Spooky Action Theater Announces its 22nd Season
Spooky Action Theater announced its 22nd season with three productions exploring themes of storytelling for survival, family drama and power, and rat revolution (via some creative puppetry). The season opens with Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights, a fresh and vital reimagining of the tale of storytelling as survival, written by Irish-Palestinian writer Hannah Khalil, directed by Mekala Sridhar, in association with Solas Nua. In her fourth season as Artistic Director, Elizabeth Dinkova directs Father Lear, a new musical inspired by King Lear set in an evangelical cult by the creators of the award-winning musical Professor Woland's Black Magic Rock Show, in a co-production with Avant Bard Theatre. The season closes with The Undercity, a wordless puppet pageant about greed and revolution populated by rats, directed by Sammy Zeisel. In addition, Spooky Action's season will include developmental readings and workshops through its New Works in Action program, and a return of its popular Cabaret Series featuring new acts by local talent.
FROM ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ELIZABETH DINKOVA
"Our new season, 'Remix,' includes two world premieres and one American premiere which experiment with genre: feminist fairytale, mystical musical, puppet pageant. These shows explore communities in crisis - brides-to-be awaiting execution, believers reckoning with revolution, rat workers awakening to exploitation. This season brings a slate of wildly ambitious new works that remix our past and present to ensure we have a future."
2026-2027 SEASON: REMIX
HAKAWATIS: WOMEN OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
by Hannah Khalil With contributions from Hanan Al-Shaykh, Suhayla El- Bushra and Sara Shaarawi. Translations by Hassan Abdulrazzak
Directed by Mekala Sridhar
September 24 - October 18, 2026
In association with Solas Nua
A tyrant avenges his wife's infidelity by wedding, bedding and beheading a new bride every day. Years later, only five brides-in-waiting remain. These women are unapologetic, and united in their fight to keep themselves - and the whole of womankind - alive. They've got other ideas for their future, and it starts with a story. In this London Globe hit by Irish-Palestinian playwright Hannah Khalil, you'll be captivated by tales that are funny, raunchy, and dangerous - and a matter of life and death.
FATHER LEAR
Book & Lyrics by Andrea & Michael Pemberton (Professor Woland's Black Magic Rock Show)
Music by Michael Pemberton
Directed by Artistic Director Elizabeth Dinkova
April 8 - May 8, 2027
World premiere in a co-production with Avant Bard Theatre
Performances at Spooky Action April 8 - 18, followed by performances at Gunston Arts Center April 22 - May 8.
Charismatic leader Father Lear has grown his church from a traveling music show into a major broadcast and cable network, thanks to the effort and charms of his daughters, the Lear Sisters. But as he rallies his followers to wage a spiritual battle against a demonic state and an imminent Armageddon, some begin to question if Lear's mind is slipping.Immersed in a cult of personality against the backdrop of televangelism, this radical reimagining mirrors today's live-streamed culture, where performance, faith, and authority blur in real time-and where collapse, like success, happens in public view.
The newest creation by the team behind our award-winning musical "Professor Woland's Black Magic Rock Show", Father Lear is a story about inheritance-of power, belief, and damage- as new generations grapple with whether to uphold, reform, or dismantle the systems that shaped them. Centered on the sisters' inner lives and agency, "Father Lear" reclaims their narrative from patriarchal interpretation and places them at the heart of that reckoning.
THE UNDERCITY
by Gaby FeBland
Directed by Sammy Zeisel
June 3 - 13, 2027
World premiere in association with LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club
A revolution is happening underground! In the metropolis of rats beneath our feet-a 1970s New York-inspired neon underworld lit by a perpetual crescent moon-our hero, Rat Girl, uncovers a vast conspiracy that threatens the fate of her world. Delight in this nonverbal rat puppet pageant about overthrowing a crumbling empire on the verge of ecological collapse, embodied through a mix of body puppetry, tabletop rod puppetry, overhead projector shadow puppetry, and mask. The Undercity navigates unchecked greed, climate catastrophe, and the engineered hopelessness of industrial life-a gnarly web of rat tails only Rat Girl can untangle.
Spooky Action Theater is an award-winning professional theater located near DC's Dupont and Logan Circle neighborhoods. Founded in 2004, SAT takes its name from a phenomenon of quantum mechanics in which particles become entangled - so that a change in one is forever mirrored by change in the other. SAT recharges people's intuitive and emotional core by linking artists and audiences in a shared act of imagination that leaves all parties transformed. SAT stages and develops groundbreaking plays by diverse writers across the globe, trains the next generation of artists, empowers students to express themselves, and partners with mission-aligned organizations to spotlight vital themes.