City Theatre heads into the 2025-2026 season with an expansive five-show subscription lineup that features three world premieres, a Pittsburgh premiere, a journey into the Pittsburgh Cultural District, plus a visit from the improv troupe Second City, making its South Side debut.
As part of its season unveiling, City also announced that Clare Drobot “will serve as the singular creative lead, in partnership with managing director James McNeel, while the organization assesses the leadership model adopted in 2021 with Drobot, Monteze Freeland and Marc Masterson sharing the title of artistic director.”
Masterson has retired, and Freeland is leaving to become artistic director of Pittsburgh’s Alumni Theatre Company.
A number of “firsts” among the productions this season include the new-play company’s “first-ever revival,” the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Hedwig, which in 2003 starred Anthony Rapp at City Theatre, in 2026 will be directed by Robert Ramirez, head of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, and performed in partnership with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust at the Greer Cabaret, Downtown.
Previously, City Theatre came Downtown to the Pittsburgh Playhouse in September 2021, emerging from the pandemic shutdown with The Rivers Don’t Know.
City also has announced several changes to the upcoming season, “adapting to the cadence of theater-goers and theater making in 2025.” Tuesday evening performances have been dropped from the schedule, and evening performance curtain times will begin at 7:30 p.m., except for Saturdays, at 5:30 p.m. In addition, all ticket pricing is now inclusive of fees.
The season opens “with perhaps the company’s most ambitious show to date,” Another Kind of Silence by L M Feldman. The National New Play Network rolling world premiere in English and American Sign Language earned Feldman a Venturous Playwright Fellowship, and has been created in collaboration with Director of Artistic Sign Language MoMo Holt and director Kim Weild (Carnegie Mellon University Area Chair and Associate Professor of Directing in the John Wells Directing Program), alongside partners at Curious Theatre Company (Denver, Colorado) and the VORTEX (Austin, Texas).
Another Kind of Silence has been described as a bilingual and bicultural love story, “perilous and luminous in equal measure,” telling the story of “Evan & Chap – 2 already-partnered queer women who cross paths in modern-day Greece and find themselves falling in love.” The play “unfolds simultaneously in English and ASL, as the 4 characters & their 4 souls (a Greek Chorus) traverse one of the hardest chapters in committed relationships,” according to the New Play Exchange.
City Theatre’s season includes a new November-December holiday offering, the previously announced co-production of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. City teamed with Northlight Theatre in Chicago, People’s Light in Malvern, PA, and TheatreWorks in Silicon Valley, California, to co-commission Gunderson (The Revolutionists, the Christmas at Pemberley series) for this exploration of the parallel lives of the author’s family and Alcott’s March sisters.
Greeting the new year is the third premiere of the season, Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem, written by Jonathan Norton (interim artistic director at Dallas Theater Center). The story follows two young men washing dishes in Harlem in 1943, as Foxy (soon to be Redd Foxx), befriends fellow dishwater Little, better known, many years later, as Malcolm X. In a summer of heartbreak, uprisings, and leftovers, the two shape each other into the legends they are known to be through a revolutionary mix of humor and heart.”
Making its Pittsburgh debut is Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector, A New York Times Critics Pick during its recent Broadway run. The comedy takes place during board meetings at an ultra-progressive California school when a mumps outbreak reveals varying views on vaccination.
“Next season’s productions explore the pivotal moments that shape our lives. From falling in (and out of) love to finding your voice or fighting for what you believe in, each of these stories is about the messy (and hilarious and heartbreaking) business of being human,” said Drobot in a statement.
“The season was curated in close partnership with Monteze, James, and the City Theatre team. It doubles down on our commitments to bold new plays, uplifting the phenomenal Pittsburgh artistic community, and forging new models for both local and national producing partnerships. I can’t wait to share it with audiences and artists alike.”
In addition to the subscription series, City Theatre is welcoming Second City to the Main Stage in April with its production Laugh Harder, Not Smarter: The Best of Second City. The two-week run marks the first return of Second City to Pittsburgh since 2021. Subscribers receive early access to secure tickets for what will surely be a high-demand, laugh-out-loud City Event in April 2026.
“I am immensely proud of the scope, scale, and ambition of our announced season,” McNeel. “With so many theatres reducing programming, we are committing to our full suite of shows, while cementing our values and creative partnerships. … It’s a critical time in our country, and the arts have a significant role to play in uniting and inspiring our community.”
City’s new “Subscriber Day” takes place Saturday, April 12 from 10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., on the theater’s South Side campus, where patrons are invited to renew or purchase subscriptions, meet staff and artists, and sit in on a rehearsal.
CITY THEATRE’S 2025-2026 SEASON
- September 20 – October 12, 2025: Another Kind of Silence by L M Feldman, directed by Kim Weild, ASL Translation & Direction of Artistic Sign Language by MoMo Holt.
A National New Play Network rolling world premiere (Main Stage) - November 15 – December 7, 2025: Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Kaja Dunn
A rolling world premiere (Main Stage) - January 17 – February 8, 2026 Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem by Jonathan Norton, directed by Dexter J. Singleton
A co-world premiere (Main Stage) - March 7 – 29, 2026: Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector, directed by Adil Mansoor
Pittsburgh premiere (Main Stage) - May 2 – June 7, 2026: Hedwig and the Angry Inch, text by John Cameron Mitchell, music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, directed by Robert Ramirez
Revival in partnership with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust (Greer Cabaret, 655 Penn Avenue, Downtown) - April 9 – 18, 2026: The Second City Presents Laugh, Harder, Not Smarter: The Best of Second City
Limited-run add on event (Main Stage)
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Subscription packages go on sale April 10, 2025; single tickets will be on sale in August 2025; for groups of 10+, beginning in June 2025. Visit https://citytheatrecompany.org/play/2025-2026-season/ for more information.
Categories: Company, Our Posts, Preview, Season Listings, Venue
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