Before announcing its 2026-27 season to the public, City Lights Theater Company invited the people making each of the six shows possible to a sneak preview.

“There’s more comedy,” City Lights Executive Artistic Director Lisa Mallette told those assembled for an April 1 producers’ party at Hop and Vine in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood. “It’s not a great time in the world, so people look to the arts…to laugh and experience joy.”

In the season opener, the laughs come from the tension created when seemingly like-minded people can’t build consensus. “Eureka Day” by Bay Area playwright Jonathan Spector centers on a parent-participation school in Berkeley that’s dealing with an outbreak of mumps. The question of whether to mandate vaccinations divides the school board and reveals holes in the school’s progressive ideology.

Ironically, “Eureka Day” had its world premiere at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley in 2018 and went on to win a Tony Award in 2025 for Best Revival of a Play after the COVID pandemic halted its initial trajectory to the Broadway stage. City Lights’ production runs Sept. 26-Oct. 18.

The company is closing out 2026 with “The 1940s Radio Hour,” a musical by Walton Jones set during a live radio broadcast of the Mutual Manhattan Variety Cavalcade on Dec. 21, 1942. The audience is privy to all the behind-the-scenes action, including the inventive ways used to create sound effects, and the show’s songbook includes  tunes like “Blue Moon,” “Jingle Bells,” “That Old Black Magic” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” The latter song was popular with U.S. troops serving in World War II, for whom the “Radio Hour” is being broadcast in the show. City Lights is staging this holiday favorite Nov. 21-Dec. 20.

The company’s first show of 2027 will be “Based on a Totally True Story,” Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s 2006 comedy about a writer trying to navigate his career and his relationships with his boyfriend and parents. While City Lights is known for doing single-set shows in its 200-seat downtown San Jose theater, Mallette said she’s looking forward to the challenge of staging this play’s multiple locations. The show runs Jan. 15-Feb. 7, 2027.

Family dynamics are also a big part of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” Joseph Kesselring’s dark comedy about Mortimer Brewster, who is trying to get ready for his wedding while hiding his aunts’ penchant for poisoning gentleman callers. Add to that a brother who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt and another who’s on the run from the police, and as Mortimer says, “Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.” The play hits the City Lights stage March 13-April 4, 2027.

Playwright Eliana Pipes was inspired to write “Dream Hou$e” based on her family’s experience selling their LA house when she was a teenager. While the sale helped her family financially, Pipes said, it also meant that they were participating in the gentrification of their old neighborhood.

In “Dream Hou$e,” two Latina sisters grapple with this same issue when they appear on a reality TV show to sell their family home. As one sister grapples with family history, the other learns how much she’ll sacrifice for the family’s future.  City Lights is mounting the play May 15-June 6, 2027.

The company is ending its season with “Company,” the venerable 1970s musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth. While City Lights couldn’t get the rights to the gender-swapping revival that’s been making the rounds of late, the original show is arguably still viable after almost 60 years. Marriage might be more inclusive now, but there are still people like Bobby (or Bobbie) who question whether the institution is right for everybody. The show runs July 17-Aug. 22, 2027.

For more information on City Lights’ 2026-27 season, visit cltc.org