Keegan Theatre announces 2025-2026 Season

The Keegan Theatre announced its 2025-2026 mainstage season, the company's 29th. Next season's lineup features 7 mainstage productions - including 2 World Premieres and 2 DC Premieres - and will be presented at Keegan's theatrical home on Church Street, where audiences are welcomed into the company's intimate space to experience extraordinary theater just 2 blocks from Dupont Circle.
"We always strive to build theatrical seasons that offer something for everyone," explains Artistic Director, Susan Marie Rhea, "with a lineup that strikes a thoughtful balance between diversion and inspiration. Season 29 at Keegan features a vibrant mix of shows that will entertain us, challenge us to think bigger, and serve as catalysts to connect with ourselves and each other in new and exciting ways. Our 2025-2026 shows explore themes of forgiveness, privilege, liberation, and identity - and they are in equal measure deeply moving, excitingly new, and hilariously entertaining. We hope audiences will subscribe to the whole journey and join us all season long!"
Keegan's 2025-2026 Season 29 Lineup
September 13-October 5, 2025
EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL
by Chelsea Marcantel
What happens when forgiveness collides with deeply buried grief? Acclaimed playwright Chelsea Marcantel offers a moving, thought-provoking exploration of reconciliation, faith, and family. After a tragic accident, a young woman returns to her Amish roots to confront the life - and the people - she left behind. As wounds reopen and secrets surface, the boundaries between forgiveness and forgetting are tested. Don't miss this intimate and powerful drama that the New York Times called "stirring and beautifully told."
October 31-November 30, 2025
LIZZIE THE MUSICAL
by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer, Tim Maner, & Alan Stevens Hewitt
Get ready to rock... and bleed! On October 31, Keegan unleashes LIZZIE, the ferocious punk-rock musical that rips the lid off the legend of Lizzie Borden. Fueled by rage, retribution, and a blistering all-female rock score, LIZZIE reimagines the infamous 1892 axe murder in a show that's equal parts gothic horror, riot grrrl rebellion, and rock concert. LIZZIE is a visceral, unapologetic thrill ride. Blood will spill. Guitars will wail. Justice will scream.
December 11-28, 2025
AN IRISH CAROL
by Matthew J. Keenan
An original work by Keegan favorite Matthew J. Keenan, AN IRISH CAROL is an homage to Dickens' classic - told as only the Irish can. This comic and touching play, set in a modern Dublin pub, follows one evening in the life of David, a wealthy pub owner who has lost touch with his own humanity in the interest of self-protection and material success. But on this Christmas Eve - challenged by a voice from the past, provoked by those in the present, and faced with the reality of a lonely future - David's life may change forever.
January 31-February 22, 2026
JOHN DOE
by Angelle Whavers
People-avoider Zia suffers from anthropophobia, the fear of people. People-watcher Doe suffers from being dead. And naturally, only Zia can see him. Brought together by chance, fate, or potentially ghostly revenge, the two set out on a journey to uncover Doe's forgotten life while Zia faces perhaps a fate worse than death... socializing. JOHN DOE is a world premiere commissioned through Keegan's Boiler Room Series and brought to vibrant (and haunted!) life in January 2026.
February 24-March 8, 2026
MIDICULOUS
by Drew Anderson & Dwayne Lawson-Brown
Welcome to the wild world of MIDICULOUS, where middle school banter is reviewed in real-time by publicists, where students psychoanalyze their own teenage hijinks with post-pandemic therapy speak way beyond their years, and where viral TikTok dances can kick off a zombie apocalypse! Inspired by and with input from DC students, MIDICULOUS is a world premiere from spoken-word playwriting duo Drew Anderson and Dwayne Lawson-Brown that explores what it really means to be a middle schooler today. Commissioned by Keegan's Boiler Room Series initiative for new works and education program, Keegan PLAY-RAH-KA.
April 4-May 3, 2026
THE MINUTES
by Tracy Letts
Night falls on Big Cherry, USA - a seemingly ordinary town with secrets festering beneath its folksy charm. As the city council meeting unfolds in real time, tensions rise, alliances shift, and a routine agenda veers into chaos. What begins as civic procedure spirals into a gripping unmasking of buried truths - and a chilling question: How far would you go to protect your version of the truth? From the razor-sharp pen of Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts (AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY), THE MINUTES is a darkly hilarious, slow-burning thriller that peels back the patriotic veneer of American identity. Part biting satire, part psychological mystery, it exposes the rot at the heart of institutional power and the stories we tell to survive it.
June 6-July 12, 2026
THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, & Henry Shields
The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society is presenting its newest production, THE MURDER AT HAVERSHAM MANOR, but things are quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. This 1920s whodunit has everything you never wanted in a show - an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can't play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines). Nevertheless, the accident-prone thespians battle against all odds to make it through to their final curtain call, with hilarious consequences! Part Monty Python, part Sherlock Holmes, this Olivier Award-winning comedy is a global phenomenon that's guaranteed to leave you aching with laughter!