Julie Benko, Bill Irwin, Hayley Podschun & More Featured in Shakespeare Theatre Company's 2025/26 Season

Shakespeare Theatre Company has revealed a sneak peek at casting for the 25/26 Season with several Broadway talents and local favorites leading the list in its first three shows: Merry Wives, The Wild Duck, and Guys and Dolls.

Starting off the season in Jocelyn Bioh's adaptation of Merry Wives, directed by Taylor Reynolds, will be Felicia Curry and Oneika Phillips as the merry wives themselves, Madame Ford and Madame Page, respectively. Curry is an award-winning local favorite familiar to D.C. audiences, who previously appeared in STC's production of Our Town, as well as the recent Broadway revival and National Tour of Into the Woods. Phillips's Broadway credits include FELA!, Spongebob Squarepants, and the recent 2022 revival and National Tour of 1776, which featured an all-female, non-binary, and transgender cast. 

Two recent actors from the current season will return to STC in Artistic Director Simon Godwin's production of The Wild Duck. Nick Westrate, most recently of Frankenstein, takes on the role of Hjalmar Ekdal, an idealistic but disillusioned photographer forced to confront the lies in his family, to tragic results. Melanie Field, who appeared to high acclaim as the lovelorn Sonya in Uncle Vanya, will play Gina Ekdal, Hjalmar's wife and partner, caught up in the betrayals. The production is co-produced with Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) and will begin its run there before arriving at STC's Klein Theatre.

A lineup of Broadway and musical theatre talent fronts the holiday slot production of Guys and Dolls, directed by Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, with choreogprahy by two-time Tony Award-nominee Joshua Bergasse (Smash, Broadway's Bull Durham).

In the role of the mannered and conservative Sarah Brown is Julie Benko, most recently from an acclaimed run in the Broadway production of Funny Girl (named New York Times 2022 Breakout Star in Theatre), and Barry Manilow's Harmony. Jacob Dickey (Old Friends with Bernadette Peters, Aladdin, Company) will play opposite her as the suave gambler Sky Masterson. Playing the noncommittal Nathan Detroit will be Rob Colletti (Almost Famous, original Dewey Finn in the School of Rock National Tours); and as his on-again, off-again girlfriend Adelaide is Hayley Podschun, whose Broadway credits include Wicked (Glinda, National Tour); Hello, Dolly!; Something Rotten!; and more. She was last seen in D.C. in a Helen Hayes-nominated turn in Catch Me If You Can at Arena Stage.