![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790007739_791_3-lb-playhouse-night-of-the-living-dead-652563-csofxlkp-726633-cRL20ZC2-1024x685.png\")
A scene from the Long Beach Playhouse\u2019s production of \u201cNight of the Living Dead.\u201d Courtesy of Long Beach Playhouse.<\/p>\nA scene from the Long Beach Playhouse\u2019s production of \u201cNight of the Living Dead.\u201d Courtesy of Long Beach Playhouse.<\/p>\n
So many theaters, so little time! With so many new and returning shows on Long Beach stages this weekend, here are some options to choose from \u2014 including world-premiere new plays and the retelling of a scary classic.<\/p>\n
The Long Beach Shakespeare Company<\/a> is continuing the New Works Festival with three brand-new plays to experience this weekend, plus some fun student shorts. The New Works Festival<\/a>, which began in May and June this year, continues to showcase new work by up-and-coming playwrights.<\/p>\n \u201cShav vs. Whitmore\u201d is a new one-act play by Thomas M. Copeland about two men trying to rewrite Shakespeare in what the theater calls \u201ca battle of pride, relevance and wit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The fully staged play is part of a double feature with \u201cThe Ghosts of the Globe Theatre\u201d by Arthur Allison, about how William Shakespeare\u2019s Globe Theatre in London burned down in 1613.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Allison\u2019s play, ghosts had to perform their plays alongside living actors on the Globe stage. The performance of Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cHenry VIII\u201d was haunted the night of the fire, according to the play, not only by ghosts, but by horrible actors, making the ghosts very angry.<\/p>\n Both plays will perform on Friday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 20 at 4 p.m.<\/p>\n Another new play, \u201cTucked Away\u201d by Joni Ravenna, will perform Saturday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 20 at 1 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n The play, which has an adult-content warning, is about four very different women held captive by human traffickers on the top floor of an abandoned building with no electricity or running water who must find a way to connect before they can break free.<\/p>\n The festival will round out with four shorter new plays by students on Sunday, Sept. 20 at 8 p.m.:<\/p>\n Hannah Ko\u2019s \u201cWith \u2018Meh\u2019 Power Comes Some Responsibility\u201d focuses on five D-list superheroes who don\u2019t quite make the cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zach Scrima\u2019s \u201cThis Play is About Bugs\u201d is a 10-minute play about a dung beetle who attempts to talk a mosquito out of entering a home, reimagining an old fable in a contemporary context to explore the nature of violence in a marginalized community.<\/p>\n Mara Swanson\u2019s \u201cYou Into Bad Girls?\u201d features a confident sister pretending to be her shy sister at a bar to woo the bartender her sister likes, but her attempt to impress him backfires.<\/p>\n Long Beach Shakespeare Company New Works Festival plays perform at the Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave. in Bixby Knolls. Tickets range from $21.50 to $31.50. For tickets, call the box office at 562-997-1494 or visit LBShakespeare.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Long Beach Playhouse is also opening a new production this weekend on its downstairs Mainstage, one that may thrill horror fans as Halloween season approaches.<\/p>\n \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d \u2014 adapted for the stage by John Faust from the 1968 cult-classic film by George Romero and John Russo \u2014 modernizes the story while elevating its stakes in an \u201cimmersive\u201d production, as the theater describes.<\/p>\n The play brings new scenes and fresh narrative twists with deeper character insights while still honoring the film\u2019s iconic moments, the theater says.<\/p>\n The story features a horde of marauding ghouls entrapping a group of conflicted strangers in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse, while frantic media broadcasts and eerie visuals amplify the group\u2019s claustrophobic dread.<\/p>\n The Playhouse website describes it as a production that \u201cpulls back the curtain on the fragility of human behavior, exploring how prejudice, suspicion, and ego can be far more lethal than the monsters scratching at the windows.\u201d<\/p>\n Sean Gray, the theater\u2019s producing artistic director, said the Playhouse is taking advantage of Halloween season to do this show, but that the play is, \u201cdeeper than just zombies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1968, a Black man taking charge to save his life and the lives of others was groundbreaking,\u201d Gray said. \u201cQuestions of self-preservation and self-sacrifice give the show relevance beyond the marauding ghouls.\u201d<\/p>\n Director David Scaglione has directed previous scary productions at the theater, including last year\u2019s \u201cDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde<\/a>,\u201d and is also designing the set for this play, which includes a cast of 16 new and returning actors.<\/p>\n \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d runs Sept. 19 to Oct. 17 at the Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., plus two lower-priced previews on Thursday, Sept. 17 and Friday, Sept. 18.\u00a0 Tickets are $22 to $33. For tickets and information, call the box office at 562-494-1014 or visit LBPlayhouse.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n And don\u2019t forget these continuing options as well:<\/p>\n The Carpenter Center kicks off its fall season<\/a> this weekend with Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of \u201cEat, Pray, Love,\u201d speaking on Saturday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. Singer Bilal then takes the stage Thursday, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m.\u00a0 For tickets, call the box office at 562-985-7000 or visit CarpenterArts.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Garage Theatre is continuing \u201cThe Swan<\/a>\u201d this weekend, in which a bird crashes through a woman\u2019s window and initiates a supernatural love story, with shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. For tickets, visit TheGarageTheatre.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n The dark comedy \u201cHangmen<\/a>\u201d continues on Long Beach Playhouse\u2019s upstairs Studio Theater, with shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call the box office at 562-494-1014 or visit LBPlayhouse.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scene from the Long Beach Playhouse\u2019s production of \u201cNight of the Living Dead.\u201d Courtesy of Long Beach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-470957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790007741_107_1-lb-shakespeare-new-works-festival-957677-jhsvrtbt-287106-20F3hBUb-793x1024.png\")
<\/a>Long Beach Shakespeare Company\u2019s New Works Festival begins Friday, Sept. 18 \u2013 20.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790007742_931_6-hangmen-894240-atif9ucb-262506-SE4TMUVt-1024x681.png\")
Dina Hagler and Trevor Hart in Long Beach Playhouse\u2019s \u201cHangmen.\u201d Photo by Michael Hardy Photography.<\/p>\n