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New Stages Professionals Weekend 25/26

Text in bold white font on an orange background reads: "new stages festival professionals weekend.

You’re invited to Professionals Weekend of our 2025-26 New Stages Festival! New Stages, now in its 21st year, is a celebration of innovative new work, presented for its audience in our Owen Theatre. Connect with other industry professionals during social events and take in an array of exhilarating new works before they premiere on stages across the country. Full line-up below.

January 16 - January 18, 2026

The Goodman

170 N Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60601 - View on Google Maps

Most offerings in this season’s Festival contain mature themes. Please email literary@goodmantheatre.org for questions.

Box Office Hours

Phone: (312) 443-3800, TTY/TDD: (312) 443-3829
Email: BoxOffice@GoodmanTheatre.org or use our Contact Form
Group Sales: (312) 443-3815

Open Daily, 12noon – 5pm.
On days with performances, the Box Office walk-up window is open one half-hour after curtain time.

HOTEL DISCOUNTS

Hotel discounts at the Cambria and L7 are available. Please email Michael Cotey (michaelcotey@goodmantheatre.org) for New Stages discount codes.

PROFESSIONALS WEEKEND SCHEDULE:

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16

People gather in groups and walk through a spacious indoor hallway with a staircase and glass railings, some standing near a table covered with a colorful cloth.

KICK-OFF COCKTAIL PARTY

Clifford Family Lobby & Baskes Rotunda
Alice Center for Education and Engagement

Friday, January 16 at 5:30pm

Launch this weekend of exciting new work at a casual mixer with complimentary beer, wine and light fare.

A vertical neon sign reading "GOODMAN" is illuminated on the side of a building at night in an urban area, glowing brightly as city lights hint at the Sweetest Season unfolding among the office buildings in the background.

PENNIES

By Hansol Jung
Directed by Patricia McGregor

Friday, January 16 at 7:00pm

Amid an epidemic of heartbreak, a weary counselor with a unique gift disappears. She finds herself in a surreal motel outside time, where she must strike a cosmic bargain with Charon, the ferryman of the dead. Spanning centuries, from a call center to the River Styx to the farthest future, Hansol Jung’s Pennies is a wild, aching odyssey about grief, guilt, and the impossible task of caring too much in a world that keeps trying to harden us.

Inspired by Melancholy Play by Sarah Ruhl

Tickets are FREE; reservations are required.

Limited Availability

Modern lounge area with yellow and brown chairs, dark flooring, and a sculpted light feature on the wall, illuminated by large windows and overhead lighting.

POST-SHOW SALON

Clifford Family Lobby & Baskes Rotunda
Alice Center for Education and Engagement

Friday, January 16 at 9:00pm

Join fellow playwrights, dramaturgs, directors, actors and other industry professionals for relaxed late-night festivity with complimentary food, beer and wine.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 17

Four people stand on a stage under a “New Stages” sign, three smiling and one holding a folder, with microphones and chairs visible in the background.

NEW STAGES PANEL DISCUSSION


Baskes Rotunda, Alice Center for Education and Engagement

Saturday, January 17 at 11:00am

A casual and candid discussion featuring playwrights from the Goodman’s New Stages Festival.

Several people are sitting and talking in a modern, well-lit lounge area with wood flooring, sofas, and a wall-mounted TV.

INDUSTRY LUNCH WITH BREAKOUT ROOMS

Clifford Family Lobby & Baskes Rotunda
Alice Center for Education and Engagement

Saturday, January 17 at 12:00pm

Join fellow industry professionals for lunch, with the option of joining several breakout lunch tables centered on industry roles and identities.

A vertical neon sign reading "GOODMAN" is illuminated on the side of a building at night in an urban area, glowing brightly as city lights hint at the Sweetest Season unfolding among the office buildings in the background.

FEAST!

By Calamity West
Directed by Susan V. Booth

Saturday, January 17 at 2:00pm

Carol just got fired. Her husband Michael has already paid for the company’s $12,000 holiday dinner. Instead of canceling, they decide to go through with it — to host the meal no one asked for and prove they still belong at the table. But when no guests arrive, the night spirals into a brutal showdown over money, marriage, and the cost of holding on, where the only thing left to swallow is the truth. Calamity West’s FEAST! is a darkly comic pressure cooker about privilege and power.

Tickets are FREE; reservations are required.
Limited Availability

A vertical neon sign reading "GOODMAN" is illuminated on the side of a building at night in an urban area, glowing brightly as city lights hint at the Sweetest Season unfolding among the office buildings in the background.

THE AUDIENCE UNSEEN

By Ike Holter
Directed by Gus Menary
Dramaturgy by Sarah Slight

Saturday, January 17 at 7:00pm

In a flickering interrogation room, a federal agent pushes a grocery clerk to “see” what no one else can. But what starts as a simple questioning spirals into something more terrifying than either party could ever imagine. Ike Holter’s The Audience Unseen is a supernatural thriller, told in real-time, about the steep cost of traveling into darkness.

Tickets are FREE; reservations are required.
Limited Availability

SUNDAY, JANUARY 18

Plates of assorted desserts, including cookies, macarons, chocolate, and green grapes, are arranged on a round buffet table.

PROFESSIONALS BREAKFAST


Alice Center for Education and Engagement

Sunday, January 18 at 10:00am

Enjoy a hearty breakfast before diving into this final day of New Stages readings.

A vertical neon sign reading "GOODMAN" is illuminated on the side of a building at night in an urban area, glowing brightly as city lights hint at the Sweetest Season unfolding among the office buildings in the background.

THIS PART OF HIS LIFE BLOOMS

By Christina Anderson
Directed by Malkia Stampley

Sunday, January 18 at 11:00am

Arthur Beverly James finds himself alone on the night of his retirement. After a lifetime of loving and losing the same woman, Arthur turns to the soil—to the yard he’s ignored for decades—and begins to dig. With each seed, each root, each memory, he reckons with friendship, fatherhood, and the quiet ghosts of his past. In Christina Anderson’s This Part of His Life Blooms, grief becomes growth as a man learns, at last, to tend the garden of himself.

Tickets are FREE; reservations are required.
Limited Availability

A vertical neon sign reading "GOODMAN" is illuminated on the side of a building at night in an urban area, glowing brightly as city lights hint at the Sweetest Season unfolding among the office buildings in the background.

THE AUDIENCE UNSEEN

By Ike Holter
Directed by Gus Menary
Dramaturgy by Sarah Slight

Sunday, January 18 at 3:00pm

In a flickering interrogation room, a federal agent pushes a grocery clerk to “see” what no one else can. But what starts as a simple questioning spirals into something more terrifying than either party could ever imagine. Ike Holter’s The Audience Unseen is a supernatural thriller, told in real-time, about the steep cost of traveling into darkness.

Tickets are FREE; reservations are required.
Limited Availability

RSVP HERE for Professionals Weekend performances and events January 16 – 18. For the full New Stages Festival schedule and tickets outside of Professionals Weekend, please visit GoodmanTheatre.org/NewStages. Tickets for the full Festival will be available December 15.

SPONSORS

A list of sponsors for The Joyce Foundation’s artistic and professional development programs, grouped by levels of support and individual or family names.