Primary Stages to Present the 2026 Liff Lab Readings

Primary Stages will welcome playwrights Benjamin Benne and Beth Hyland as this year’s Liff Lab recipients. As part of the Liff Lab, Primary Stages’ new play development program, each playwright will receive a private, by-invitation-only reading to be presented at A.R.T./NY Studios. Baby Shower Katie, by Beth Hyland and directed by Jaki Bradley, will be presented on Wednesday June 17; Fantasma, by Benjamin Benne and directed by Laurie Woolery, will be presented on Monday July 20.

Baby Shower Katie

By Beth Hyland
Directed by Jaki Bradley
Wednesday June 17

Best friends Rebecca and Hannah are at a crossroads: Rebecca desperately wants a child, while Hannah can't imagine anything worse. Across four baby showers, thrown for three different women named Katie, Rebecca and Hannah are forced to confront their divergent dreams, the absurd expectations placed on mothers, and the terror and uncertainty that can surround pregnancy. Beth Hyland's irreverent new comedy asks what happens when the life we have been told to want no longer fits the person we are becoming.

The cast of Baby Shower Katie will include Maddie Corman, Karina Curet, Elise Kibler, and Emma Kikue.

Fantasma

By Benjamin Benne
Directed by Laurie Woolery
Monday July 20

On Christmas Eve in Southern California, three generations of women gather in Rosie’s newly renovated kitchen to make chuchitos – a traditional Guatemalan recipe passed down by heart, touch, and intuition. While her granddaughters attempt to document the dish step-by-step, they discover that what’s being preserved isn’t just food, and that recording and remembering are entirely different things. Spanning nearly two decades, Fantasma is a bittersweet exploration of what we keep, what we lose, and the impossibility of ever capturing it exactly right. The cast of Fantasma will be announced at a later date.

The Liff Lab is an innovative new play development program named by The Sulzberger Rolfe Foundation in memory of Samuel “Biff” Liff, a legendary theater agent who helped hundreds of artists in their careers, including Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Jerry Herman, and Chita Rivera, to name a few. This annual program provides an exceptional early to mid-career playwright with a 29-hour developmental workshop of an unproduced new work.