Arena Stage Marks 75th Anniversary with New Play Festival in 2026
Arena Stage to showcase new works by acclaimed playwrights in upcoming festival
By: Stephi Wild Feb. 18, 2026
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announced its 75th Anniversary New Play Festival, a three-day celebration of new work running February 27 through March 1, honoring the theater's founding commitment to commissioning and developing bold American voices.
The festival brings together artists, audiences, and theater leaders for a series of readings and conversations that reflect Arena Stage's 75-year legacy as a home for plays in development and its enduring commitment to what comes next.
THE TREATMENT
Friday, February 27 at 7:30pm
By Amy Berryman
Directed by Reggie D. White
A newly-released treatment ends human aging and, presumably, death by natural causes. Will is the first to sign up, but, after tragic side effects are revealed, his relationship with his daughter falls apart. Through decades and generations, The Treatment takes a speculative look at a medical marvel's impact, asking how you take the measure of a life if that life never ends.
EMALANI
Saturday, February 28 at 2pm
By Lee Cataluna
Directed by Mina Morita
A woman caught between love, leadership, and the fight to protect her people's future. Set against the political upheaval of the 19th-century Hawaiian Kingdom, the play weaves intimate relationships with nation-shaping events, revealing the burden of power and the personal costs of colonialism. Passionate, poetic, and deeply human, Emalani is a story of resilience, grief, and an unyielding devotion to sovereignty.
CODE RED
Saturday, February 28 at 7:30pm
By Emily Mann
Directed by Molly Smith
Code Red illuminates day-to-day life in an environment perpetually alert—the American public school system. Five women in rural upstate New York navigate teaching, parenthood, and friendship while trying to grapple with their greatest fear. When unfathomable situations make for breakroom banter, the question becomes—how do normal people do their jobs when nothing is normal anymore?
BUNK JOHNSON… A BLUES POEM
Sunday, March 1 at 2pm
Book and Lyrics by Ifa Bayeza
Music by Ifa Bayeza and Bunk Johnson
Music Direction by Shawn Wallace
Directed by Hana S. Sharif
June 19, 1949, New Iberia, Louisiana, on the grounds of the hundred-year-old plantation home Shadows-on-the-Teche, trumpeter Bunk Johnson, much to the consternation of his partner Maud, gathers friends together to announce his comeback! Now that he stands poised to resume his rightful place as a world-famous Jazz cat, he's throwing a party with an exclusive, one-night-only show. The former “yardman” at the Shadows, between tunes, regales his guests with tales of his wondrous, wandering life—how he was there when Jazz was born, played with Buddy Bolden, and taught Louis Armstrong. Maud, whose family once were slaves at the Shadows, just wants to go home. But where is home for the wanderer?
Together, these events underscore Arena Stage's singular role in shaping the American theatrical canon by supporting artists at every stage of the creative process and ensuring that new stories continue to reach the stage.
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