Performing Arts News: Baltimore Theatre Project Announces 2026-27 Season

Original works, new takes on classics, World and Baltimore premieres by Resident and Guest Artists
highlight Theatre Project’s new Season!
There’s something for everyone! Innovative works in theatre, dance, music, opera, puppetry, and more.

RESIDENT ARTISTS

Each season Theatre Project proudly presents the extraordinary work of its Resident Artists; companies that make Theatre Project an artistic home. Here are the offerings from our Resident Artists.

Back for its 28th year is HIGH ZERO, the premier festival of Improvised, Experimental music on the East Coast, featuring the most inspired improvisors from around the world.

Next up is the innovative opera company IN Series, with THE M.A.K.A.do: Make America Kingly Again! An Operatico-Politco-Buffo-Satirico. Based on The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, IN Series reimagines the iconic musical spoof as set in a great golden gilded oval office, with a cast of all too familiar characters that take no prisoners as they delight audiences and poke fun at fools from all sides. With over-the-top costumes, sets, and comedy. THE M.A.K.A.do uses laughter and music to say what no one is saying but we’ve all been thinking.

The critically acclaimed and audience favorite Happenstance Theater returns in November with BAROCOCO. Loosely inspired by Last Letters: Prisons and Prisoners of the French Revolution by Olivier Blanc, BAROCOCO navigates the dangerous curves of being politic. This charming and charismatic six-person ensemble exposes an indulgent aristocratic lifestyle and invites you to experience the charade — from parlor games to pantomime, from the exquisite to the revolting — in this delightful comedy of manners…and it’s just in time for our midterm elections!

In February we’ve got opera from both IN Series and long-time partner, Peabody Chamber Opera.

IN Series’ (N)O KING(S) is a Requiem for the American Dream, a powerful and unforgettable melding of three of the most bold and audacious works of vocal-theater from the 20th Century with the first great operatic masterpiece written in the 21st Century. From the explosive imagination of Artistic Director Timothy Nelson, these works will combine into a shattering evening that examines the darknesses of the Great American Century with mesmerizing and haunting beauty.

Peabody Chamber Opera, in collaboration with the Peabody Historical Performance Ensemble will present Actéon, Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s lyrical retelling of the Greek myth. While hunting, Actéon unexpectedly discovers the goddess Diana and her attendants bathing in a secluded woodland spring. Angered by the intrusion, Diana transforms him into a stag, and he is ultimately hunted down by his own hounds. (Sung in French with English supertitles.)

March will feature Happenstance Theater again with a brand new company devised piece. REQUIEM FOR A PIANO | A THEATRICAL AUTOPSY Inspired by the practical need to move an old piano out of Theatre Project, Happenstance Theater is collaborating with artist Kristin Putchinski to dissect said piano and build a new production around the process. *A portion of the ticket sales from this production will be used to purchase and move a better quality, functioning piano into the Theatre.

IN Series wraps up its Theatre Project season in April with G.F. Handel’s THEODORA. Throughout THEODORA, Handel weaves the threads of the enlightenment that would just a generation later give birth to the spirit of America: freedom of religion, assembly, speech, from persecution and the free exercise of joy and presence. IN Series mounts its largest production ever with full, Baroque orchestra and choir as a testament to courage of holding fast to an ideal, at all costs. From its audacious beginning through the most powerful music Handel ever wrote, this rarely staged masterwork promises to move and even transfigure audiences in an experience like none other this season.

And back by popular demand in May, Alex and Olmsted return with REALLY QUITE A LOT OF MECHANISMS, a darkly comedic puppet show set in the not-too-distant Now when nations are at war, bad things happen to good people, and dropped toast always lands butter side down. Life is illogical but you know what isn’t? Mechanisms! The Lever! The Pulley! And, O! Hail the Wheel and Axle! In REALLY QUITE A LOT OF MECHANISMS, there is, at the center of the Earth, an unseen boiler room full of machines and the semi-capable technicians who operate them. Told with puppetry, simple machines, and physical theater, two workers perform their endless tasks, troubleshoot mechanical failures, and struggle to maintain productivity quotas under the watchful gaze of an all-seeing, unknowable foreman.

In June, long-time Resident Company, VTDance/Vincent E. Thomas, returns with a world premiere dance theatre piece.

RESIDENT ARTISTS

The new season will also feature many Guest Artists kicking off with SOL LAB‘s immersive performance of LOST SHIP.

TorcuArt follows next with the return AULA DE FLAMENCO. Ole!

In early October, Motte & Bailey, prod. is proud to present the fourth and final installment of Hannah Fogler’s acclaimed Shakespeare/Music series: TITUS/MEAT LOAF. A combination of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and music from Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s “Bat Out of Hell” albums, TITUS/MEAT LOAF is a high-octane, gothic rock revenge finale that will leave you shocked, awed, and possibly more than a little bloody.

And for the Halloween season, we have the return of Daniel Hall Kuhn’s solo show ALONE, TALES FROM EDGAR ALLAN POE, luring audiences into the uncanny and sinister literary universe created by this master of the macabre. Inhabiting a suitably gothic stage, actor Kuhn casts a disquieting and mesmerizing spell, bringing Poe’s tales vividly to life.

We have a vast variety of offerings in November and December, beginning with the staged reading of EVERYTHING IS OK, a brand new musical from Rich Espey & Melissa Sharlat.

The students of the Baltimore City College High School return for a second season, while their school is being renovated, with two shows, CLUE and BUS STOP. They also return in the spring with a TBD production.

New Renaissance Performing Arts Company explores the profound intersection of love, loss, and resilience with two new plays DROWNING and ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART.

Charles Dickens will make an appearance in December! Jimi Kinstle, appears in a one man tour de force! Join us for a Christmas celebration with DICKENS – A ONE MAN CHRISTMAS CAROL! Experience ‘Mr Dickens’ performing 18 classical Christmas characters in one hour!

Claire Saxe, From Rough House Puppet Arts in Chicago brings her solo show OUT WITH IT. In this wild and lyrical piece of puppetry-infused physical theater, a fastidious clown takes on the forces of chaos. In a collision of movement, clown, and found-object puppetry, OUT WITH IT unpacks the rough and tender realities of holding things in and letting things go.

To close out the holiday season, D.C. based Aru Dell’Arte returns for one show only, with MODERN NUTCRACKER BALLET: CHRISTMAS LEGEND.

Once upon a time – more than magic was about to happen the night before Christmas. This show presents themes of human compassion, love, and friendships while spinning a well-known holiday tale and putting out fun, cool vibes.

We’re bringing the funny to start out 2027 with PULL UP, WE FUNNY, featuring four of the East Coast’s fastest-rising comedians, including Baltimore’s Jamar Taylor.

Also in January, jazz artist Ahmed Warshanna brings both his quartet and sextet to Theatre Project for two weekends of music.

Closing out the month will be Leonard Bernstein’s TROUBLE IN TAHITI. This cross-disciplinary production is the first complete opera to be presented by students of the Baltimore School for the Arts, a nationally-recognized public arts high school. Integrating vocal, instrumental, dance, visual arts, stage design, and film students, the project aims to demonstrate how disparate artists can join creative forces to make passionate, imaginative, and provocative art.

We’ve got even more opera in April. TellTale Opera Theatre presents the second-ever iteration of the Sandbox Opera Showcase, an evening of storytelling featuring the premieres of four newly-commissioned mini-operas written by the TellTale Opera Theatre 2027 Storytellers-in-Residence. These work intend to challenge or expand the notions of opera by exploring contemporary subject matter and genre-blending.

And keep this on your radar!

In July, Theatre Project and Noah Silas are producing August Wilson’s RADIO GOLF, the final production of The Baltimore August Wilson Celebration. Show details and tickets will be available in the coming months.

As always, shows, special events, and exhibits in our John Fonda Gallery are added throughout the year. Updates to the season and gallery schedule can be found on our website, theatreproject.org.

Admission Packages (The best deal in town!)

We offer two different admission packages providing the flexibility you need.

If you are someone who likes to sample a little of everything, choose our Standard Flex Pass, valid for 6 admissions to most Theatre Project shows (special events and other special engagements excluded.) Price: $100 ($85 for Seniors 65 and over)

And for those of you who want it all, and who doesn’t, the All Access Pass gives you two admissions to most every Theatre Project show (special events and other special engagements excluded.) Price: $200

For more information or to purchase a Flex Pass please call us at 410-752-8558. You can also email us at boxoffice@theatreproject.org.

Theatre Project’s 2026/27 Season Schedule

LOST SHIP

SOL LAB (D.C.)
September 3 – 6

AULA DE FLAMENCO

TorcuArt (D.C.)
September 19 & 20

HIGH ZERO 2026

High Zero Foundation (Baltimore)
September 18 – 21

TITUS/MEAT LOAF

Motte & Bailey (Baltimore)
October 2 – 10

ALONE, TALES FROM EDGAR ALLAN POE

Daniel Hall Kuhn (South Carolina)
October 14 – 18

THE M.A.K.A.do