UNDERMAIN THEATRE
Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe
By Jane Wagner & Lily Tomlin
Undermain Theatre
April 30- May 24, 2026
Directed by Ashley Gonzalez
Scenic Design: L. Mazur
Jane Wagner’s ever-timely, iconic, one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, examines American society, art, and human connectivity and explores the feminist movement. As one actor transforms into a series of other archetypal characters, they become the play’s guiding conscience for the audience—a comical, quirky, and outlandish conveyor of the nuances of American society. Under the guidance of this beloved narrator, and her non-stop comic observations, the audience is treated to a mischievously clever observer of the society around her and the universe at large portrayed by the phenomenal Marianne Galloway, an Underman Company Member.
Jane Wagner, one of America’s most distinguished playwrights, has won numerous awards, including several Emmys for writing and producing and a Writer’s Guild Award for her work in television. Wagner has also won a New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Award and a New York Drama Desk Award for her Broadway success, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe as well as a CableAce Award for Executive Producing the film adaptation. She has three Grammy nominations for comedy albums she wrote with Lily Tomlin: Modern Scream, And That's the Truth, and On Stage; and two Peabody Awards—the first for the CBS television special, J.T., and the second for the ABC television special, Edith Ann’s Christmas: Just Say Noël.
STAGE WEST
THEATRE
The Cottage
By Sandy Rustin
Stage West Theatre
August 12-30, 2026
Directed by Emily Scott Banks
Scenic Design: L. Mazur
t’s 1923, and Sylvia Van Kipness is done being discreet. She’s tired of being secretly whisked away to this English countryside cottage for her annual tryst. So she’s decided to expose her affair to both her husband and her lover’s wife with a series of scandalous telegrams, turning this tranquil cottage into a hotbed of hilarity. Manic hijinks ensue as a web of infidelity is hilariously revealed in this saucy, side-splitting romp.
SECOND THOUGHT
THEATRE
Dance Nation
By Clare Barron
Second Thought Theatre
September 16- October 3, 2026
Directed by Shyama Nithiananda
Scenic Design: L. Mazur
Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they’ll claw their way to the top at Nationals in Tampa Bay. A play about ambition, growing up, and how to find our souls in the heat of it all.
AMPHIBIAN STAGE
Ajax
By Habib Yazdi
Amphibian Stage
October 14- November 1, 2026
Directed by Kareem Fahmy
Scenic Design: L. Mazur
Costume Design: Sarah Mosher
Lighting Design: Omar Madkour
Sound Design: David Lanza
A darkly comic political thriller about the CIA-backed coup that reshaped Iran.
The CIA walks into a Tehran courtyard in 1953. What happens next shaped the next seventy years of Middle Eastern politics. In this darkly comic spy thriller a swimming pool becomes a nation, tennis becomes oil politics, and politeness becomes warfare. You’ve never seen American foreign policy look this seductive—or this damning.
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times. -Bertolt Brecht