LAOWANG, CALF SCRAMBLE, and More Set For 59E59 Theaters' Winter 2025/26 Season
Full casting and creative teams for the productions will be announced at a later date.
By: Stephi Wild Aug. 05, 2025
59E59 Theaters has announced the lineup of its Winter 2025/26 season, plus Resident Off Broadway Theater Company Primary Stages’ full program for the year including Alex Lin’s Laowang: A Chinatown King Lear, an imaginative new spin on King Lear, and Libby Carr’s CALF SCRAMBLE, a darkly funny coming-of-age tale of teenage girls raising calves and wrestling with what it means to be “good.”
“Our Winter season spans worlds and communities that are both real and fantastical – from a Chinatown restaurant fighting for survival to a magical tenement bursting with imagination,” said Val Day, Artistic Director of 59E59 Theaters. “These productions offer audiences storytelling that’s equally sharp, heartfelt, and deeply human. We’re proud to welcome both new and returning theater companies as they bring bold storytelling and fresh perspectives across each of our stages.”
New Jersey Repertory Company will present Michael Walek’s The Bookstore, which takes us inside an indie bookstore trying to survive in New York City. The owner Carey has created a found family of misfit coworkers who unite over their passion for literature. The show is a love letter to small bookstores and the bibliophiles who make them a home.
Also featured this season are Co-Op Resident Companies Happenstance Theater presenting JUXTAPOSE | A Theatrical Shadow Box, an avant-garde play devised by the company inspired by the shadow boxes of Joseph Cornell and the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie), and Twilight Theatre Company presenting Not Nobody, an intriguing and funny portrait of one man trying to be heard on his own terms by Brian Dykstra.
Full casting and creative teams for the productions will be announced at a later date. More information about the full season can be found below.
Laowang: A Chinatown King Lear
November 1 - December 14
By Alex Lin
Directed by Joshua Kahan Brody
Don't mess with a Chinese grandma.
When a high-rise developer threatens to buy out A-Poh’s successful Chinatown restaurant, the martyr-complex matriarch gathers her three precious grandchildren from all corners of the country to plan their next mode of attack.
There’s just one problem – A-Poh's memory is rapidly fading. What follows is a chaotic journey through reality, myth, and magic as A-Poh travels through now and the great beyond in a last-ditch effort to preserve what’s left of her family, legacy, and sanity.
A caustic and imaginative spin on King Lear in response to the gentrification of America’s Chinatowns.
The Importance of Doing Art
October 18 - November 23
By Susannah Dalton
Directed by José Ignacio Vivero
With Billy Cosgrove, Mateo Parodi, Kaitlin Ruby, Maite Uzal, Diletta Guglielmi, and Jacopo Costantini
Faking art is easy — until it gets real.
When two average schlubs pretend to be artists to get laid, their scheme spirals into a hilarious tangle of pretend philosophies, real feelings, and an accidental quest for authenticity in the absurd world of modern art.
Wake
November 6 - 23
By Leon Ingulsrud and Brooke Shilling
Directed by Ianthe Demos
Movement Direction by Natalie Lomonte
In a magical kitchen where memory, grief, and absurdity collide, a woman mourning her mother’s death navigates the messy, beautiful, and often hilarious process of letting go.
Even if closure proves elusive, there is breakfast. There is warmth. There is someone sitting beside you. Can grief be metabolized like a meal?
With help from her sibling, a chorus of strange visitors, and the lingering scent of brisket, Wake is a collective attempt to make peace with impermanence and find the poetry in goodbye.
Everything is Here
December 2 - 21
By Peggy Stafford
Directed by Meghan Finn
Choreography by Lisa Fagan
In a retirement community, three women reflect on their pasts, reenact scenes from A Streetcar Named Desire, and confront the absurdities of aging.
Quirky and unsentimental, Everything is Here examines how strange and perilous life can be in this lighthearted reflection on impermanence, language, and the fragile stories that shape us.
The Bookstore
January 10 - February 15
Directed by William Carden
With Quentin Chisolm, Ari Derambakhsh, Arielle Goldman, and Janet Zarish
Indie bookstore owner Carey has a special gift for recommending the perfect book.
While trying to survive in New York City, she has created a found family of coworkers who unite over their passion for literature - and a glass of wine. This band of misfits turn the pages of their lives and learn to navigate the plot twists that are thrown their way.
A love letter to small bookstores and the bibliophiles who make them a home.
JUXTAPOSE | A Theatrical Shadow Box
January 7 - 25
Devised by Happenstance Theater
Under the Co-Direction of Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell
With Gwen Grastorf, Mark Jaster, Sabrina Mandell, James Owens, and Sarah Olmsted Thomas
JUXTAPOSE is inspired by the shadow boxes of Joseph Cornell, the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie), and Mon Oncle by Jacques Tati.
Eccentric characters trying to coexist in a magical-realist tenement building during the sixth mass extinction have their lives interrupted and illuminated by a human shooting star who crash-lands through their roof.
As humanity teeters on the edge of the frame, we remember that our shared mortality, our common humanity, the ability to laugh at fear, and the limitless hope of imagination might save us from the despair of ending.
Not Nobody
February 5 - March 1
Directed by Margarett Perry
If you’re not guilty, what are you afraid of?
McAlester Daily is a professor of ethics who finds himself accidentally entangled with the police. After saving an officer’s life, McAlester is hailed as a hero—but as questions mount and his refusal to conform raises red flags, the system begins to see him as something else.
In a society quick to judge and slow to understand, Not Nobody is an intriguing, funny and powerful portrait of one man trying to be heard on his own terms.
CALF SCRAMBLE
February 28 - April 12
By Libby Carr
Deep in a dusty East Texas barn, five teenage girls raise calves and wrestle with what it means to be good – at school, at God, at girlhood. CALF SCRAMBLE is a fiercely original, darkly funny coming-of-age tale soaked in sweat, scripture, and competition, where faith is tangled with survival, and tenderness bucks like a wild animal.
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