Proudly Announcing our 2024 Season!
A vibrant arts community is very similar to a healthy democracy. We all have to participate! Your "vote" as a subscriber makes all the difference. While there is no question that we are living in chaotic times, take heart! Theatre is still alive and kicking and singing and dancing and howling at the Ashby Stage.
Performances start March 16, 2024
By William Shakespeare · Directed by William Hodgson
MAGICAL · DEVIOUS · DELIGHTFUL
The rom-com we know and love is more mischievous and dangerous than ever! Passing Strange Director, William Hodgson returns to the Ashby Stage to unearth more magic than you’ve seen in this royal romp of teenage lovers caught in an enchanted forest of havoc. This is HIGH art. And also, a Kardashian visited here last weekend. Merely being seen here raises your social status. Hopefully you wore something to be seen in.
“A Midsummer Night's Dream features Shakespeare's glittering humor and the dark undertones of abused power." - The Guardian
Performances start May 18, 2024
A New Play By Jonathan Spector · Directed by Jon Tracy · Associate Director Kimberly Ridgeway
EYE-OPENING · PROVOCATIVE · SCATHINGLY FUNNY
City Repertory Theater company launches a search for a new artistic director. Who is the best available candidate? Rising star and hometown hero Jonathan Spector interviewed dozens of theater makers to create this satirical tale. Some subjects are much too serious to be dramas.
“Spector proves as much a master of pathos as of comedy." - San Francisco Chronicle
COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN FIVE BETTIES
Performances start July 20, 2024
By Jen Silverman · Directed by Becca Wolff
AUDACIOUS · EROTIC · TENDER
Five people named Betty clash and connect in this queer fantasia of riotous self-discovery, smeared with sex, rage and solidarity! Can a dinner party, a hand mirror, and a play within a play be the keys for turning solitude into understanding? Even happiness? This play is a wildly raw, comic exploration of the human heart, and other body parts.
“A fult-tilt lesbian/bi-curious/genderqueer/Shakespearean comedy for everyone" - NY Times
Performances start September 21, 2024
By Tarell Alvin McCraney · Directed by Darryl V. Jones
Tony Award-winning vocal arrangements by Jason Michael Webb
FAITHFUL · SUBLIME · COURAGEOUS
Pharus attends the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys and is the lead singer for their renowned choir. He is not only open about his queer identity, he also questions long-held traditions. With contemporary arrangements of traditional African American spirituals and step choreography, Choir Boy is a brilliant, moving, and uplifting play from Academy Award winning playwright, Tarell Alvin McCraney. This is not a coming-out story. It's a story about the power of self-love.
“In his stirring and stylishly told drama, Tarell Alvin McCraney cannily explores race and sexuality and the graces and gravity of history.”
- NY Daily News
Performances start November 16, 2024
By Leah Nanako-Winkler · Directed by Michelle Talgarow
LONELINESS · LAUGHTER · LUST... LOVE?
Dang, dating sure is hard these days. But don’t worry, this show will flirt its way into your heart and hit like a one night stand! A hot and loaded experience brings the new age of dating to life onstage. Opposites who attract, David and Jenny answer the NY Times “36 questions that lead to love.”
“I’ve long admired Winkler’s singular voice—haunting and sharp with an undeniable tenderness” - Brooklyn Rail
CHAMPAGNE STAGED READING SERIES
Far from your average staged reading, we give our actors just enough blocking, light and sound design to get started and then we let adrenaline do the rest! Yes, there will be scripts in hands, but there will also be bold action and riveting drama. Subscribe to the CSRS for a perfect pairing to our mainstage season.
THE MOTION
April 15 & 16
Written by Christopher Chen · Directed by Patrick Dooley
An incendiary new play exploring values and belief systems. It begins as a scholarly debate about animal rights, only to veer into something else entirely as questions turn much more intimate.
YELLOW FACE
June 17 & 18
Written by David Henry Hwang · Directed by Daniel Eslick
"It’s a memoir – a kind of unreliable memoir." The play begins with the 1990s controversy over color-blind casting for Miss Saigon before it spins into a comic fantasy, in which the character DHH pens a play in protest and then unwittingly casts a white actor as the Asian lead. (New York Times)
PLUCK
August 19 & 20
Written by Jan Rosenberg · Directed by Molly Van Der Molen
It's 2003. Fourteen-year-old Cleo and Bea are twins. Cleo can't stop running away from womanhood. Bea can't stop running away, period. When we don't have the words for what we're becoming, we make up myths instead. A play about gender identity, dysphoria, twins, and monsters in the age of AOL.
WE 3
October 21 & 22
Written and Created by Shelley Doty
This new work uses music, movement, and soliloquy to trace the common threads linking three women of color living disparate lives. Created by Hedwig’s Skip the Needle band member, Shelley Doty, and workshopped at Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor.
