Blackfriars Theatre Reveals 76th Season Lineup

Blackfriars Theatre has announced its 2025-2026 Season, commemorating 76 years of locally-produced theatre in downtown Rochester, NY! The 2025-2026 Season boasts a powerhouse line-up of entertaining and engaging stories, transporting audiences from a Victorian doctor's parlor to a modern-day AA meeting, and providing paid opportunities for over 100 local artists. The team at Blackfriars, led by Artistic Director Brynn Tyszka and Executive Director Mary Tiballi Hoffman, have lovingly assembled a season that is tailor made to delight loyal audiences, attract new patrons, and celebrate the theatre's rich legacy as the one of the city's longest-running theatre companies.

“Brynn and I are incredibly eager to share these six stories with Rochester audiences,” says Hoffman. “We've assembled a line-up that includes familiar favorites as well as titles that we know Rochester's audiences will never have seen before. It's a perfect blend of new and old, of known and unknown, and of stories that will simply delight you and others that will really stop you dead in your tracks and make you think. It's exciting theatre!”

Blackfriars Theatre began around a dining room table in 1950, when a small group of actors formed the Catholic Theatre of Rochester as an alternative to the conventional community theatre available at the time. In the 75 years since then, the company has grown and flourished, residing in different downtown venues before settling into its current home at 795 E. Main Street. The current leadership team was installed in 2022, establishing Blackfriars Theatre as a women-led company.

Since their installment, the pair have focused on rebuilding. The duo have more than doubled audience attendance, have engaged new community partners (including Borinquen Dance Theatre, Jane Austen Society of North America—Rochester, Country Dancers of Rochester, The Little Theatre, The Bronze Collective, The Trevor Project, The Veteran's Outreach Center, NAMI Rochester, and more), and have packed the calendar with the launch of new programming (including launching the BT Concert Series and the Punchbowl Comedy Series, along with various movement workshops and class offerings) and the return of pre-pandemic favorites (including The Hourglass Play Reading Series, The Conservatory at BT, and Imagination Station with Mrs. Kasha Davis events). The duo has also secured a long sought-after liquor license for the organization, and now offers beer, wine, and cider to their patrons, greatly enhancing the theatre-going experience for audiences while creating a lucrative new revenue stream for the company.

The 2025-2026 Season beings in September with the hilarious and heartfelt play-with-music, Souvenir, which is the true account of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy socialite with an insatiable passion for opera. In October, audiences will be transported to Upstate NY in the 1880s with In The Next Room (Or The Vibrator Play), where they'll peek inside the practice of Dr. Givings as he tests out his new invention for treating hysteria… the Chattanooga vibrator. The holiday season will be spent laughing-out-loud with Neil Simon's classic 1980s farce, Rumors, before January's regional premiere of the suspenseful new play The Grown-Ups, which follows a group of camp counselors as an unseen threat to the camp looms closer and closer. In March, Blackfriars will debut the Rochester premiere of The White Chip, an autobiographical play written by Sean Daniels (the former Director of Artistic Engagement at Geva) that recounts his experience living with addition and coming alive through recovery – this show was a NYTimes Critics Pick! And finally, the 76th Season will close in May with the Tony Award-winning musical Parade by Jason Robert Brown, which was selected by Blackfriars audiences at the 2024 Season Soirée.

What else can Blackfriars audiences look forward to in the year ahead? The third year of the BT Concert Series, a line-up of three diverse concert performances that put the talents of local artists center stage; free artistic and community programming, including The Hourglass Play Reading Series and Imagination Station with Mrs. Kasha Davis, will also continue in the 2025-2026 Season; the Blackfriars Theatre Summer Intensive – a professional training program for the next generation of artists – will culminate in a production of Shrek The Musical in Summer 2025; the 11th Annual Season Soirée gala fundraiser will once again be held in-person at ARTISANworks in November and give patrons the job of selecting the big musical for the 77th Season; the theatre will host ASL interpreters on the first Saturday performance for each of its six subscription series shows; and absolutely all of the theatre's artistic programming will be performed, directed, designed and staffed with local artists, many of whom have advanced training and have worked professionally at both regional and national levels, later choosing to make Rochester their home. 

Tyszka and Hoffman are grateful for each success the local nonprofit theatre has come to know, and for the opportunity to kick off this new season of theatre-making at Blackfriars with renewed vigor. "We always want to have something to say with the pieces we choose," says Tyszka. "You want to make your audiences think, but what's great about this lineup is that it's also chock-full of humor. We can definitely sense a universal need for laughter and catharsis in our society, and the ultimate power of the arts is that it can both provoke and heal. We feel this season accomplishes both, and we cannot wait to share it with our patrons."

SHREK THE MUSICAL

The Blackfriars Theatre Summer Intensive – a training program for the next generation of artists

Music by Jeanine Tesori; book by David Linsday-Abaire

July 25 – August 3, 2025
Follow the unlikely hero Shrek as he embarks on a life-changing journey, accompanied by his loyal (and wisecracking) companion, Donkey, and a feisty, no-nonsense Princess Fiona. Together, they confront a short-tempered villain, Lord Farquaad, a sassy Gingerbread Man, and over a dozen quirky fairy tale misfits to save the day—and discover what true friendship and love really mean.
Directed by Danny Hoskins | Music Direction by Sarah Staebell | Choreography by Lani Toyama Hoskins

SOUVENIR

By Stephen Temperley

September 4 – 14, 2025
Stranger-than-fiction, Souvenir is the true account of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy socialite with an insatiable passion for opera, despite possessing a hilariously tone-deaf voice. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the early 20th century, this heart-warming and humorous play-with-music follows Jenkins' ambitious pursuit of her dreams, supported by her loyal pianist, Cosmé McMoon.
Directed by Nathaniel Niemi

IN THE NEXT ROOM (OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY)

By Sarah Ruhl

October 24 – November 9, 2025
It's the dawn of electricity.  Mr. Thomas Edison has become a personal hero of Dr. Givings who begins harnessing this newfound power to treat hysterical patients at his home with an experimental electric apparatus.  But as the peculiar buzzing sounds from his office grow louder, Mrs. Givings' curiosity gets the best of her, exposing cracks in the very foundation of their marriage.
Directed by Patricia Lewis Browne

RUMORS

By Neil Simon

December 11 – 28, 2025
As their tenth wedding anniversary party commences, Charlie lies bleeding in another room, and his wife Myra is nowhere in sight. The first guests, lawyer Ken Gorman and his wife Chris, scramble to get “the story” straight before the other guests arrive. As the confusions and miscommunications mount, the evening spins off into classic farcical hilarity.
Directed by Brynn Tyszka

THE GROWN-UPS

By Simon Henriques & Skylar Fox

January 29 – February 8, 2026
The campers are all finally asleep, and the lake is getting quiet. Have a beer; make a s'more; tell a scary story. Figure out what you're going to have to do in the morning to keep camp fun and safe without letting the kids find out about... well, you've seen the news. The Grown-Ups follows a group of camp counselors trying to mold the leaders of tomorrow when tomorrow is looking bleaker and bleaker.
Directed by Kerry Young

THE WHITE CHIP

By Sean Daniels

March 19 – 29, 2026
Steven is on top of the world: he's married, has good friends and is steps away from his dream job running one of the hottest theaters in the country. He also happens to be an alcoholic spinning out of control. Follow his life from first sip to first love, critical hit to critical care, all the way to rock bottom, where he carves an unusual path to sobriety. Told with humor, honesty, and compassion, The White Chip is about living with addiction and coming alive through recovery.

Directed by Matt Ames

PARADE

Music & Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, Book by Alfred Uhry

May 8 –24, 2026
It's 1913 and Leo and Lucille Frank are a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in the old red hills of Georgia. When Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion. Riveting and gloriously hopeful, Parade is a compelling and provocative tale of justice miscarried, revealing a country at odds with its declarations of equality.

Directed by Danny Hoskins | Music Direction by Andy Pratt | choreography by Hector Manuel