Main Stage
Stay tuned for the Season 78 Opening Musical, coming May 2025!
Adapted from the Story by Robert L. May
Music and Lyrics by Johnny Marks
Script Adaptation by Robert Penola
November 28 – December 21, 2025
A heartwarming musical based on the beloved holiday television special. Young Rudolph struggles to fit in with the other reindeer in Christmastown and sets off to find a place where he’ll be accepted. As he befriends fellow misfits along the way, Rudolph comes to understand that home is where he belongs. Returning to the North Pole just as a storm threatens to cancel Christmas, Rudolph finally gets his chance to shine!
Filled with musical holiday hits and nostalgic charm, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer features favorite characters including Hermey the Elf, Yukon Cornelius and the Abominable Snow Monster in an adventure that reminds us that what makes us each different is what makes us all special.
Based on the novel by Jane Austen
Adapted by Kate Hamill
January 23 – February 8, 2026
Emma Woodhouse is clever, wealthy, and believes she knows best when it comes to love—especially when it’s other people’s love lives. Her latest scheme involves the sweet Harriet Smith, whom she advises to reject a perfectly good marriage proposal in favor of another eligible bachelor. As Emma meddles in affairs of the heart, she begins to realize that love—and life—are far more complicated than she imagined, especially when it comes to her own feelings for the steadfast Mr. Knightley.
A fast-paced comedy filled with flirtation, misunderstandings, witty banter, and plenty of surprises, this fresh new stage adaptation interprets Jane Austen’s classic with delightfully original flair.
Written by Tennessee Williams
March 20 – April 4, 2026
An intimate and beautifully written play about family, dreams and the weight of the past, The Glass Menagerie resonates across generations with deeply relatable characters and emotions.
Restless young Tom Wingfield is torn between duty to family and his desire for a bigger life. His overbearing but loving mother, Amanda, clings to memories of her genteel past as a Southern belle. His sister Laura is painfully shy and finds comfort in her delicate collection of glass figurines. The family’s hopes begin to rise when Amanda urges Tom to bring home a gentleman caller for Laura, but reality can be more fragile than dreams.
A memory play of great tenderness and charm, this icon of the American theater is an intensely personal and universally meaningful exploration of nostalgia, regret, and unfulfilled longing.
Music by Alan Menken
Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Book by Peter Parnell
May 15 – June 14, 2026
Based on the famous novel by Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables, and the much-loved Disney film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a grand-scale musical about love, acceptance, and what it means to be a hero.
As the bells of Notre Dame sound through the famed medieval cathedral, bellringer Quasimodo observes all of Paris reveling in the Feast of Fools. Quasimodo escapes from his devious captor Archdeacon Frollo and joins the boisterous crowd, only to be treated cruelly by all but the beautiful Esmeralda. Quasimodo is captivated by Esmeralda’s free spirit, but Frollo and the new captain of the guard, Phoebus, have desired for her as well. As he finds himself in growing danger, Quasimodo must find the inner strength and courage to stand for what is right against powerful enemies.
With a magnificent score and timeless themes, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is moving, thought-provoking and powerfully entertaining for audiences of all ages.
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Studio Theatre
Based on the Gothic Novel by Mary Shelley
Stage Adaptation by Nick Dear
October 10 – November 2, 2025
Nick Dear’s Frankenstein is a gripping adaptation of the famous story of horror, psychology and philosophy.
The play shifts the focus to the Creature, from his horrific birth to his desperate search for connection in a world that fears him. As he observes human interactions and acquires the power of language and thought, the creature’s innocence is shattered, leading to a dramatic confrontation with his creator, Victor Frankenstein. An electrifying tale of a living creature cast away by his creator into a hostile world, Frankenstein explores identity, rejection, and what it means to be human—issues as relevant among the technological and ethical dilemmas of today as they were when Mary Shelley wrote her famous novel more than 200 years ago.
Written by Peter Rothstein
Vocal Arrangements by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach
December 5 – 21, 2025
On a cold winter night on the Western Front of the First World War, a pause in the violence, a silence, then a song. A German soldier steps into No Man’s Land singing “Stille Nacht” beginning an extraordinary night of camaraderie, music, and peace. All Is Calm tells the true story of this remarkable night through exquisite arrangements of traditional carols and actual words from letters, diaries, and first-person accounts of the men who lived through it.
Written by Selina Fillinger
February 13 – March 8, 2026
It’s just another day at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave until a White House PR nightmare threatens to spins out of control. It will take seven brilliant and beleaguered women risking life, liberty, and the pursuit of sanity to keep the commander-in-chief out of serious trouble. POTUS, or Behind Every Great Dumb*** are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, is a bawdy and irreverent look at sex, politics and the women in charge of the man who’s (not quite) in charge of the free world.
Written by Bryan Harnetiaux, Civic’s Resident Playwright since 1982
April 24 – May 10, 2026
Late in life, a popular and prolific mystery writer finds himself unable to write a word. For reasons he can’t fully explain, he returns to his hometown where he strikes up a relationship with a local high school teacher, a Young-Adult novelist in her own right. As their connection develops and they reflect on the events of their lives, we learn with these characters that living life while making art is no simple undertaking, and that mystery can play a larger role in an informed, meaningful life than we might have imagined.
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Special Performances
Book by Julian Fellowes
Music by George Stiles
Lyrics by Anthony Drewe
Music Directed by Cynthia Kirkman Romoff
Choreographed by Bonni Dichone
Directed by Jake Schaefer
July 18 – 27, 2025
MAIN STAGE
A Civic Education Production
Based on Kenneth Grahame’s best-selling classic of children’s literature, and with a book by Oscar-winning screenwriter and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and songs by Olivier Award-winning composers and lyricists George Stiles and Anthony Drewe (Honk!, Just So, Mary Poppins), The Wind in the Willows is a wild, thrill-seeking tale.
Full of humor, wit, a gorgeous, soaring score, and heartwarming lessons of friendship, The Wind in the Willows follows Mole, Rat, Badger, and the impulsive Mr. Toad, whose insatiable need for speed lands him in serious trouble. With his beloved home under threat from the notorious Chief Weasel and his gang of sinister Wild Wooders, Toad must attempt a daring escape leading to a series of misadventures and a heroic battle to recapture Toad Hall.
By Rick Elice
Based on the Novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Music by Wayne Barker
Directed by Jessii Arp
Music Directed by Nathan Hoyt
August 8 – 17, 2025
STUDIO THEATRE
A Civic Education Production
Tony-winning Peter and the Starcatcher upends the century-old story of how an orphan comes to be Peter Pan. The play provides a backstory for the characters of Peter Pan, Mrs. Darling, Tinker Bell and Hook, and serves as a prequel to J. M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy.
From marauding pirates and jungle tyrants to unwilling comrades and unlikely heroes, Peter and the Starcatcher playfully explores the depths of greed and despair and the bonds of friendship, duty and love.
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