The backbone of our programming since 2010, The Wilbury Theatre Group Main Series Season features provocative plays from around the world alongside innovative stagings of contemporary classics.
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CAN'T-MISS REVIVAL
WAITING FOR GODOT
by Samuel Beckett, directed by Fred Sullivan Jr.
SEPTEMBER 26 - OCTOBER 20 2019

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From an inauspicious beginning at the tiny Left Bank Theatre de Babylone in 1953, followed by bewilderment among American and British audiences, Waiting for Godot has become of the most important and enigmatic plays of the past fifty years and a cornerstone of twentieth-century drama. As the New York Times wrote, “Time catches up with genius … Waiting for Godot is one of the masterpieces of the century.” Today Samuel Beckett’s  play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of our time and starring  Richard Donelly (The Caretaker) and Tom Gleadow, the Wilbury Group revival of his most acclaimed existential masterpiece promises to be a can't-miss theatrical event of the Fall season. 

“One of the most noble and moving plays of our generation, a threnody of hope deceived and deferred but never extinguished; a play suffused with tenderness for the whole human perplexity; with phrases that come like a sharp stab of beauty and pain.” - The Times
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"It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. But you can expect witness to the strange power this drama has to convey the impression of some melancholy truths about the hopeless destiny of the human race. " - The New York Times

Richard Donelly

Tom Gleadow

Brandon Whitehead

Zachary Gibb

PRESENTED IN ROTATING REPERTORY
2x CLARE BARRON: NOVEMBER 21 - DECEMBER 22 2019 ​

DANCE NATION
by Clare Barron, directed by Angela Brazil 

YOU GOT OLDER
by Clare Barron, directed by Wendy Overly 

ABOUT THE SHOW

ABOUT THE SHOW

Winner of the 2018 Philip Seymour Hoffman Relentless Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Whiting Award, and the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, and with productions at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater, Woolly Mammoth in D.C., and NYC's Clubbed Thumb collective, playwright Clare Barron has established herself as one of the most groundbreaking and adventurous voices in American theatre today. You Got Older is the whimsical and heartbreaking autobiographical tale of a young woman returning home to care for her father. Dance Nation is the brave and visceral portrait of a group of 13 year old girls training for a competitive dance competition. Together these plays create two halves of a wholly beautiful and brutal portrait of American girlhood.

"I have seen the future, and it is Dance Nation." - The Washington Post

"If you were ever a 13-year-old girl, Clare Barron’s daring, raw Dance Nation will hit you hard...It’s a brave, visceral, excitingly off-kilter barbaric yawp of a play. And it gets at something excruciatingly tender: the burden of modesty on young American women." - New York Magazine

"★★★★★! Critics' Pick! Clare Barron's extraordinary You Got Older moved me as few new plays have." - Time Out New York

"In You Got Older, the bold young playwright Clare Barron blends fantasy with a level of brutal candor that few would even dare to bring into conversation with their closest relations. Yet in Barron's boundary-less world she uses her unique voice to build a quirky and sincerely touching family story." - TheaterMania

Rachel Dulude

Dave Rabinow

Jim O'Brien

Joe Wilson Jr.

Tanya Anderson

Michelle L. Walker

A SITE-SPECIFIC RHODE ISLAND PREMIERE
THE STRANGE UNDOING
OF PRUDENCIA HART
by David Greig, directed by Brien Lang
EXTENDED THRU FEBRUARY 8* 2020

ABOUT THE SHOW

Take the strangest supernatural storytelling you've ever heard, add some Scottish border ballads, then mix in a few devilish encounters—and you have got the inventive, rollicking tale of The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. Uptight academic Prudencia's dream-like journey of self-discovery is a Faustian tale, that unfolds among and around the audience in this music-filled romp of rhyming couplets and wild karaoke. The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by acclaimed Scottish playwright David Greig was originally developed to tour throughout Scotland pubs and bars in a production by the National Theatre of Scotland. In 2020 it hits Olneyville in a new production at The Wilbury Theatre Group, then tours for limited number of site-specific performances to our own neighborhood "pubs" at TROOP, Riffraff, and more.
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"You shouldn't miss this for the world . . . Rambunctiously life-affirming and touchingly beautiful."  - The Herald

"More vibrantly alive than any piece of theatre I've seen in Scotland for years." -The Scotsman

Meg Sullivan

Marcel Mascaro*

Shannon Hartman

RHODE ISLAND PREMIERE
MISS YOU LIKE HELL
by Quiara Alegría Hudes, music and lyrics by Erin McKeown
directed by ​Don Mays
MARCH 5 - 29 2020

ABOUT THE SHOW

Featuring compelling original songs that are every bit as diverse and eclectic as America, Miss You Like Hell is a new musical that exudes the joy, love and frustration of being a family in a changing country written by Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes and acclaimed, genre-defying singer/songwriter (and former resident artist at Providence's AS220), Erin McKeown. When a whip-smart, deeply imaginative teenager agrees to take a road trip with her free-spirited Latina mother, neither can imagine where it will take them. Chance encounters with a medley of characters along the way brings them closer to understanding what sets them apart — and what connects them forever. 

“America, at this whiplash turn in its history, has to sort out what kind of country it wants to be. Miss You Like Hell makes a tender pitch for the endangered values of understanding and inclusiveness…By the end, it’s hard not to be touched.” - The Los Angeles Times

“Miss You Like Hell has a timely political edge, an ethnically diverse cast and a score by a singer-songwriter who knows how to rock. What’s more, it’s good—really good…Ms. McKeown’s score heightens every emotion so skillfully that you’d think this was her third or fourth show instead of her theatrical debut…She’s the real thing.” -The Wall Street Journal

Nicole Paloma Sarro

Tanya Avendaño Stockler

Robelis Cruz

NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
AMERICAN PSYCHO
Book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik ​​​
based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis
directed by Josh Short, music direction by Milly Massey
MAY 21 - JUNE 14 2020

ABOUT THE SHOW

Based on the electrifying novel by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho is the fierce satire of American consumerism from acclaimed playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Tony and Grammy Award-winning composer Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). We meet Patrick Bateman, a young and handsome Wall Street banker with impeccable taste and unquenchable desires. Patrick and his elite group of friends spend their days in chic restaurants, exclusive clubs, and designer labels. But at night, Patrick takes part in a darker indulgence, and his mask of sanity is starting to slip. 

"★★★★★...Pure, decadent pleasure… will delight even those who think that they don’t like musicals." - The Sunday Times

"A dark, disturbing inversion of the American Dream." - The Daily Telegraph

"Confirms the mythic power of Ellis' story and leaves us all dangerously entertained." - The Guardian

Jennifer Mischley

Luis Minaya

Louis Reyes McWilliams

Katrina Pavao

Helena Tafuri

Patrick Saunders

Jason Quinn

Michael Liebhauser

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*Plays and dates are subject to change.

The only new work development program of its kind in Rhode Island, Studio W is  home for the deliberately eclectic, especially immersive, and world premiere productions.

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WORLD PREMIERE
RESCUE!
​OR, THE FISH
by Darcie Dennigan
OCTOBER 30 - NOVEMBER 3 2019

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It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world and so is RESCUE! Or, The Fish. Written for the Wilbury Theatre Group's Resident Artists, this wild new play from the imagination of Resident Playwright Darcie Dennigan (The Pleiades) peels back the collective anxiety about climate change to reveal the absurdity of the present. 

Beth Alianello

Jason Quinn

Christine Treglia

Phoenyx Williams

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WORLD PREMIERE
HAMLET
by William Shakespeare, adapted by Bill Lattanzi, directed by Davis Alianiello
FEBRUARY 13 - 22 2020

Generations collide, rules get broken, everybody's in show biz and everything you know is wrong in this rollicking and revamped version of one of the greatest plays ever written, adapted by playwright Bill Lattanzi and directed by Davis Alianiello. Shakespeare, sex, lies, video, asides, power chords, go-go boots and the country blues. 

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WORLD PREMIERE 
INVENTION OF DISTANCE
by Passive Aggressive Novelty Company
APRIL 9 - 19 2020


Invention of Distance  is the newest multimedia dance theatre piece from Passive Aggressive Novelty Company a.k.a Wilbury Artist and designer Andy Russ (Vessel).  Wearing headphones, the audience is invited to share a spare, intimate space ( a table, a mirror, a box full of old cassette tapes ) with two individuals who may or may not know that they may or may not be present. An electrifying exercise in sound, meaning, and storytelling, Invention of Distance is a unique immersive theatre experience unlike anything audiences have experienced. 

Andy Russ

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WORLD PREMIERE (REVISITED)
NEW AND DANGEROUS IDEAS
by Christopher Johnson
APRIL 23 - MAY 3 2020

Winner of the 2018 Playwriting Fellowship from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, New and Dangerous Ideas is a multi media experience, challenging ideas of criminalizing race and sex,  expatriating police while humanizing statistics by using personal stories of several members of different communities intersected with spoken word poetry, framed in music, dance and video. Originally presented in an earlier form in the Wilbury Theatre Group's 2017/18 Season, New and Dangerous Ideas by Providence's unofficial poet laureate Christopher Johnson takes a revised and updated look at race in America. 

Christopher Johnson

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IN DEVELOPMENT
CVK (CLEVER AND VAINGLORIOUS KINGS)
by Jesse Hawley and James Stanley
PERFORMANCES TBA

CVK is a multi-faceted performance project that consists of a.) the manufacture of an 80s synth pop band that never was; and, b.) a staging of their triumphant reunion tour. Fully inhabiting their post-punk alter egos in CVK, performance artist duo Jesse Hawley and James Stanley (House Warming) will create a hybrid theatrical retrospective of CVK's work, a show that combines musical performance, video, dance, storytelling and various forms of immersive theatrical hi-jinx. They offer a danceable meditation on the circularity of history, and a how-to guide in the subversion of tribal conservatism.

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Additional staged reading and workshop productions from Studio W to be announced. 

NEVER MISS A THING

Memberships for the 2019/20 Season are available now and include access to the Main Series Season, new works / Studio W programming, VIP access to the Providence Fringe Festival®, and more. View membership options. 

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