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New Stages Festival 25/26

White text on an orange background reads "new stages festival" with dates "01.11 → 01.18" in the lower right corner.

The Goodman’s New Stages Festival is in its 21st year! This annual celebration of innovative, risky new drama showcases works in progress by some of the country’s most singular and ambitious writers. Since New Stages‘ 2004 inception, more than 125 plays have been produced as developmental productions and staged readings. Full line-up below.

January 11 - January 18, 2026

The Goodman's Owen Theatre

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

Call the box office at (312.443.3800, 12noon – 5pm) if you have questions about availability.

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

SCRIPT-IN-HAND STAGED READINGS

A splash of liquid in a martini glass with a single olive at the bottom.

FEAST!

By Calamity West
Directed by Susan V. Booth

Sunday, January 11 at 2:00pm
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

January 11 at 2PM
SOLD OUT!

January 17 at 2PM
RESERVE TICKETS

A U.S. one cent coin showing the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse side, with “United States of America” and “One Cent” inscribed.

PENNIES

By Hansol Jung
Directed by Patricia McGregor
Written for The Pack

Tuesday, January 13 at 7:00pm
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

January 13 at 7PM
RESERVE TICKETS

January 16 at 7PM
RESERVE TICKETS

A large, leafy green tree with a thick trunk and wide canopy stands alone against a plain white background.

THIS PART OF HIS LIFE BLOOMS

By Christina Anderson
Directed by Malkia Stampley

Wednesday, January 14 at 7:00pm
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

January 14 at 7PM
RESERVE TICKETS

January 18 at 11AM
RESERVE TICKETS

Front view of a vintage portable cassette tape recorder with buttons, speaker grille, and cassette slot visible against a neutral background.

THE AUDIENCE UNSEEN

By Ike Holter
Directed by Gus Menary
Dramaturgy by Sarah Slight

Saturday, January 17 at 7:00pm
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

January 17 at 7PM
RESERVE TICKETS

January 18 at 3PM
RESERVE TICKETS

ARTISTS

Susan V. Booth

Director, FEAST!

A woman with straight brown hair, blunt bangs, and large clear-framed glasses looks directly at the camera with a neutral expression.

Calamity West

Playwright, FEAST!

A woman with dark hair, wearing geometric earrings and a patterned jacket, faces the camera against a black background.

Patricia McGregor

Director, Pennies

A woman with long black hair wearing a white blouse and black vest looks at the camera against a dark background.

Hansol Jung

Playwright, Pennies

A woman with short curly hair, wearing a patterned red scarf and gray sweater, looks at the camera and smiles softly. The background is softly blurred.

Malkia Stampley

Director, This Part of His Life Blooms

Christina Anderson

Playwright, This Part of His Life Blooms

A man with light brown hair and a beard is wearing a textured button-up shirt and looking at the camera against a plain blue-grey background.

Gus Menary

Director, The Audience Unseen

A man with a beard and shaved head sits outside in sunlight, wearing a green jacket and brown shirt, with a brick wall and window in the background.

Ike Holter

Playwright, The Audience Unseen

Woman with long brown hair, wearing a green jacket over a white top, smiles at the camera against a pink background.

Sarah Slight

Dramaturgy, The Audience Unseen