Theater Alliance to Present COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE, FOOL FOR LOVE in New Season

Theater Alliance has announced its 2026-27 season. Heading into its new, permanent home in Southwest DC, Theater Alliance welcomes new and returning theater lovers alike with three mainstage productions: the 2026 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning play COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE; Sam Shepard's 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist FOOL FOR LOVE; and a regional premiere of the comedy BUSINESS IDEAS. The season also welcomes back the annual Hothouse New Works Block Party, spotlighting new work from local playwrights and emerging artists. For tickets and more information, visit theateralliance.org.

“This season feels like a really clear statement of who we are and where we're going,” said Shanara Gabrielle, Executive Artistic Director of Theater Alliance. “We're telling stories that are big and theatrical, but also deeply human. They're about the things that shape all of us: family, work, love, identity, power, and what happens when people decide they're not going to simply accept the world as it is. Local artists at their boldest, asking the questions that matter, leaving you more joyful, curious, and more connected to the people around you. This is exactly who we are, and I can't wait for DC to see it.”

For nearly 25 years, Theater Alliance has been a professional theater company rooted in local community, producing work that illuminates the experiences, philosophies, and interests of DC's diverse populations. A decade on H Street NE, then over a decade in Anacostia, led the company to Southwest DC, where this October, that pop-up space becomes a permanent home: a new multidisciplinary arts center and the most ambitious chapter in Theater Alliance's history. The 2026-27 season is the company's first full season in that home, and it shows: three mainstage productions and a returning new-works festival built to match the scale of what's ahead, backed by a track record of 22 Helen Hayes Award nominations and four wins over the past two years alone, and 132 nominations and 34 wins across its history.

COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE

November 19 – December 13, 2026
Written by Ro Reddick and directed by Tom Story

Rollerskates. Republicans. Revolution.

Based in 1987, a ten-year-old Meek wants a nuclear radiation detector for Christmas. Her father, a former Black Panther, now runs the local roller disco, her uncle works for Reagan's administration, and his wife has just come home from something nobody wants to talk about. Throw in a peace choir with a nationalist streak and thirteen original songs, and you have COLD WAR CHOIR PRACTICE: the buzzy, critically acclaimed play-with-music that won the 2026 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and became an Off-Broadway sensation, earning a New York Times Critic's Pick and praise as "alive and audacious."

Following its acclaimed New York run, Theater Alliance presents the first production since - with a story centering a young Black girl navigating family, identity, and the particular terror of growing up when the world might end before you do. 

FOOL FOR LOVE

February 11 – March 7, 2027
Written by Sam Shepard and directed by Shanara Gabrielle

Black Cowboys. Old Flames. Blood.

One of the great American plays of the last half-century and a 1984 Pulitzer Prize finalist, FOOL FOR LOVE is one of the most acclaimed works by Sam Shepard, the writer who redefined what American mythology looks like on stage. Eddie and May are former lovers pulled back together by an obsession neither can explain, until a secret surfaces that makes the danger between them make sense, and makes it worse. 

Old flames. Family Secrets. One night that presents the least expected ending. Reimagined through the lens of the Black experience, Theater Alliance presents this piece of American mythology with local DC artists, Renea S. Brown & Yao Dogbe at the center. 

BUSINESS IDEAS

May 6 – 30, 2027
Written by Milo Cramer and directed by Aria Velz

Clock In. Scheme. Clock Out.

Theater Alliance closes out its 2026-27 season with a Washington, D.C. debut of BUSINESS IDEAS, marking its regional premiere. This award-winning dark comedy about hustle culture, the entrepreneurial fantasy, and what it costs the people underneath it is set entirely in a café over one increasingly unhinged day. The play skewers the myth that one good idea can fix what's actually broken, with sharp, funny, big-hearted storytelling.

HOTHOUSE NEW WORKS BLOCK PARTY

June 2027

New Plays. New Voices. All DC.

Theater Alliance's signature new works initiative returns with the Hothouse New Works Block Party, a public festival-style celebration of bold voices and fresh stories from the DMV. The Block Party invites audiences into the heart of the creative process, where works-in-progress meet a live audience for the first time. The festival will feature a slate of new play readings and excerpts from local DMV playwrights, alongside sneak peeks of works-in-progress from the writers of Theater Alliance's 2026-27 mainstage season and emerging playwrights from our civic engagement programs. The Hothouse New Works Block Party continues Theater Alliance's twenty-plus year commitment to developing new work: an incubator, amplifier, and pipeline for playwrights at every stage of their career, right here in DC.

TICKETS

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