RACHMANINOFF AND THE TSAR and More Set for Writers Theatre 2025/26 Season
The season will feature Two Sisters and a Piano , written by Nilo Cruz plus more.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 18, 2025
Writers Theatre has revealed its 2025/26 season. The five-play season is marked by four productions never seen before in Chicago and two add-on special engagements.
Writers Theatre 2025/26 Season includes:
Rachmaninoff and the Tsar
Chicago/Midwest Premiere, part of the play’s world premiere season
Starring Hershey Felder and Jonathan Silvestri
The Music of Sergei V. Rachmaninoff
Book by Hershey Felder
with Hershey Felder as Sergei Rachmaninoff and Jonathan Silvestri as Tsar Nicholas II
Directed by Trevor Hay
August 13 – September 21, 2025
Having safely escaped Russia during the 1917 revolution, beloved composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff performed all over the world before eventually making his home in sunny Beverly Hills. Privately longing for the Russia that he knew and loved as a young man, one memory in particular continues to haunt him—Tsar Nicholas II. Hershey Felder's newest musical play will feature the virtuoso actor/pianist in the role of Rachmaninoff alongside British-Italian actor Jonathan Silvestri in the role of Nicholas II. Featuring the composer’s most beloved works, Rachmaninoff and the Tsar promises to be another mystical musical journey in the inimitable Hershey Felder style that audiences have come to know and love.
Hershey Felder’s Great American Songbook Sing-Along
One Night Only
September 7, 2025
Tickets, starting at $110, available summer 2025
With his signature style and lots of audience participation, Hershey Felder’s Great American Songbook Sing-Along takes audiences through 100 years of American music—beginning with Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim ... The Sound of Music, South Pacific, Fiddler on the Roof, Showboat and more! Audiences are encouraged to sing along with Felder as he leads them through the familiar notes of their favorite songs.
As You Like It
The Chicago/Midwest Premiere
A Musical Adaptation of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery
Music and Lyrics by Shaina Taub
Directed by Braden Abraham
Music Direction by Michael Mahler
October 30 – December 14, 2025
Press opening: November 7, 2025
Facing exile at home, Orlando, Duke Senior, his daughter Rosalind and niece Celia seek safety and refuge in the Forest of Arden. Lost amidst the trees, these wounded souls end up finding a community of acceptance and transformational love, where all are welcomed and embraced. Featuring an original folk-pop score by Shaina Taub (Tony Award-winning composer of Suffs), this musical adaptation of Shakespeare's classic is an immersive dream-like tale of faithful friends, feuding families and chance encounters.
Two Sisters and a Piano
Written by Nilo Cruz
Directed by Lisa Portes
February 26 – March 29, 2026
Press opening: March 6, 2026
Trapped under house arrest, novelist Maria Celia and her sister Sofia can still hear the rumors of the Russians’ departure from Cuba in 1991. While awaiting news from Maria’s exiled husband and dreaming of their freedom, the two sisters find their small world unexpectedly shaken by the arrival of a romantic young piano tuner and a charismatic military officer infatuated with Maria’s writing. Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz (Anna in the Tropics) weaves an authentic tale of oppression, human spirit, and intertwining fates in a world of shifting global politics.
Job
The Chicago/Midwest Premiere
Written by Max Wolf Friedlich
Directed by David Esbjornson
April 9 – June 14, 2026
Press Opening: April 17, 2026
Jane, an employee at a big tech company, has been placed on leave after video of her screaming breakdown at work went viral. Her employers tell Jane she must be evaluated by crisis therapist Loyd before she can be reinstated to the job that gives her life meaning. Their first session together, however, quickly escalates into an epic showdown with a shocking and disturbing twist. A Broadway and Off-Broadway sensation, this intense psychological thriller skewers the insidiousness of the internet, the meaning of work and the ramifications of a secret revealed.
Leopoldstadt
The Chicago/Midwest Premiere
Written by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Carey Perloff
June 4 – July 19, 2026
Press Opening: June 12, 2026
At the dawn of the 20th century, Vienna is the heart of European culture. While an extended family gathers in the elegant Merz home for the holidays, two brothers-in-law passionately debate their conflicting visions for the future of their family and the Jewish people––a tension that will echo through the generations that follow. Traversing decades of joy and strife, from 1899 to 1955, the latest Tony and Olivier Award-winning masterpiece and most personal play from Tom Stoppard follows one family’s reckoning with a past it cannot escape and a future it cannot control.
Frequent Stoppard collaborator Carey Perloff directs this stirring and epic story of love, betrayal, family, and enduring bravery.
The Unfair Advantage
Season Add-On
Created and performed by Harry Milas
Produced in the US by Pemberley Productions and Parrot Ox, in association with PitStop Productions
The Gillian Theatre
December 3 - 28, 2025
There will be no press opening for this production
Sleight of hand specialist Harry Milas lifts the veil on the world of card cheating, taking audiences on a journey of deception into a world that very few have experienced and even fewer talk about. During this hour-long intimate experience---performed for an audience of just 35 people---Harry will reveal step by step how magicians, card cheaters, and mentalists fool the world. Expect part performance, part tutorial as Harry exposes many of the best tricks and illusions he knows, displaying the skills that led to him becoming a security weapon for the world’s top casinos.
Before participating in the experience, audiences will be asked to sign a legal contract of confidentiality. Please bear this in mind when electing to take part.
The Unfair Advantage is not included in the season subscription packages. Subscriber tickets, $65, are available now only to subscribers. Non-subscriber tickets are $75 and will go on-sale next fall. Each performance is limited to 35 people.
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