{"id":157769,"date":"2026-04-05T13:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/157769\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T13:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:05:08","slug":"lantern-theater-company-announces-2026-27-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/157769\/","title":{"rendered":"Lantern Theater Company Announces 2026-27 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

originally published: 04\/04\/2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(PHILADELPHIA, PA) — Lantern Theater Company<\/a> has announced its upcoming 2026-27 season, which will mark the company’s 33rd year of bringing great stories from great writers to Philadelphia and beyond. The season showcases four extraordinary plays from renowned playwrights, past and present.<\/p>\n

The 2026-27 season includes the Philadelphia premiere of Summer, 1976, David Auburn’s touching portrait of unexpected friendship, directed by Kate Galvin; The Weir, Conor McPherson’s masterful and haunting exploration of storytelling, directed by Matt Pfeiffer; Hamlet, William Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy of revenge, morality and madness, directed by Lantern Artistic Director Charles McMahon; and the Philadelphia premiere of Wild with Happy by Colman Domingo, a vibrant and deeply moving journey through grief and self-discovery.<\/p>\n

Introducing the\u00a02026-27\u00a0season, McMahon noted:\u00a0“These are\u00a0plays\u00a0with surprises and reversals, always building towards satisfying and cathartic endings. If there is a theme to our season, it will be found in how the characters use memory and intention to make sense of their worlds \u2013 and in so doing, help us to do likewise.”<\/p>\n

Season Subscriptions and Flex Packages start at $120 and are available online at www.lanterntheater.org<\/a> or by calling the Lantern Box Office at (215) 829-0395. Single tickets go on sale in July 2026.<\/p>\n

The Lantern’s current 2025-26\u00a0season will conclude with\u00a0the Philadelphia premiere of\u00a0Franklinland<\/a>,\u00a0Lloyd Suh’s new play about Benjamin Franklin, directed by\u00a0Charles McMahon\u00a0and just in time to celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday. It runs from May 7 through June 7, 2026.<\/p>\n

Advertise with NJ Stage for $50-$100 per month, click here for info<\/a><\/p>\n

Lantern Theater Company’s 2026-27\u00a0Mainstage Season\u00a0<\/p>\n

September\u00a010\u00a0\u2013 October\u00a011, 2026\u00a0|\u00a0SUMMER, 1976\u00a0(Philadelphia Premiere) by\u00a0David Auburn; directed by\u00a0Kate Galvin.\u00a0One summer an unlikely friendship springs up between two young mothers that\u00a0changes\u00a0forever the course of their lives. Alice and Diana\u00a0couldn’t\u00a0be more different, one a free-spirited academic spouse and the other a driven and self-critical artist. As the events of that fateful season test their friendship, we join them on their poignant and humorous journey in this captivating drama from the author of\u202fProof.<\/p>\n

November 12\u00a0\u2013 December\u00a013, 2026 |\u00a0THE WEIR\u00a0by\u00a0Conor McPherson; directed by\u00a0Matt Pfeiffer.\u00a0A tight circle of regulars in a small Irish pub on a lonely windswept hillside is joined by Valerie. Just arrived from Dublin, she\u00a0has moved\u00a0alone into an old house nearby. Trying to impress the attractive stranger, they tell tall tales of unexplained local events, until one story turns out to be heartbreaking and hauntingly real. From one of Ireland’s greatest living playwrights comes an evening of surprises and masterful storytelling.<\/p>\n

February\u00a04\u00a0\u2013 March\u00a014, 2027\u00a0|\u00a0HAMLET\u00a0by\u00a0William Shakespeare; directed by\u00a0Charles McMahon.\u00a0Hamlet finds himself in a world of danger when his father’s ghost appears to him charging murder and demanding revenge. Before\u00a0taking action, Hamlet devises plots to uncover the truth from family and friends obstructing his search. In this masterpiece of his artistic maturity, Shakespeare gives us magnificent poetry and a searing examination of the human soul put to an impossible test.<\/p>\n

May\u00a06\u00a0\u2013 June\u00a06, 2027\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0WILD WITH HAPPY\u00a0(Philadelphia Premiere) by\u00a0Colman Domingo.\u00a0Gil has just lost his beloved mother, and he wants to do right by her passing. But his friends Mo and Terry \u2013 not to mention his Aunt Glo \u2013 bring laughter and joy to his grief, not always intentionally. First produced at The Public Theater in 2012 and written by Philadelphia native and now global megastar Colman Domingo,\u202fWild\u00a0With\u00a0Happy\u202fexplores the comedy in personal tragedy and the joy\u00a0in\u00a0saying goodbye to those we love the most.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1994 and now in its 33rd\u00a0season, Lantern Theater Company<\/a>‘s mission is to produce plays that investigate and illuminate what is essential in the human spirit and the spirit of the times. The Lantern serves the Greater Philadelphia region with award-winning productions and education programming, notably partnering with middle schools and high schools in the Philadelphia School District to provide in-classroom residencies in support of curricular learning.<\/p>\n

The Lantern became a national leader in streaming theater during the Covid health crisis, producing ten fully designed plays that were created and filmed in the company’s resident home at St. Stephen’s Theater, garnering coverage in national media including\u00a0The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0and\u00a0The Wall Street Journal, and reaching more than 30,000 people in 15 countries and all 50 states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"originally published: 04\/04\/2026 (PHILADELPHIA, PA) — Lantern Theater Company has announced its upcoming 2026-27 season, which will mark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6889,3869,1338,7862,5646,7860,7865,915,7861,1962,7859,7864,69,71,70,7866,7863],"class_list":{"0":"post-157769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-comedy","10":"tag-dance","11":"tag-entertainment-in-new-jersey","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-jersey-arts","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-new-jersey","16":"tag-new-jersey-arts","17":"tag-nj","18":"tag-nj-arts","19":"tag-nj-events","20":"tag-philadelphia","21":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","22":"tag-philadelphia-news","23":"tag-theatre","24":"tag-things-to-do-in-new-jersey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}