{"id":361044,"date":"2026-09-30T19:04:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T19:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/361044\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T19:04:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T19:04:06","slug":"the-public-adds-what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-anne-frank-new-york-premiere-wendell-pierce-led-henry-iv-more-to-upcoming-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/361044\/","title":{"rendered":"The Public Adds What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank New York Premiere, Wendell Pierce-Led Henry IV, More to Upcoming Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Off-Broadway’s Public Theater has unveiled additions to their 2026-2027 season, which will now include a New York premiere for Nathan Englander’s\u00a0What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. The play, which comes to the U.S. from London’s\u00a0Marylebone Theatre, will perform in the company’s Barbaralee Theater April 8-May 2, 2027, with Tony winner\u00a0Patrick Marber<\/a> (Leopoldstadt<\/a>)\u00a0again at the helm.<\/p>\n

Adapted from Englander’s Pulitzer finalist short story of the same name, the play follows two Jewish high school friends\u2014one secular and the other ultra-orthodox\u2014who, after years apart, reunite with their respective husbands\u00a0at a dinner party that goes off the rails. The work made its world premiere in 2022 at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. Marber’s London production debuted in 2024. Casting is to be announced.<\/p>\n

Triumph, a new short play by Caryl Churchill<\/a>, will bow at the Public as part of a joint world premiere, running concurrently with a staging at London’s Almeida. Saheem Ali<\/a> will direct the U.S. version, playing the Public’s Shiva Theater October 8-18 as a free pop-up performance.Suetonius\u2019s The Twelve Caesars, the play centers on the female press secretary to Roman emperors. Off-stage married couple\u00a0Annaleigh Ashford<\/a> and Joe Tapper\u00a0will star, with this initial run expected to precede a mainstage bow, to be announced. Advance registration is required.<\/p>\n

Also joining the season is Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen<\/a>‘s\u00a0The Surge, to be presented as a co-production with Minnesota’s Guthrie Theatre in the winter and spring of 2027. Conceived as a response to President Trump’s dramatic increase in ICE action, the documentary work features verbatim excerpts of real interviews of people affected by Operation Metro Surge in the Twin Cities area.<\/p>\n

Jesse Malin and Wilder L. Ludwig’s\u00a0Meet Me at the End of the World will return to play the company’s Shiva Theater May 4-June 13, 2027. The solo rock musical sees\u00a0Malin (described in press notes “your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter”) will talk and sing through his own coming-of-age story growing up in New York City, through to his 2023 struggle with a spinal stroke that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Directed by Ellie Heyman and produced by ArKtype and David Bason, the work\u00a0bowed under the title\u00a0Silver Manhattan at Bowery Palace earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Elevator Repair Service will also be back in 2027, this time bringing\u00a0Phil, an adaptation of George Saunders’\u00a0The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil to the company’s Martinson Hall May 25-June 27, 2027. Opening night will be June 10. John Collins will direct.<\/p>\n

The company has also unveiled programming for the Central Park Delacorte Theater, which will again host Free Shakespeare in the Park. That series will be headlined with a Rachel Chavkin-directed\u00a0Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 starring Wendell Pierce<\/a> as Falstaff. Also planned are the\u00a0Belvoir St Theatre and Kurinji co-production of\u00a0Counting and Cracking, an episodic play tracking a multi-generational journey of a Sri Lankan-Australian family written by\u00a0S. Shakthidharan with Eamon Flack, which comes to the outdoor theatre following earlier runs at NYU Skirball and in Australia and the U.K. This summer’s Public Works musical adaptation will present Shakespeare’s\u00a0A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with music and lyrics by Michael Thurber<\/a> and adaptation by director Ali. The Mobile Unit is also due to return, with a production (to be announced) that will tour all five New York City boroughs throughout the summer of 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my lifetime, our democracy has never felt more threatened, and in times like these the theatre has a special obligation: it is the art form of democracy,” shares Artistic Director Oskar Eustis in a statement. “The Public is demonstrating that resistance can be joyous, and joyous theatre can happen in countless ways, big and small.”<\/p>\n

Tickets for\u00a0What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, along with previously announced upcoming productions of\u00a0Are the Bennet Girls OK? and\u00a0Welcome Table, go on sale for Public Theater Partners and Supporters Plus October 6, and to Supporters October 8. General sales will begin October 21.<\/p>\n

Visit\u00a0PublicTheater.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Off-Broadway’s Public Theater has unveiled additions to their 2026-2027 season, which will now include a New York premiere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-361044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}