Theater Alliance Reveals 2025-26 Season in Southwest Pop-Up Venue

Theater Alliance has announced its 2025–26 season lineup in its activated temporary space. This season will feature a slate of productions that reflect the complexity of our world and the resilience of our communities.  The 25-26 season of work speaks directly to the challenges and possibilities of the world we inhabit. Featuring two premiere productions, the return of the Hothouse New Play Block Party, and Civic Engagement initiatives, this season continues Theater Alliance's long-standing commitment to socially conscious theater that centers community, justice, and joy.

The season arrives as Theater Alliance enters its final months in a pop-up space at 340 Maple Drive SW, the temporary home made possible through a partnership with Hoffman & Associates, facilitated by the DC Department of Buildings and Mayor Bowser's PUP permitting initiative. While moving towards finalizing a permanent venue, Theater Alliance remains grounded in its values and committed to telling stories that reflect the lived realities of Washingtonians from all walks of life.

“This season is about honesty and fire. It's about what happens when people decide to take action, connect, and embrace hope,” said Executive Artistic Director Shanara Gabrielle. “Whether it's on stage or in our community, we're thinking about how to build the future we want to live in.”

The season begins with fire work by Mary Glen Fredrick, a Rolling World Premiere with the National New Play Network, co-produced with Unicorn Theatre (Kansas City, MO) and The VORTEX (Austin, TX). Set in a surreal, not-so-distant dystopia, fire work follows Eleanor and Bartholomew, two factory workers who spend their days making glass and their nights setting off fireworks. When sweeping policy changes threaten their fragile world, Eleanor sparks a resistance. What begins as a small act of defiance turns into a full-blown rebellion, fueled by friendship, rage, and the question: “When the system is broken, who will dare  to light the fuse?”

With heist thrills and biting humor, fire work is a play about labor, class, and what it means to survive in a world designed to wear people down. Directed by Shanara Gabrielle, this production sets the tone for a season that asks audiences to imagine what revolution, large or small, can look like.

Later in the fall, Theater Alliance will present the DC Regional Premiere of Furlough's Paradise by a.k. payne, winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Kendada National Playwriting competition. Furlough's Paradise is a tender, poetic exploration of family, memory, incarceration, and the everyday labor of reconnection. With attention to Black kinship and generational healing, a.k. payne's play offers a moving portrait of two women learning how to carry each other—and themselves—toward something like freedom.

Directed by Autumn Angelettie, who returns to Theater Alliance after directing Covenant, the inaugural production in the Southwest pop-up space —Furlough's Paradise tells the story of Sade, who comes home on a three-day furlough from prison, and Mina, the cousin who isn't sure how to welcome her back. Set in a living room filled with memories, tension, and love, the play unfolds as the two women confront the past and navigate the emotional terrain of what could have been.