U.S. Theatrical Premieres: Your Guide to This Month's New Plays

Martin Morales, Karla Ojeda, Myrna Velasco, and Itzel Ocampo in "Soul Sacrifice" at CASA 0101. (Photo by Rudy Torres)

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June 1, 2026 American Theatre Editors Leave a comment

What Else Is New: A U.S. World Premiere Roundup

A complete listing of new plays being produced this month.

By American Theatre Editors

We haven’t gathered the stats in some time, but when for a few years we conducted a “gender count” to track the progress (or lack thereof) in gender parity among produced playwrights, we discovered an interesting adjacent fact : that the nonprofit theatre in the U.S. is much more new-work-focused than is popularly thought. Sure, you don’t have look far to see canonical revivals on American stages (albeit of an increasingly narrow cluster of titles—a subject for another column), but we found that the majority of theatre productions in the U.S. were of new work, though for our purposes we defined “new” as having been written in the last decade.

What we didn’t do was break out what percentage of productions are literally brand new. But last fall when editor-in-chief Rob Weinert-Kendt started his Goes to Show column (look for it the first Friday of every month), he decided to start tracking world premieres all over the U.S. and including a complete list at the end of each of column. Lest those listings get lost in the shuffle, we decided to break them out into a new monthly column all their own.

In addition to enjoying and sharing this column, we ask you to do us a favor: If you or someone you know is giving a new play its world premiere anywhere in the U.S. in the coming months, please let us know at at@tcg.org and rwkendt@tcg.org . (You should also consider listing all your upcoming programming on our site , a service reserved for members of TCG, which publishes AT .)

Without further ado, here’s what else is new.

West

East L.A.’s CASA 0101 Theater presents Soul Sacrifice , written by Consuelo G. Flores and directed by Kenneth Castillo. Flores’s play dramatizes the effects of the Vietnam War, and U.S. protests against it, on one East L.A. family in the midst of August 1970’s Chicano Moratorium. It opened last week and runs through June 21.

…but you could’ve held my hand by JuCuby Johnson follows four Black friends through decades of connection and complications. Directed by H. Adam Harris, it runs June 4-15 at IAMA Theatre Company in Los Angeles.

Denmo Ibrahim’s Arab Spring is billed as “a biting comedy about loss, grief, and the wars we wage in family.” Directed by Nailah Unole didanas’ea Harper-Malveaux, this Golden Thread & San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company co-production runs June 19-July 12 at San Francisco’s Potrero Stage.

Each summer, Utah’s Salt Lake Acting Company stages an annual topical musical revue, and this year’s is titled The Gaslight Zone , with a nod to the iconic Rod Serling series. Written by Olivia Custodio, Penelope Caywood, and Austin Archer, it’s directed by Cynthia Fleming and runs June 24-Aug. 16 at SLAC.

Midwest

A centuries-old blood-sucker tries to navigate today’s dating scene in Kevin Douglas’s comedy-horror hybrid Untitled Vampire Play , directed by Devon DeMayo at Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company, June 1-July 31.

My Ántonia is Fiasco Theatre’s new musical adaptation of Will Cather’s novel about a Bohemian immigrant in the Great Plains, with music & lyrics by the Kilbanes, a book by Noah Brody, and direction by Jessie Austrian, commissioned by Minneapolis’s Theatre Latte Da, where it runs June 3-July 12.

Cándido Tirado’s Roberto Clemente: A Diamond Within celebrates the Puerto Rican baseballer and Pittsburgh Pirate legend. With direction by Gary Anderson, it runs at Detroit’s Plowshares Theatre Company June 5-28.

The impish title gives some idea of what Iceboy! The Musical, or, The Completely Untrue Story of How Eugene O’Neill Came to Write The Iceman Cometh might be up to; that its creators include alumni of Urinetown (composer-lyricist Mark Hollmann) and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (book writer-lyricist Jay Reiss) may help fill out the picture (the book’s co-writer is Erin Quinn Purcell). The stars are Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman, and the director is Marc Bruni (replacing a previously announced Kathleen Marshall). It thaws at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre June 9-July 19.

Like Six O’Clock , Lewis Morrow’s drama about a factory shooting and its aftermath, runs at KC Melting Pot Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, June 11-26. Direction is by Harvey Williams.

Vinecia Coleman’s Being Black Outside , a co-production of the Great Plains Theatre Commons (GPTC) and the Union for Contemporary Art, tells the story of two sisters reuniting in their hometown after their mother’s death as the apocalypse descends. Directed by Denise Chapman, it bowed in late May at GPTC, and runs June 4-14 at the Union for Contemporary in Omaha, Nebraska.

South

Steph Del Rosso’s Precarious , a multigeneration comedy touching on the climate crisis, is directed by Jaki Bradley and runs June 4-28 at Mosaic Theater at Washington, D.C.

Kristoffer Diaz is premiering his latest sports-themed comedy Football Football Football Football (or I Love Lave Dash) at the Warehouse Theatre in Greenville, South Carolina, June 5-21. Direction is by Ashley Rodbro.

In Spite of My Ambivalence is Catherine Yu’s new play about five people healing from devastating loss and trauma. Directed by Lauren Morris, it runs June 5-28 at Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theatre.

A spoof of Greek mythology is promised by Bash of the Titans , with a book by Eric Davis, Matthew McGee, and Michael Raabe and tunes provided by a virtual jukebox of 1980s pop hits. Directed by Davis, that’s a St. Petersburg, Florida’s freeFall Theatre, June 12-Aug. 2.

Arena Stage will be the first but surely not the last host for CrazySexyCool–The TLC Musical , a new show about the iconic 1990s pop trio, told via their song catalogue and a new book by writer-director Kwame Kwei-Armah. Things pop off June 12-Aug. 9.

Eugene Onegin: A Bluegrass Musical is not playwright Sarah Gancher’s first foray into the form, though it’s her first in which she also wrote the music. The mid-20th-century-set story, loosely based on the Tchaikovsky opera, is set partly in Nashville and partly in Arkansas, where it premieres, at Fayetteville’s TheatreSquared, under Rachel Chavkin’s direction, July 19-28.

Northeast

Deaf West Theater has teamed with Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, for Elephant Shoes , a new musical that puts a Deaf/hearing twist on the classic Cyrano/Roxane/Christian triangle. The book is by Ivan Menchell and the songs are by Caroline Kay, with direction by Jeff Calhoun, and it runs June 4-28.

The Table , a new movement- and image-driven performance about the cost of having it all, has been devised by director Mei Ann Teo and Erika Chong Shuch as first major production of Pink Fang, the company formerly known as Ping Chong and Company. It runs at the Gym at Judson Memorial Church in New York City, June 6-15.

In Jason Tseng’s Fear & Wonder , two young men meet, bond, and possibly connect romantically at a conservative Christian summer camp. Produced by Flux Theatre Ensemble and directed by Emily Hartford, it runs at New York City’s A.R.T./NY Theaters, June 8-27.

Victoria Lynne Barclay’s Camping , a Colt Coeur production at HERE Arts Center June 13-July 11, follows two women over decades of upheaval that converge each time in a single tent. It’s directed by Adrienne Campbell Holt.

In adapting one of Ionesco’s least performed plays, Frenzy for Two , Igor Golyak has created Delirium , a vigorous absurdist two-hander for Andrey Burkovskiy and Chulpan Khamatova. An Arlekin! production, it runs June 18-July 2 at Boston’s Calderwood Pavilion.

A new musical adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer takes flight June 25-July 19 at Bard College’s Fisher Center, as part of BardSummerScape in New York’s Annandale-on-Hudson. The music is by Courtney Bryan, with a book co-written by Fisher Center artistic director Gideon Lester and the show’s director, Daniel Fish.

Guiliua: The Poison Queen of Palermo is a new historical musical by Jennifer Nettles (of the band Sugarland), based on the sort-of-true story of a 17th-century Italian woman who led a poisoners’ network. Directed by Mary Zimmerman, it’s at PAC/NYC, June 28-July 26.

In Keelay Gibson’s Estate Sale , a grieving son struggles with the impossible task of clearing out his deceased parents’ home. Directed by Steph Paul, it runs June 30-July 25 at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

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New play world premieres

_Originally reported by [American Theatre](https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/06/01/what-else-is-new-a-u-s-world-premiere-roundup/)._