Announcing our 2025/26 Season!
A Message From Producing Artistic Director Courtney O'Connor
Our Town
September 19-October 19, 2025
By Thornton Wilder
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Every minute is a gift. An American classic for our time.
The day starts and ends pretty much the same way in Grover’s Corner. Beyond the humdrum of daily life, glimmers of joy, flickers of melancholy, and secret desires are hidden away in the mundane. It’s in the eyes of young lovers, the silence of a lonely townie’s room, and the hearts of the wild and restless. Stars shine over this sleepy New England town, but are dimmed when compared with the wonderment tucked away within the seemingly ordinary moments of this place so many call “home.” Even in the smallest of moments, beauty is there. The secret is to stop and take notice.
A Sherlock Carol
November 14-December 21, 2025
By Mark Shanahan
Directed by Ilyse Robbins
Two great classics that go great together.
Extra dashes of laughter and intrigue make this cup of yuletide cheer a perfect holiday treat for all.
Moriarity is as dead as a doornail. Sherlock Holmes is depressed. Without his number one adversary, what’s the point of it all? Enter a grown-up Tiny Tim and the mysterious death of everyone’s favorite humbug and it’s a festive literary mash-up with surprises around every corner. This fresh and charming reimagining of two of the most beloved literary characters is a Dickens of a yuletide detective story that’s as “good as gold.” Six actors transform before your eyes in a playful, clever, and joyous holiday comedy that is “elementary” for a festive outing sure to delight audiences of all ages.
Penelope
February 6-March 1, 2026
Music, Book, and Lyrics by Alex Bechtel
Book by Grace McLean
Book by Eva Steinmetz
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez
Featuring Erica Spyres
It’s time for her side of the story.
The story you thought you knew, told by the woman who lived it.
A generous glass of bourbon, a five-piece band, and ninety minutes is all Penelope needs to tell her side of the story as she embraces her heartache, loneliness, and resolve during the wait for her husband Odysseus to return from a seemingly endless war. Her son has disappeared. Relentless suitors prance before her. Days drone on as she is left to wonder who she is if she is alone. From jazz to folk to indie rock, Penelope dishes the dirt in a captivating cacophony of emotions that redefines what we might know of her through a modern lens. Erica Spyres (Into the Woods, Avenue Q) triumphantly returns to Lyric Stage in a tour-de-force performance of crystalline beauty and enlightenment.
“I haven’t been this excited about a project in a long time and a huge part of that excitement comes from knowing the environment that Lyric Stage and Boston provides. A place where artists feel supported allows for the imagination and sense of play necessary to transport themselves and an audience into another world. I feel incredibly fortunate and inspired to work on this piece with Courtney. She has been there from the beginning for me, co-directing The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, my first play in Boston. We are looking forward to bringing this challenging and beautiful piece to life!”
– Erica Spyres
Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous
March 20-April 12, 2026
By Pearl Cleage
Directed by Jacqui Parker
“I am unstoppable.”
The torch needs to be passed. Even if you’re not ready.
As a young artist in the 1990s, actress Anna Campbell sparked a theatrical firestorm with a staging of August Wilson monologues spoken from a female perspective performed entirely in the nude. Decades later, her provocative performance that changed the trajectory of her career, rises like a ghost, when it is to be included at a woman’s theater festival. But there’s a catch. A much younger and inexperienced actress whose credits are less than desirable has been asked to perform, causing Anna to spiral in a whirlwind of insecurity and hesitancy. With support from her manager and long-time friend Betty, Anna grapples with the choice to step aside on a road she helped to pave so that a new generation can continue the journey.
Something Rotten!
May 1-June 7, 2026
Music and Lyrics by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick
Book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell
Directed by Ilana Ransom Toeplitz
To thine own self be true. And all that jazz.
Sometimes you gotta break a few eggs to make a musical.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and then there’s Nick and Nigel Bottom. Two brothers stuck in the shadow of a certain Renaissance rock star (Shakespeare), set forth to knock him off his perch by writing the world’s very first musical. A misinformed soothsayer plants the seeds for this brilliant idea as the task of how to upstage a literary genius without really trying hilariously unfolds. This history-twisting mash-up of sixteenth-century Shakespeare and twenty-first-century Broadway is a love letter to musical theater complete with outrageous characters, dazzling showstoppers, and all the winks and flourishes that make us feel that “with a musical we might have half a chance.”