MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, COPENHAGEN & More Set for Burbage Theatre Co. 15th Season

Following their 2025-26 season, Burbage Theatre Co returns for their 15th Season, subtitled Past is Prologue. The upcoming season at Burbage, beginning September 2026 and concluding in June of 2027, showcases Burbage's trademarked irreverence and a slate of plays that range from the classically comedic to immediately exigent – all plays that examine the past as a reflection of our present and that beg us to consider how our present actively shapes our future. This highly engaging, entertaining, and thought-provoking season is perfectly suited to Burbage's intimate, 77-seat Wendy Overly Studio Theatre in Pawtucket RI.

Season 15 opens with William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, a perfect transition from the summer months into the theatrical season, directed by Trinity Rep Company member Stephen Thorne, and starring the married-in-real-life couple Alison Russo as Beatrice and Burbage Artistic Director Jeff Church as Benedick. Next, Burbage's 5th co-production with WomensWorkRI, the World Premiere of Cheap, by WomensWork member Margaret Melozzi, adapted from Moliere's The Miser, directed by Trinity Rep Company member Anne Scurria. With the new year, Burbage presents the Rhode Island premiere of Julia Cho's beautiful and bittersweet The Language Archive. Next up is the thrilling Rhode Island premiere of Jordan Harrison's harrowing yet hopeful future retrospective by artificial intelligence on the now extinct human species, The Antiquities. Finally, Burbage presents Michael Frayn's masterpiece Copenhagen. Burbage is thrilled to welcome Bill Harley, two-time Grammy award-winning storyteller, back to their stage as Neils Bohr.

For tickets and subscription packages for Burbage Theatre Co's 2026-2027 Season, visit www.burbagetheatre.org. Season 15 Flex Passes are now available on our website. Sign up for Burbage's email list on our website to stay updated.

Purchase a Burbage Theatre Co Flex Pass and receive FIVE TICKETS AT A DISCOUNTED RATE to be used however you like and any of Burbage's regular season programming ('however you like' means – use a ticket for each of the five shows and see the whole season, or get a discount on a group of five and use them all at one performance!)

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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

by William Shakespeare
directed by Stephen Thorne
September 17 - October 11

Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing is a sparkling comedy of love, wit, and second chances, where old rivalries, lingering misunderstandings, and carefully guarded reputations shape the lives of those caught between the past and the future. As the sharp-tongued Beatrice and Benedick spar in a battle of wits and the young lovers Hero and Claudio are tested by deception, long-held assumptions threaten to determine everyone's fate. With humor, heart, and unexpected twists, the play reminds us that while the past may set events in motion, it does not have to dictate how the story ends.

CHEAP

World Premiere
In partnership with WomensWork Theatre Collaborative
by Margaret Melozzi, adapted from Moliere's The Miser
directed by Anne Scurria
LIMITED ENGAGEMENT
November 19 - December 6

Inspired by Molière's classic comedy The Miser, Cheap follows a family trapped in the orbit of a matriarch whose obsession with wealth outweighs his capacity for love, trust, or generosity. As greed, deception, and competing desires collide, children scheme for independence, lovers fight for their futures, and every relationship is tested by the cost of putting money above people. This sharp new adaptation reveals that while human nature may remain stubbornly familiar, each generation has the opportunity to challenge the values it inherits and decide what is truly worth holding onto.

Burbage Theatre Company's 5th co-production with WomensWorkRI

'WomensWork is thrilled to return to Burbage for Season #15 with something truly special – a World Premiere! Set in Paris, Texas in the gilded, greedy 1980s, the show is a romp through the topics of money, love and loyalty. We're excited for audiences to share the fun of this fast-paced, party of a production, reimagined by Margaret specifically for WomensWork.' — Lynne Collinson, Founder/Creative Director, WomensWorkRI

THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE

Rhode Island Premiere
by Julia Cho
January 21 - February 14

George is a man consumed with preserving and documenting the dying languages of far-flung cultures. He is desperately trying to save a language from the brink of extinction. The last two speakers of that language, a married couple, will never speak to each other again. While, closer to home, language is failing him. He doesn't know what to say to his wife Mary to keep her from leaving him, and can't decipher the language of deep feeling between him and his lab assistant, Emma. Winner 2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

THE ANTIQUITIES

Rhode Island Premiere
A Tour of the Permanent Collection in the Museum of Late Human Antiquities
by Jordan Harrison
March 11 - April 4

At the Museum of Late Human Antiquities, the curators are fiercely committed to bringing a lost civilization to life again: What were humans really like? What did they wear, what did they eat, how did they die out? By casting us into the far future, Jordan Harrison's new play gives us an uncanny view of the present moment, as we straddle the analog world that was and the post-human world to come.

COPENHAGEN

by Michael Frayn
starring Bill Harley
May 20 - June 13

In 1941, German physicist Werner Heisenberg goes to Copenhagen to see his Danish counterpart, Niels Bohr. Together they revolutionized atomic science in the 1920s, but now they are on opposite sides of a world war and on the precipice of contributing to the creation of the world's first weapon of mass destruction. As the two men—and Bohr's wife, Margrethe—revisit that pivotal encounter from beyond the grave, they wrestle with memory, morality, friendship, and the profound consequences of scientific discovery. Blending history, philosophy, and human drama, the play asks whether we can ever truly know the past—or whether every attempt to understand it reveals as much about ourselves as the events we seek to explain.

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