premiere adaptation of Shane, by local playwright/actor/director Mark Pracht, and more.
City Lit Theater has revealed programming for the 2026–27 season. The four-play season will include one world premiere adaptation, two world premieres of new plays, and a new staging of August Wilson’s King Hedley II.
Shane
City Lit will open the season with Pracht’s world premiere adaptation of the classic Western novel, Shane. Pracht, a Jeff Award-winning actor for his principal role in Requiem for a Heavyweight with The Artistic Home, is one of City Lit’s first class of Artistic Associates. His Four-Color Trilogy of plays about the comic book industry was produced by City Lit in three successive years from 2022–2024. Pracht will direct his adaptation of Shane, which will open to the press on Saturday, August 29 at 7:30 pm, following previews from August 21. It will play through Sunday, October 4.
King Hedley II
For its second production of the season, City Lit will revisit the same backyard in Pittsburgh’s Hill District seen in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars (for which the company won the 2024 Jeff Award for Best Production of a Play) when they stage Wilson’s King Hedley II. Set 37 years after the action of Seven Guitars, King Hedley II explores the lives of the children and neighbors of the characters introduced in the earlier play. City Lit’s King Hedley II will be directed by City Lit Artistic Associate Manny Buckley, who earned a Jeff Award nomination for his direction of City Lit’s Seven Guitars. King Hedley II will open to the press on Saturday, October 24 at 7:30 pm, following previews from October 16. It will play through Sunday, November 29.
Shadows of Truth
The season will continue in 2027 with the world premiere of Shadows of Truth, by Chicago actor and playwright Jillian Leff, a company member with Babes with Blades. Shadows of Truth is inspired by Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour, taking that play’s premise of two teachers facing an allegation of a lesbian relationship between the two of them and viewing it through a contemporary lens. Shadows of Truth will be directed by actor/director Morgan Manasa, a Babes with Blades company member whose recent directing credits include The S Paradox for Babes with Blades and Jane: Abortion and the Underground for Idle Muse Theatre. Shadows of Truth will open to the press on Saturday, March 6, 2027, at 7:30 pm, following previews from February 26 and playing through April 11, 2027.
Disillusioned
For its season closer, City Lit will present the world premiere of Disillusioned, by Chicagoan Brynne Frauenhoffer, whose play Pro-Am was produced in 2024 by First Floor Theatre and won the Jeff Award for New Work. City Lit Executive Artistic Director Brian Pastor will direct this story of two female magicians who met as teenagers and reconnect in their thirties after a long estrangement. Disillusioned is a heart-warming story of ambition, pursuit of passion, and—dare we say it?—the magic of friendship. Disillusioned was developed through The Goodman Theatre’s New Stages Residency. It will open to the press on Saturday, May 8, 2027, at 7:30 pm, following previews from April 30, and playing through June 13, 2027.
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