Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College Announces Programming Lineup for the 39th Season
Vassar College is pleased to announce the lineup for the 39th Powerhouse Theater Season. The annual summer season brings together some of today’s most influential theatrical voices and welcomes the next generation of theater artists as members of the renowned Powerhouse Theater Training Program.
Since 1985, Powerhouse has welcomed artists and students of the highest caliber to the Vassar College campus—from Lynn Nottage to John Patrick Shanley and from Taylor Mac to Sarah DeLappe. The artists and projects that join the ranks of this esteemed group in 2025 include two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice, School of Rock) and Drew Gasparini (The Karate Kid) with their musical adaptation of Ned Vizzini’s young adult novel It’s Kind of A Funny Story, directed by Sarna Lapine (Call Me Izzy). The writing and directing team that recently brought the smash hit Job to Broadway, Max Wolf Friedlich (Powerhouse alum ’12) and Michael Herwitz, reunite to present The Holes. Jocelyn Kuritsky (KPOP) and her writing partners return to Powerhouse to present episodes in progress of the historical and hilarious Webby Award-honored podcast A Simple Herstory, in collaboration with The Muse Project and The Tank. Powerhouse welcomes Hook and Eye Theater to Vassar with their devised workshop of The Chamber, directed by Carrie Heitman. And for the first time since 2019, Powerhouse will present a Mainstage production, A Trojan Woman, by Sara Farrington, directed by Powerhouse alum Meghan Finn (Artistic Director - The Tank) and starring international artist Drita Kabashi (Little Ukraine) in a tour-de-force performance of a mother, alone with her child, facing the indiscriminate cruelty of war. Rounding out the Powerhouse Season are free readings of new works written and directed by Andy Boyd and Zinc Tong (The Tank), Petra Brusiloff and Christa Kimlicko Jones (Theatre East), Vassar Assistant Professor Peter Gil-Sheridan and Amalia Oliva Rojas, the winner of the Leah Ryan Fund’s “Leah Award.”
Vassar is also pleased to welcome to campus a new cohort of young actors, directors, and writers as members of the Powerhouse Theater Training Company. These emerging artists will present a slate of free theater throughout the season, including Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, adapted and directed by Shaun Patrick Tubbs, and Leah Ryan’s adaptation of Chekov’s The Seagull, directed by Jasmine Roth. Both will be performed outside at the Preserve at Vassar. Max Reuben returns to direct the company in the innovative use of Soundpainting, a gestural language, in a completely devised project at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. And theater-making team Hal Cosentino and Caley Chase explore justice and balance in the Greek tragedy Oresteia.
“It’s an honor that so many wonderfully talented, thoughtful, and thrilling storytellers have accepted our invitation to be a part of the 39th Powerhouse Season. With arts funding at risk across the country, we’re more committed than ever to being a haven for artistic growth and development here at Vassar,” said Producing Director Michael Sheehan.
“And what a delight to welcome back Powerhouse alums Max Wolf Friedlich and Jasmine Roth, both of whom were members of the Powerhouse Training Program. After having begun their journey as artists at Powerhouse, it’s a joy to have them return to share their latest work with our audiences and students,” added Producing Director Ed Cheetham.
“Vassar’s role in shaping the history of American theater cannot be overstated. It is a privilege to welcome and support the work of renowned artists each summer, as well as the works of local artists of the Hudson Valley, including Vassar’s own Assistant Professor of Drama, Peter Gil-Sheridan,” said Vassar College President Elizabeth H. Bradley.
“As always, at the foundation of the Powerhouse program is the Training Company. We are delighted to welcome a new cohort of dedicated aspiring artists, who come from all over the country to study, create, and perform alongside our world-class faculty and professional artists,” added Sheehan.
“We can’t wait to welcome our loyal audiences back to the Vassar campus. See you this summer!” concluded Cheetham.
Additional projects and casting information will be announced in the coming weeks.
Box Office Information
Online ticket sales: May 29, 2025
In-person ticket sales: June 12, 2025 at the Powerhouse Box Office
Mainstage tickets: $40.00
Workshop tickets: $30.00
Readings and Training Program Performances: Free
Box Office hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 1:00–6:00 p.m.
Box Office: (845) 437-5599, phtboxoffice@vassar.edu
Background
Now in its 39th season, Powerhouse Theater (Ed Cheetham, Michael Sheehan, Producing Directors) is dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of new works. For five weeks every summer, the Powerhouse Theater Program comes to life on the Vassar College campus to provide a nurturing environment in which passionate theater lovers from students to professional practitioners and audience members learn from one another. The Powerhouse Theater Training Program provides aspiring theater professionals a chance to immerse themselves in acting, directing, and playwriting. The program’s Training Company also offers free performances throughout the season. Together with our adventurous partners, students, and dedicated audiences, we create a crucial community—one that gives time, space, and voice to artists of the American theater.
Recent projects that have premiered in New York City developed by Powerhouse include: The Notebook (Broadway), The Connector (MCC Theatre), birthday, birthday, birthday (The Tank), annA (Stella Adler), Canaan Unremembered (Theatre East), Luna and the Starbodies (Lincoln Center), Sweet Chariot (The Public), Sanctuary City (New York Theatre Workshop), Diana (Broadway), Head Over Heels (Broadway) The Secret Life of Bees (Atlantic Theatre Company), The Great Leap (Atlantic Theatre Company), Alice by Heart (MCC Theatre), A 24-Decade History of Popular Music (St. Ann’s Warehouse) and The Wolves (Broadway–Lincoln Center Theater). Other projects developed at the Powerhouse include the Tony Award-winning Side Man and Tru; the multi-award-winning Doubt by John Patrick Shanley; the groundbreaking Broadway musical Hamilton; and Stephen Karam’s The Humans.
Vassar—located in New York’s scenic Hudson Valley—is an independent, coeducational, residential liberal arts college, which fosters intellectual openness and lively exploration through its widely varied course offerings. Founded in 1861 to offer women a fully equivalent education to that of the best men’s colleges of the period, Vassar became the first women’s college in the nation to expand its mission to coeducation by opening its doors to men in 1969. Today’s students, who meet each other as equals, are encouraged to develop diverse perspectives through engaging in lively dialogues with faculty and fellow students, which enables them to achieve the insight and confidence needed to function most creatively in today’s complex world. Consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country, Vassar continues to be renowned for pioneering achievements in education and for the beauty of its campus in Poughkeepsie, New York.
2025 Season Partners
Hook & Eye Theater’s work has been called “rich, intelligent, funny, poignant” and “a testament to the collaborative process of theater making.” Our original works—each crafted over two to four years—brim with magic, rhythm, and ridiculousness; built in worlds where the obvious is harpooned by the absurd. Our core programs include full-length productions, Instant PlayLabs, and Education initiatives. www.hookandeyetheater.com
The Leah Ryan Fund began giving out its annual prize, The Leah, in 2010 to honor the memory of playwright and “woman of letters” Leah Ryan, and to encourage and support the work of brilliant and unrecognized women, trans, and non-binary playwrights. It is the purpose of the prize to perpetuate the integrity, compassion, and creativity that Leah herself possessed and inspired in others.
The Muse Project is an experimental initiative that centers women theater actors. The initiative shifts the theater paradigm through the empowerment of women stage actors as creators, collaborators, and content generators. Muses have included an array of accomplished and burgeoning actresses, including the late Lynn Cohen, Florencia Lozano, Déa Julien, Vanessa Aspillaga, Kyra Miller, Jessica Frances Dukes, Jocelyn Kuritsky (Artistic Director), and more. Partnerships with various celebrated New York theater companies to incubate the work have included New Georges, The New Group, Abingdon Theatre Company, The Tank, The Flea Theater, The PIT, Theaterlab, & Torn Page. The Project has a kind of nimble, shape-shifting nomadic spirit that can affect many — artists and audiences alike, in small and large(r) settings, in person and in the digital sphere. The organization also facilitates discussion and highlights the varied and interesting careers of many women stage actors. In 2024, Muse was awarded the NYIT Honorary Ellen Stewart Award. www.themuseprojectnyc.com.
Stop The Wind Theatricals believes that theater is a place for experimentation, discovery, mystery and ultimately magic. We offer a page to stage framework for developing authentic and audacious new plays and we understand the resources necessary for artists at each stage of the process. We nurture, connect and cultivate - but most of all, Stop The Wind moves plays toward production. Whether experimental or commercial, from the head or from the heart, we understand how good theater works. And with 30 years of producing experience we’ve done it all - classical and avant-garde, devised and structured, ensemble and solo. Our networks are local, national, and global. Stop The Wind was created to propel the widest range of theatrical possibility. Current projects include A Trojan Woman by Sara Farrington, Pierre by Keith Reddin, And Then We Were No More by Tim Blake Nelson (at LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club this fall), Jackals by Adam Rapp, Words We Believe by Rehana Lew Mirza, and Ann Fran and Maryann by Erin Courtney.
The Tank, celebrating 20 years in 2023, is a nonprofit arts presenter that champions performing artists working across a variety of disciplines engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. Led by Artistic Director Meghan Finn, Director of Artistic Development Johnny G. Lloyd, and Managing Producer Molly FitzMaurice, the company provides a home to artists working and experimenting in theater, comedy, dance, film, music, puppetry, and storytelling by removing the economic and accessibility barriers from the creation of new work.
Artists who have developed their craft at The Tank include Tony Award-winner Alex Timbers, Tony Award Nominee Amy Herzog, Lucy Alibar, Kyle Jarrow, Reggie Watts, Kyle Abraham, Andrew Bujalski, We Are Scientists, and tens of thousands of others. The Tank has been honored with a 2020 OBIE Award for Institutional Recognition celebrating their Extraordinary Support of Emerging Artists, 6 Drama Desk nominations for their co-produced work, and an official New York City Council proclamation. Recent co-produced work includes hit productions of Three Scenes in the Life of a Trotskyist by Andy Boyd (2024), Mahinerator by Jerry Lieblich (2023), New York Times Critics’ Picks Simon and His Shoes (2022), Taxilandia (2021, 2023 OBIE Award), OPEN by Crystal Skillman (2019), Red Emma & The Mad Monk by Alexis Roblan (2018), and The Offending Gesture by Mac Wellman (2016); as well as Drama Desk Award-nominated productions The Hunger Artist (2018), The Paper Hat Game (2017), the ephemera trilogy (2017), Ada/Ava (2016) and youarenowhere (2016). The Tank’s track record of artistic success is not an accident of their model: it is a direct outcome of the culture of creative possibility they have intentionally cultivated.
Theatre East is a nonprofit theater company whose mission is to provide the community with a platform to deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world we share through theater. Theatre East stirs the human side of current issues by fostering new plays of social relevance through New York and world premieres. Furthermore, they create access to art makers and storytellers through the space they manage and operate in Long Island City, the Court Square Theater. www.theatreeast.org
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Contact
Ed Cheetham
(845) 437-5902
edcheetham@vassar.edu
Photos
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