The Department of Theatre is thrilled to announce our 2025-2026 Season of productions. From timeless classics to contemporary offerings and a world-premiere, we look forward to sharing a season that brings the complexity of the human experience to vibrant life.
We welcome audiences to experience our season in four distinct venues: Studio 115, the Babcock Theatre (located on the 1st floor of the Pioneer Theatre Company), Kingsbury Hall, and the Meldrum Theatre in the Einar Nielsen Field House. Each of the venues offers our students and audiences unique performance and shared space experiences, from the intimacy of Studio 115 and the Babcock Theatre to the old-world grandeur of Kingsbury Hall, to the new state-of-the art Meldrum Theatre.
Please join us for our 2025-2026 season of discovery!
Chris DuVal – Chair of the Department of Theatre
Alexandra Harbold – Season Selection Committee Chair
MELDRUM THEATRE SHOWS
Legally Blonde
Book by Heather Hach, Music and Lyrics by Lawrence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin
Director Erin Farrell Speer
Meldrum Theatre | Fall 2025
Join us as Harvard's beloved blonde takes the stage by pink storm in this fun, uplifting story of self-discovery, female friendship and finding your way.
Elle Woods appears to have it all. Her life is turned upside down when her boyfriend Warner dumps her so he can attend Harvard Law. Determined to get him back, Elle ingeniously charms her way into the prestigious law school. While there, she struggles with peers, professors and her ex. With the support of some new friends, Elle quickly realizes she has so much more to offer and sets out to prove herself to the world.
This blockbuster musical took Broadway by storm. Come join us, and don’t forget to bring your Bend and Snap!
The School for Scandal
By Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Director Sarah Shippobotham
Meldrum Theatre | Spring 2026
In a world dominated by social media and social expectations, it is interesting to realize that reputations have been made and ruined by gossip since centuries before technology came into being. Indeed, in some eras, gossip and wit were almost considered national sports, and verbal sparring could be almost as brutal as today's MMA cage fighting! This play, set in the late 18th century, follows a group of socialites who plot to arrange the marriages they want, regardless of other people's feelings. It is a fascinating look at social expectations and how they can be exploded and manipulated by all for gain. Yet kindness, heart, and hope still can win out.
BABCOCK THEATRE SHOWS
The Cherry Orchard
By Anton Chekhov, Version by Pam Gems
Director Alexandra Harbold
Babcock Theatre | Fall 2025
"Oh, the trees! Nothing but white and green as far as you can see - remember, Lyuba? Oh my lovely childhood. Waking up to happiness, looking out at blossom and trees and there they are - the same trees, the same blossom - after cruel winter, warmth and light and feeling! In his masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov maintains an exquisite balance between elegiac celebration of the romance of the past, as embodied in the cherry orchard in full bloom, and the awesome prescience of what is so soon to overwhelm Russia - revolution. The themes are majestic, and yet at the centre of the play is Ranevskaya, a tragic woman who lacks adroitness for survival in a changing world but who has one asset: a capacity for love. It is her solution—and Chekhov's.
https://www.concordtheatricals.co.uk/s/47991/the-cherry-orchard-gems
Urinetown
Music by Mark Hollmann, Lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and Book by Kotis
Director David Eggers
Babcock Theatre | Spring 2026
Urinetown is a smartly written musical comedy that cleverly uses references to musical theatre classics to make us consider the ridiculousness of power and greed, the establishment, the anti-establishment, politics, capitalism, and rebellion, all while laughing. The grim realities of water scarcity is part of everyday life in some parts of the world right now, and as we look globally at environmental issues, and locally at the state of the great Salt Lake, it’s not hard to imagine the farfetched circumstances of Urinetown being closer than they were when the show opened on Broadway in 2001. As entertainment, Urinetown offers a terrific book, lyrics, and music; as a process, it offers performance students the chance to work on specific comedic storytelling and various musical styles; as for design, it offers design students the chance to do highly stylized work in the Babcock. The show will cause us and audiences to both laugh and think.
YOUTH THEATRE @ KINGSBURY HALL
Imaginary
Book & Lyrics by Timothy Knapman/Music & Lyrics by Stuart Matthew Price
Director Penny Caywood
Kingsbury Hall | Spring 2026
An unforgettable musical adventure about friendship, growing up, and the magic we sometimes leave behind.
In Imaginary, one young student and their best friend share a world where anything is possible - crafted entirely through the power of their imaginations. Together, they turn the everyday into epic quests and wild adventures. But with a new school on the horizon, questions arise: Is it time to move on? Can imagination survive the pressures of growing up? And what happens when the line between real and imaginary starts to blur?
Filled with heart, humor, and a touch of the otherworldly, Imaginary is a whimsical and deeply moving story for audiences of all ages. Featuring a vibrant cast of youth and university performers, this production celebrates the boundless creativity of childhood—and the friendships that shape us for a lifetime.
STUDIO 115 SHOWS
R.U.R.
by Karel Čapek
Director Samantha Briggs
Studio 115 & Tour | Fall 2025
Karel Čapek’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) is the groundbreaking sci-fi play that introduced the word "robot" to the world over one hundred years ago—and with it, haunting questions about technology, power, and what it means to be human. In a not-so-distant future where artificial workers have replaced human labor, a corporate-driven pursuit of efficiency spirals into catastrophe. As the robots gain awareness and revolt, the play asks: what are the ethical limits of creating artificial life? Is technological advancement always progress? What happens when workers (or, in this case, machines) become aware of their exploitation? More than a century later, R.U.R. feels less like fiction and more like prophecy.
Corners Grove
by Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin
Guest Director Christine Marie Brown
Studio 115 | Spring 2026
A reverent nod to Our Town by Thornton Wilder, this play follows a group of young people in the town of Corner’s Grove from high school into adulthood as they deal with leaving home, falling in love, gender identity, and the death of Whitney Houston. It’s a story about growing up and hometowns, friendship and drinking in parking lots.