THE LOVES OF LINCOLN to Make World Premiere at Emerald Theatre Company
Performances will be held at TheatreWorks @ The Square, 2085 Monroe Avenue, in the heart of Overton Square. June 19-28, 2026.
Emerald Theatre Company will present the world premiere of The Loves of Lincoln, one of only a handful of new plays receiving a full professional premiere in Memphis this year.
The Loves of Lincoln is a deliriously queer bedroom farce about Abe Lincoln, his Black maid, and her animatronic steampunk Lincoln robot. She wants Abe to proclaim the Emancipation Proclamation NOW, but with his love life, a mad wife and losing the Civil War, Abe has so much on his plate!
Fast, loud, and wacky, yes—but in the tradition of George Bernard Shaw, this is comedy with a serious social mission: combating the erasure of LGBTQ people from history. Abraham Lincoln's sexuality is a hotly debated issue among historians, and “The Loves of Lincoln” brings theatre into that conversation.
That the play is opening in Juneteenth (a holiday connected to the Emancipation Proclamation), during Gay Pride Month, is no coincidence. It addresses both race and sexual orientation. At a time when debates over how American history is taught have become increasingly heated, The Loves of Lincoln uses comedy to explore questions of race, sexuality, and historical memory.
Performances will be held at TheatreWorks @ The Square, 2085 Monroe Avenue, in the heart of Overton Square. June 19-28, 2026. Shows are on Friday and Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sunday matinees at 2:00pm. Tickets are $20.00 general admission.
The Emerald Theatre has been bravely mouthing Queer theatre in the mid-South for 30 years and is the mid-South's oldest LGBTQ theater company.
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