Classic Stage Company Unveils Classic Perspectives Series for 2025-2026 Season

Classic Stage Company has revealed the Classic Perspectives Series for the 2025-2026 season. Classic Perspectives is a post-show discussion program at CSC offering audiences the chance to go beyond the performance and engage in meaningful conversation. Following select performances, the series brings together artists, scholars, and creative team members to unpack the themes of the production, explore its connections to both past and present experiences, and dive behind-the-scenes processes.

This season, the Classic Perspectives Series will be curated and hosted by James Clements and Sam Hood Adrain, who are Co-Founders and Co-Artistic Directors of Brooklyn-based theater company What Will the Neighbors Say?. With a mission to provoke questions through untold stories, this source-based company has premiered 11 original plays in 6 cities in 4 countries on 2 continents, and co-presented a further 28 new works. 

For The Baker’s Wife, CSC has a slate of four talkbacks throughout the run, with further guests to be announced for each:

Thursday, November 6th - Looking Back at The Baker’s Wife. 

This conversation will feature Richard Ridge, lead correspondent for Broadway World, Teri Ralston, a member of the original cast of the show, as well as the director of our production, Gordon Greenberg, as they discuss the legacy of this work and how it has changed and grown since its premiere nearly 50 years ago.

Tuesday, November 25th - The Politics of the Bakery: Gathering, Domestic Spaces and Community.

This conversation will feature panelist Jay Reifel (Chopped, A History of the World in 10 Dinners), amongst others, as they discuss how bakeries and places where we gather to eat act as a third space for communities to come together and engage in conversations, both personal and political.  

Sunday, November 30th - The Art of Adaptation: Musicals From Screen to Stage. 

This conversation will feature Zoe Sarnak (Empire Records, The Lonely Few), Lindsey Ferrentino (The Queen of Versailles), and others, and center around the challenges and excitement of adapting a movie into a musical in today’s landscape.

Tuesday, December 2nd - Talkback with the Cast & Creative team of The Baker’s Wife. 

This conversation will feature members of the team (to be announced) and will be an opportunity for the audience to get a look behind the curtain of this production.

Classic Perspectives dates and topics for Marcel on the Train and The Emporium will be announced soon and will range in topics from “Clowning, Mime and Comedy as Resistance” to “Finishing Unpublished Works by Iconic Playwrights,” while also incorporating conversations with the cast and creative teams of each show.