Avant Bard | theatre on the edge
Our 37th season launches in October 2026 with the 11th annual Scripts in Play Festival—our free new-play development series that gives playwrights the opportunity to workshop their plays with directors and actors before presenting staged readings to audiences at arts venues throughout Arlington. Audience discussion and feedback give playwrights another opportunity to hear how their works resonate as they continue developing them.
Throughout the season, our free monthly Resistance Readings bring artists and audiences together every third Sunday at The Filling Station to gather, reflect, and respond to the pressing political and societal questions directly affecting our lives, the lives of our neighbors and those in communities near and far.
In winter 2027, Tom Stoppard’s Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth playfully and subversively explores language, censorship, and artistic resistance under authoritarian rule. In spring, the world-premiere musical Father Lear, a co-production with Spooky Action Theater, reimagines King Lear through the lens of American televangelism, combining an original rock score with a darkly comic story of faith, family, patriarchy, and power.
We need financial support to continue producing vibrant theatre in Arlington. To make a contribution to Avant Bard click here.
Ronald Reagan and the Ontological Paradox of Intent: A New Wave Musical Written by Shawn Northrip, Directed by Jenny McConnell Frederick
Sunday, September 20 at 6:00 pm – The Filling Station in Arlington
An irreverent 1980s punk-rock musical by Arlington native Shawn Northrip, Ronald Reagan and the Ontological Paradox of Intent uses music, humor, and theatrical rebellion to confront the legacy of the Reagan era and its continued resonance today. Directed by Jenny McConnell Frederick, the staged reading will feature live music and a post-show conversation exploring how the play’s themes connect to our present political moment.
Scripts in Play: Every Single Ophelia Written by Ryan Stevens, Directed by Kathleen Akerley
Friday, October 2 at 7:30 pm – The Fred Schnider Gallery Sunday, October 4 at 2:00 pm – Mason Exhibitions
When Ophelia stumbles offstage after her final scene in Hamlet, she suddenly becomes aware of the play’s entire plot, the fact that she is a fictional character, and the thousands of interpretations, performances, and reimaginings she has experienced since Hamlet was first performed.
She’s every Ophelia. She’s only one Ophelia. Who the hell is she?
A one-woman exploration of gender, purpose, and the pain of being interpreted, Every Single Ophelia asks what it means to live as a side character—and what these centuries-old characters can still mean to us. Through a modern examination of the gender and sexual politics of Hamlet, the play considers how Ophelia has been used as a prism for women’s experiences across generations.
Scripts in Play: Three Sisters Written by Suneeta Misra, Directed by Mekala Sridhar
Friday, October 9 at 7:30 pm – Ballston Quarter Sunday, October 11 at 2:00 pm – Ballston Quarter
Following the death of Brigadier Sen, his family finds itself trapped in a conservative small town in 1970s India, where misogyny and patriarchy rule and women are expected to gain respectability and status through marriage. Inspired by Chekhov’s play of the same name and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Three Sisters offers a satirical look at the snobbery and misguided values of the Sen family.
The story centers on a mother and her three daughters, who were unwillingly transplanted from Calcutta to a small northern Indian town. As bitterness and petty recriminations simmer among the sisters, nostalgia prevents the family from embracing the present or moving forward. Beneath their conflict, the play reflects India’s evolution from a colonial to a postcolonial society.
Scripts in Play: Gracie vs. The People Written by Shoshannah Boray, Directed by Tara Giordano
Friday, October 16 at 7:30 pm – MoCA Arlington Sunday, October 18 at 2:00 pm – Mason Exhibitions
NOTE: The October 18 performance will also be presented as part of Avant Bard’s Resistance Readings series.
Adapted and reimagined for our time from Henrik Ibsen’s classic An Enemy of the People, Gracie vs. The People explores public health, inconvenient science, the responsibility of the press, and the cost of confronting unpopular truths. Retaining Ibsen’s central story while adding a lively splash of absurdism and contemporary humor, the play asks: When science meets politics, who wins? When the people and things important to you are threatened, what do you do?
Set in a high school where toxins in the walls may be transforming the DNA of students and teachers into unrecognizable creatures, Gracie vs. The People examines hierarchy and power, democratic ideals in everyday life, the manipulation of the language of freedom, and the press’s claim to offer perfectly unbiased fairness to both sides—all within a setting ripe for humor audiences will recognize.
Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoots's MacBeth
Written by Tom Stoppard, Directed by Kathleen Akerley
Two Plays. One Rebel Language. Total Absurdity.Tom Stoppard’s brilliant double-bill comedy, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, weaponizes words to create an unforgettable night of high-energy, political satire. Watch as a schoolyard game of coded language crashes into an underground, living-room performance of Shakespeare under the nose of a totalitarian regime. Packed with linguistic mind-games and fast-paced wit, this thrilling production celebrates the ultimate power of art and free speech over censorship.