Review: CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN THEATER FESTIVAL'S 2026 Rollout

Among the many wonderful harbingers of Spring—crocuses and snowdrops included—is the annual rollout of the Contemporary American Theater Festival season. If you’re keen on being one of the first to learn about the innovative work on tap this July through early August in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, there are still several chances for you to get a preview.

And with upcoming rollouts in Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, PA, as well as Baltimore and Frederick, Maryland, there’s no reason to miss out.

This year I had the chance to join the staff in Shepherdstown itself for its first rollout of the season—in the town which they transform with their creativity and aspirations past, present, and future.  Local actors read selected scenes from this year’s plays, and it was my first opportunity to shake hands with artists from new companies that have emerged in town, well worth checking out during CATF’s off-season. 

Peggy McKowen, the Artistic Director, has cast a wide net for the upcoming festival, with stories ranging from the smokers’ corner in that dingy part of town, to the plight of refugees, to the agonies of dictatorships, and the joys of stand-up comedy in its golden age.  There’s truly something for everyone this year, and even if you have fairly narrow interests when it comes to the stage, you will definitely come away impressed by the versatility on display.

One of the shows to feature in the large, Frank Center stage is Lisa D’Amour’s The Smoker, which introduces us to the people we pass by—rather quickly, since most of us don’t smoke—but whose stories and whose dreams are well worth the listen. Smokers have become something of an underclass, and D’Amour, listening in, gives us a small cluster of misfits, still waiting for that first decent job, but bonding in their shared vice, and their dreams for the future. 

From the streets of New York our scene now shifts to Buenos Aires and the tension-filled two-actor play, ¡VOS!  Performed in the Marinoff Theater. The show begins, innocently enough, as a pursuit of IVF treatment in Argentina’s capital city, but soon evokes painful memories of the mothers who endured the disappearance of their loved ones under the brutal military junta of the Cold War years. Dedicated to the memory of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who demanded answers from a regime that did their dirty work in silence, it reminds us that motherhood carries with it the potential for immense grief along with its joys.

Another highlight for this year’s CATF is the premiere of Yussef El Guindi’s Refugee Rhapsody, a prize-winning drama about the challenges faced by the Arab-American, Muslim-American community today.  Scheduled for the festival’s Studio 112 space, what makes this production unique is that shortly after the festival, the play will transfer to the Keegan Theatre in Washington, D.C. You’ll be the first in line to see this unique and uniquely moving drama.

And while we’re on the subject of Washington, D.C., Aurin Squire has penned a comedy about aspiring journalism students, My Favorite Sociopath, which explores the moral dilemmas of the profession, as it is deliberately shrunk by fawning, cowardly tech bro billionaires like Jeff Bezos (whose destruction of the Washington Post’s arts staff has outraged the theater community in particular). The brutal competition for that first scoop, the need to land that first professional gig, and the willingness to compromise your integrity in the pursuit of journalistic primacy are all laid out in comic, gory detail.  The Marinoff Theater may generate some heat along with the laughs with this one.

Last but by no means least, for true aficionados of stand-up and its glorious (pre-) history in the comedy clubs of Chicago, Beth Kander has created Best Line Wins, a show dedicated to the lives and careers of two of America’s great comic treasures, Elaine May and Mike Nichols. Whether you grew up with their subversive acts back in the day, or whether you’re a newcomer, or a fan of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, with its evocation of the comedy club scene in the late 1950’s, you are in for one helluva treat.  The Nichols and May team was unstoppable in their prime, and as they went on to separate careers in film, we’re likely to see how the two of them eventually find ways to collaborate just one more time.  Kander has clearly done her homework, and the small sample scene we had last Sunday in Shepherdstown tells me that this tightly-scripted show will be a knock-out on the Frank Center stage.

Image:  Poster for Beth Kander’s Best Line Wins, Courtesy of CATF.

The 2026 Contemporary American Theater Festival roll out is coming to the following cities near you: Washington, D.C. - March 16, Pittsburgh, PA - March 30, Baltimore, MD - April 20, and Frederick, MD - May 4.  Check out https://catf.org/ for more details!

The 2026 Contemporary American Theater Festival will run from July 10 through August 2, on the campus of Shepherd University in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia.