TRENZAS, IS THE FOOD GOOD? to Lead The CENTER's Black Box Season
Playwrights Janelle Lawrence and Ryan Skinner among writers featured in the intimate Rhinebeck venue's lineup.
The CENTER will present four remaining productions in its 2026 Black Box season, running August through November:
Trenzas (August 7-9), How Did I Get Here? (September 11-13), Reckoning: A Series of One-Person Shows (October 2-4), and Is the Food Good? (November 27-29). The Black Box is The CENTER's downstairs performance space dedicated to new work, emerging playwrights, and intimate, small-cast productions.
Unlike The CENTER's Main Stage, which primarily hosts fully staged musicals and plays, the Black Box is used for one-person shows, staged readings, new musicals, comedy, and other work built around performer and material rather than scenic design. Earlier in the 2026 season, the space hosted a one-man show, a concert-style adaptation of a classic, a staged reading of a Shakespeare play, and its first fully staged musical, Tick, Tick, Boom!
"The Black Box allows us to say yes to so many things that the Main Stage isn't always set up for," said Olivia Michaels Bogert, Creative Director of The CENTER, who curates the Black Box season lineup each year. "It allows The CENTER to continue to be a home for new artists, new work, or just more intimate pieces that don't feel the pressure of selling out a Main Stage house."
UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS
Trenzas - August 7-9
Written by playwright Janelle Lawrence, Trenzas follows Alisha, an eighteen-year-old navigating her identity as a bisexual, Afro-Latinx, first-generation American. The production, intended for mature audiences, features an entirely Black and Latinx cast making their CENTER debut.
How Did I Get Here?: Two One-Act Plays - September 11-13
This program pairs two one-act plays: Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter and Jane Shepard's Nine. Each features two actors placed in impossible situations. Both are directed by veteran CENTER artist Lisa Lynds who asks the question: "What choice do we have when life hands us one raw deal after another through no fault of our own?"
Reckoning: A Series of One-Person Shows - October 2-4
Written by Ryan Skinner, this weekend presents three distinct solo performances: My Story (Friday), featuring local Hudson Valley actress Alina Gonzalez recounting the six years since a life-altering brain aneurysm; U.S. Man (Saturday), a dark-comedy exploration of instability and anxiety in modern life; and The Valley of the Cherries (Sunday), which uses humor and magical realism to examine addiction, loss, and the choices people make when confronting systems that resist change.
Is the Food Good? - November 27-29
Heather Dell'Amore returns to the Black Box following her performance of A Mother Stands Still with a new one-woman show exploring identity, aerobics, fad diets, and centered on healing one's relationship with food.
SUBMISSIONS FOR 2027
The Black Box is currently accepting submissions for The CENTER's 2027 season. A submission form is available on The CENTER's website at https://www.centerforperformingarts.org/blackboxproposal. Submitters are reminded to consider the space's intimate scale and technical limitations.
ABOUT THE CENTER
The CENTER for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theater located at 661 Route 308, Rhinebeck, NY, that has offered the Hudson Valley community opportunities to create since 1994. Through its arts and education programming, The CENTER provides performance experiences for people of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds, presenting work across its Main Stage, Black Box, and CENTERstage Dance Studio.
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