Zora Neale Hurston’s SPUNK and More Set for Yale Repertory Theatre 2025-26 Season

Yale Repertory Theatre has revealed its 2025–26 season of five productions. The season opens with the world premiere of Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk, a play with music, adapted by Hurston from her own short story in 1935. See the full season here!

ABOUT THE SEASON
 
Biographies are submitted by the artists and edited for common house style by Yale Rep. 
 

Zora Neale Hurston’s SPUNK

Directed by Tamilla Woodard
October 3–25
University Theatre (222 York Street)
 
A tall, handsome stranger strolls into town looking for work. With undeniable charisma and divine musicianship, Spunk sets tongues to wagging with admiration and envy. The laws of man, the power of hoodoo, and the divinity of love all collide when he locks eyes with Evalina, already married to the local conjurer’s son. A fable about the triumph of love, Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered play, Spunk, reaches the stage for the first time, brimming with humor, romance, and music.
 
Yale Rep’s 2025–26 Will Power! education program will include 10AM performances of Spunk on October 21 and 22 for high school students from New Haven Public Schools, entirely free of charge. For more information on the program, please contact Senior Artistic Producer Amy Boratko at amy.boratko@yale.edu.
 

HEDDA GABLER

by Henrik Ibsen
Translated from the Norwegian by Paul Walsh
Directed by James Bundy
November 28–December 20
Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street)
 
Freshly arrived from her honeymoon to her elegant, newly purchased villa, Hedda Tesman (née Gabler) wasn’t born and raised for a life of contented domesticity. When a former lover returns to town, her husband’s academic career and finances suddenly hang in the balance, along with her social standing. A propulsive, fiery, and often funny meditation on romantic dreams and bourgeois ambitions, Hedda Gabler is the portrait of a woman who will stop at nothing to gain control over her own destiny.
 
Henrik Ibsen (Playwright) 1820-1908, often considered the father of modern European drama, continues to have a rich life on global stages. Yale Rep has produced Ibsen seven times in its history including, most recently, An Enemy of the People in 2017 and The Master Builder in 2009.
 

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

A Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Touring Production
 

Created and performed by Julia Masli
Directed by Kim Noble
January 20–February 7
Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street)
 
All Julia Masli wants to do is solve people’s problems and win the Nobel Peace Prize. But this plan keeps going awry as she receives accolade after accolade for comedy. The celebrated clown debuted ha ha ha ha ha ha ha at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it was named “best of the year” by The Guardian. A sold-out sensation at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and greeted with thunderous laughter and more rave reviews in New York and D.C., the show is entirely different every night based on audience participation. Now it’s coming to New Haven. Something bothering you? Julia is ready to help!
 

RHINOCEROS

By Eugene Ionesco
Translated by Derek Prouse
Adapted by Frank Galati
Directed by Liz Diamond
March 6–28
Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street)
 
An ordinary Sunday in a small French town. Berenger and his friend enjoy a drink on a café terrace. Suddenly a rhinoceros charges across the square, crushing everything in its path. A drunken dream… or…? As neighbors and friends begin sprouting hides and horns, the shy, shambolic Berenger must make a choice: take a stand against—or join—the rampaging herd. Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros is his tragicomic cri de cœur, imploring each of us to resist the call to fall in line.

FURLOUGH’S PARADISE