THE KICK INSIDE, SEE/UNSEE and More Set for HERE Arts Center 2026-27 Season

HERE Arts Center has unveiled their 2026-27 season, featuring a year of work made by artists who consistently take risks, refuse to be easily defined, and relentlessly choose wonder.

The fall season opens with the much anticipated return of Joey Arias and Basil Twist's acclaimed Arias with a Twist, one of the most visually stunning shows ever to emerge from downtown NYC. This 2008 cult sensation will return to its original home to delight a new generation of audiences.

The 2026-27 season continues with the World Premiere of The Kick Inside, a Kate Bush-inspired exquisite corpse of a play; a special fall touring engagement at ArtsEmerson of surrealist musical meditation DREAM FEED by Grammy-nominated family band The HawtPlates; Marie Lloyd Paspe's Stone Belly, a dance, music, and installation artwork that re-imagines myths of the Philippines for returning the queer diasporic body back home; the World Premiere of SEE/UNSEE, a queer folk song cycle by acclaimed musician Lila Blue and directed by Jillian Jetton that conjures a ritual for grief from the work and life of Hilma af Klint; and the return of the annual Puppetopia, a two-week celebration of puppetry curated by HERE's Dream Music Puppetry team and featuring the World Premiere of Ash Winkfield's WATER WALKER, an object movement and shadow puppetry piece following the journey of one man as he tries to make his way home after being stolen from the shores of Africa.

HERE will continue developing projects by Janani Balasubramanian, nicHi douglas, Angélica Negrón, and Piehole through its flagship HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP), new work by Venturous Playwright Fellow Nissy Aya in association with the Playwrights' Center (MN) and Venturous Theater Fund, and projects by HERE Co-Directors Annalisa Dias and Lanxing Fu.

Taken together, these works honor what gets passed down through bodies, through voices, through forms that refuse to disappear. Additional programming will be announced later in the season.

Choose Community

Through post-show dialogue, community partnerships, and street-level voter engagement, HERE treats every production as an entry point into public life beyond the four walls of the theater. The lobby becomes a town square. This season, HERE's lobby will host free public activations including a little free library, a resource-sharing wall, talkbacks, teach-ins, and pop-up outdoor performances, turning the space between the street and the stage into one more place to gather. The work continues beyond HERE's walls, through ongoing collaborations with the Hudson Square BID, University Settlement, and First Nations Performing Arts. HERE also continues its Access Programming by providing captioned performances, masked performances, and tools for neurodivergent audiences in collaboration with Seats on the Spectrum. HERE will also continue offering its 10 for $10 ticketing access initiative and free rush tickets for students and seniors.

Choose Artistic Infrastructure

This year, HERE also announces the formalization of its Fiscal Sponsorship Program for select HERE Hosts projects, creating better-than-industry-standard-rate opportunities for growing production companies to actively fundraise, protect their teams, and receive fiscal and compliance guidance. That same investment in infrastructure extends to people. HERE will pilot Learning Labs for lifelong artistic learning and professional development, as well as a Summer Internship Program for early career artistic administrators that gives a robust overview of multidisciplinary producing, marketing, general management, programming, and fundraising. And it extends outward: through dramaturgical and producing consultations, and professional development workshops, HERE puts that same infrastructure to work for the field at large.

Choose Celebration

HERE's Fall Season will launch on Saturday, September 19th from 3pm-6pm with a Season Kickoff Party. Season artists and HERE community members gather to toast the year ahead and preview what's coming.

Choose HERE

For $9 a month, HEREsocial makes HERE's downtown home your clubhouse. Members receive discounted tickets to every performance, a dollar off every drink at the bar, early access to HERE's community updates, and invitations to special events, openings, and parties throughout the season. No membership required to feel at home: HERE's lobby is open during regular business hours with expanded cafe offerings, a living room for the neighborhood's funkiest, most offbeat, most genuinely avant-garde community. HEREsocial just makes it official.

Choose Impact

For those ready to support HERE more robustly, HERE's donor membership program offers a direct way to sustain the daily operations and annual programming that make the work possible. Every donor level includes meaningful ways to connect with that work like discounted tickets, exclusive event invitations, and more.

PROGRAMMING LINEUP

Arias with a Twist

Presented by Tandem Otter Productions
Created by Joey Arias & Basil Twist
September 17 - November 1

Part cabaret, part fever dream, part visual spectacle, this unforgettable theatrical fantasia unleashes Joey Arias's electrifying voice inside Basil Twist's wildly imaginative puppet universe. Surreal, funny, emotional, and unlike anything else on stage, the cult sensation Arias with a Twist is a theatrical experience not to be missed.

The Kick Inside

Presented by The Million Underscores
Directed by Nicolás Noreña
October 21 - November 7

The Kick Inside is an exquisite corpse of a play written by eleven New York City based playwrights. The story follows Alenka, a woman who grows awfully tired of the way that people talk to one another and begins experimenting with language in every scene of this one-and-a-half-act play. Visually rich and littered with strange phenomena, action sequences, dogs, algorithm possessions, hitmen and a world that speaks back, The Kick Inside uncovers a lost city that tilts language to ask where words come from within us, and how deeply we transform each other's emotional fabrics.

Dream Feed

Created & Performed by The HawtPlates
Presented at ArtsEmerson in Boston
November 19-22

Drop into Dream Feed, the latest electro-acoustic vocal work from two-time Grammy Award Winning theatrical family band The HawtPlates. Can we remember our own dreams? Can we share the dreams we have in common? Can we awaken ourselves to the origin of our aspirations? In this shared dream sequence and live concept album, The HawtPlates metabolize the surreal allure of the active mind within a slumbering body through trip-like lullabies and bold reverie. A 2023 HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) commission with additional co-commissioning support from the Under the Radar Festival, this psychedelic live concept album invites audiences into a hypnotic journey through the subconscious.

SEE/UNSEE

Written by Lila Blue, Directed by Jillian Jetton
March 2027

In an evening of music and storytelling, Lila Blue and their eight-piece band commune with the work and imagined life of artist Hilma af Klint. Surfacing where Blue's life overlaps with that of the painter - in queerness, in love, and in loss - SEE/UNSEE invites you to delve into the alchemical waters of ecstatic creation.

Puppetopia 2027

Curated by Barbara Busackino & Basil Twist
April 2027

A springtime review of HERE's puppetry state of mind; Dream Music's annual celebration of imagination, possibility, exciting techniques and community creation. Featuring the World Premiere of WATER WALKER by Ash Winkfield, plus more to be announced.

Stone Belly

Created & Performed by Marie Lloyd Paspe
May 2027

A dance, music, and installation artwork that re-imagines myths of the Philippines for returning the queer diasporic body back home.

Puppet Parlor

Curated & Hosted by Basil Twist
Performance Dates TBA