LIBERATION, LEOPOLDSTADT and More Set for Berkeley Repertory Theatre 26/27 Season

Berkeley Repertory Theatre has revealed the seven productions of the organization’s 2026/27 season. Joining the previously announced world premiere musical, THE INTERESTINGS, with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles and book by Meg Wolitzer and Sarah Ruhl, are five West Coast premieres — Bess Wohl’s bitingly funny and intensely relevant play, LIBERATION; York Walker’s gripping Southern Gothic drama, COVENANT; Ryan J. Haddad’s disarmingly vulnerable solo romantic comedy, HOLD ME IN THE WATER; Talene Monahon’s boldly imaginative, scorching satire, MEET THE CARTOZIANS; and Tom Stoppard’s Tony and Olivier Award-winning monumental masterwork, LEOPOLDSTADT — alongside Eduardo Machado’s intimate portrait of family amid political upheaval, THE COOK. Casting and full creative teams for each production to be announced at a later date.

THE COOK

Kicking off the 2026/27 season, Berkeley Rep will produce Eduardo Machado’s THE COOK (September 4–October 11, 2026). An aristocratic Cuban family flees from Havana to Miami on the eve of Castro’s revolution, entrusting their mansion to their devoted cook Gladys who vows to protect it until their return. For forty years, she keeps her promise, enduring loss, upheaval, and the slow unraveling of a country’s dreams. But when the aristocrats’ daughter returns, Gladys finds she has sacrificed everything for a bond that has been forgotten. Berkeley Rep's Associate Artistic Director David Mendizábal (All My Sons, Mexodus) directs Eduardo Machado's sharp, funny, and quietly devastating play where two worlds are held in tension: the life carefully preserved, and the life that had to be lived. Performances of THE COOK will take place at Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre. Press night will be held on Wednesday, September 9, 2026.

LIBERATION

Next, Berkeley Rep will produce the West Coast premiere of Bess Wohl’s LIBERATION (October 23–November 29, 2026). It's 1970s Ohio, and Lizzie has gathered a group of women in a rec center basement to change their lives and maybe the world. Decades later, Lizzie’s daughter delves into her mother’s history to find answers to the feminist revolution’s unanswered questions, reliving those necessary, messy, and impassioned meetings that asked: What does it mean for a woman to be free? Direct from its acclaimed Broadway run, Tony Award nominees Bess Wohl (Grand Horizons) and director Whitney White (Jaja's African Hair Braiding) bring ferocious wit and emotional precision to this intensely relevant and bitingly funny memory play about what we inherit, what we forget, and what we're still fighting to understand. Liberation is a co-production with Geffen Playhouse and Studio Theatre. Performances of LIBERATION will take place at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre. Press night will be held on Wednesday, October 28, 2026

COVENANT

Berkeley Rep will then produce the West Coast premiere of York Walker’s COVENANT (November 6–December 13, 2026). In a small Georgia town, superstitions and rumors abound. The graveyard, the church, the neighbors, their families — there seems to be a secret within everything, and Avery wants out. But when her once-awkward childhood friend Johnny returns to town as a smooth-talking blues star, raising suspicion he's made the darkest of deals, a series of secrets emerges to envelop them all. Hailed by The New York Times as "a striking Southern Gothic work," York Walker's Covenant unravels truth from myth in a haunting and gripping reckoning with what we choose to believe and what we cannot escape. Performances of COVENANT will take place at Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre. Press night will be held on Wednesday, November 11, 2026.

THE INTERESTINGS

Kicking off the new year, Berkeley Rep will produce the world premiere musical THE INTERESTINGS (January 31–March 21, 2027), based on the novel by Meg Wolitzer. Six teenagers meet at an arts summer camp in the 1970s and form a lifelong bond over their shared dream of leading creative and inspiring lives. Decades later in New York City, that bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. Featuring music and lyrics by Grammy Award-winning and Emmy and Tony Award-nominated artist Sara Bareilles (Waitress), a book by The New York Times best-selling novelist Meg Wolitzer and Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Sarah Ruhl (Eurydice, In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)), and direction by Tony Award-winner Michael Arden (Parade, Maybe Happy Ending), The Interestings explores friendship, love, envy, class, art, money, and power — and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a life. The Interestings is produced in association with Matt Ross. Performances of THE INTERESTINGS will take place at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre. Press night will be held on Wednesday, February 17, 2027.

HOLD ME IN THE WATER

Next, Berkeley Rep will produce the West Coast premiere of Ryan J. Haddad’s HOLD ME IN THE WATER (March 12–April 18, 2027). When Ryan falls for a man he just met, he's ready for the romance of his dreams. But as their connection grows, he learns that new heights of joy can bring deep insecurities to the surface. Written and performed by Ryan J. Haddad and directed by Danny Sharron, Hold Me in the Water is a playfully provocative and disarmingly vulnerable solo play about the passion and intimacy of first love. Performances of HOLD ME IN THE WATER will take place at Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre. Press night will be held on Wednesday, March 17, 2027.

MEET THE CARTOZIANS

In early summer 2027, Berkeley Rep will produce the West Coast premiere of Talene Monahon’s MEET THE CARTOZIANS (May 21–June 27, 2027). In the 1920s, an Armenian American man wages a quiet legal battle for the right to belong. A century later, a group of Armenian Americans wage a different type of battle on the set of his descendant's reality television show. Talene Monahon’s boldly imaginative new play stitches together historical drama and scorching satire in what The New York Times calls "wildly funny" and "pure entertainment." At once hilarious and haunting, Meet the Cartozians exposes a little-known chapter of American history while asking a question that refuses to stay in the past: Who gets to be American, and at what cost?  Meet the Cartozians is a co-production with The Huntington. Performances of MEET THE CARTOZIANS will take place at Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre. Press night will be held on Wednesday, May 26, 2027.

LEOPOLDSTADT

Closing out the 2026/27 season, Berkeley Rep will produce the West Coast premiere of Tom Stoppard’s LEOPOLDSTADT (June 4–July 11, 2027). Renowned dramatist Tom Stoppard's most personal, sweeping masterwork traces one Jewish family through sixty years of Viennese history — from the 19th century's glittering promise to the Holocaust's shattering aftermath. Winner of the Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Play, Leopoldstadt moves with the rhythm of memory itself: vibrant, then fractured, then hauntingly still. Directed by Stoppard’s long-time collaborator Carey Perloff in close partnership with Stoppard before his death, this monumental drama paints a deeply human portrait of what families carry, what they lose, and what they must fight to remember. Performances of LEOPOLDSTADT will take place at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre. Press night will be held on Wednesday, June 9, 2027.