Avant Bard Theatre’s 37th Season: Interrogating Power shines light on the forces that seek to define us, silence us, control us, or demand our obedience – and it asks us to decide whether or not we accept the terms. For more than three decades, Avant Bard has asked audiences not simply to admire the classics, but to question them. Interrogating Power continues that work by posing a question at the heart of many of theatre’s most enduring works: Who has power — and when do we refuse the terms they set.
Season 37 continues our popular and necessary monthly Resistance Reading Project—catch it on Sept. 20 with Arlingtonian Shawn Northrip’s new musical, Ronald Reagan and the Ontological Paradox of Intent—and the 11th Annual Scripts in Play Festival in Arlington art galleries and venues Oct. 2, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18.
Then, in 2027, Avant Bard returns to the mainstage with two productions that interrogate power through radically different reinventions of Shakespeare. In February-March, Tom Stoppard’s Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, directed by Kathleen Akerley, playfully and subversively explores language, censorship, and artistic resistance under authoritarian rule.
In April-May, the world-premiere musical Father Lear, by Michael and Andrea Pemberton and directed by Elizabeth Dinkova, reimagines King Lear through the lens of American televangelism, combining an original rock score with a darkly comic story of faith, family, patriarchy, and power. Father Lear is a co-production with Spooky Action Theater, opening and running at Spooky Action’s space in DC and then, moving to Gunston Arts Center – Theatre Two in Arlington.
2026-2027 Season
Join us Sunday, September 20, 2026 at 6 pm at Solace Outpost Ballston (formerly The Filling Station) for the next Resistance Reading: Arlingtonian Shawn Northrip’s new musical, Ronald Reagan and the Ontological Paradox of Intent, directed by Jenny McConnell Frederick, co-artistic director of Rorschach Theatre. Free but be sure to reserve a spot!
11th Annual Scripts in Play Festival
As always, the readings are free — and audience conversation becomes part of the development process.
RSVP to reserve your spot!
Every Single Ophelia
by Ryan Stevens
directed by Kathleen Akerley
Friday, Oct. 2 at 7:30 pm at The Schnider Gallery
Sunday, Oct. 4 at 2:00 pm at Mason Exhibitions–Arlington
A one-woman reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, who suddenly realizes she is a
fictional character – and must reckon with centuries of interpretations of who Ophelia
is supposed to be.
Three Sisters
by Suneeta Misra
directed by Mekala Sridhar
Thursday, Oct. 9 at 7:30 pm at Ballston Quarter, Level 2
Sunday, Oct. 11 at 2:00 pm at Ballston Quarter, Level 2
A satirical reimagining inspired by Chekhov and Jane Austen that transplants three sisters
to 1970s India, where patriarchy, marriage, class, and nostalgia collide.
Gracie vs. The People
by Shoshannah Boray
directed by Tara Giordano
Friday, Oct. 16 at 7:30 pm at MoCA Arlington
Sunday, Oct. 18 at 2:00 pm at Mason Exhibitions–Arlington
A contemporary and absurdist reworking of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People that asks what
happens when inconvenient science collides with politics, the press, and popular opinion.
Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth
directed by Kathleen Akerley
Feb. 11 – March 6, 2027
Gunston Arts Center – Theatre Two, Arlington
Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth is a two-part play that places Shakespeare in two wildly different contexts. In Dogg’s Hamlet, English schoolboys perform Hamlet while speaking a made-up language called Dogg, creating a playful and absurd exploration of communication and translation. In Cahoot’s Macbeth, a group of Czech actors performs Macbeth in secret under the threat of political surveillance in Soviet-era Prague. Together, the two pieces explore language, power, and the ways theatre can become an act of resistance.
Father Lear – World Premiere
a co-production with Spooky Action Theatre
book & lyrics by Andrea & Michael Pemberton
music by Michael Pemberton
directed by Elizabeth Dinkova
April 8 – 25, 2027 | Washington, D.C.
April 29 – MAY 8, 2027 | Arlington
Avant Bard joins DC’s Spooky Action Theatre for this world premiere from the team behind Spooky Action’s award-winning musical, Professor Woland’s Black Magic Rock Show. Charismatic leader Father Lear has grown his church from a traveling music show into a major cable network, thanks to the effort of his daughters, the Lear Sisters. But as he rallies his followers to wage a spiritual battle against a demonic state, some begin to question if Lear’s mind is slipping. Father Lear reclaims the sisters’ narrative as they grapple with whether to uphold, reform, or dismantle the system they’ve inherited.
