TDT’s 19th Season of Shows
For TDT’s 19th season, we’re exploring the hidden complexities of human emotions and our collective need to find community. A combination of exciting new works, stone cold classics, and unexpected spin-offs, it’s a season that exemplifies everything Theatre Downtown is and does.
Becky Nurse of Salem
ALABAMA PREMIERE
Written By Sarah Ruhl
Directed By Sara James
October 24-November 9, 2025
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday Matinees at 2:30pm
A dark contemporary comedy follows Becky, a modern-day descendant of accused witch Rebecca Nurse in Salem. Becky, who works at the local witch museum, seems to be dogged by bad luck. Is it a curse from her past? Or her inability to navigate her present? Looking for love and redemption through spells, pills, and a bartender named Bob, Becky is a contemporary pilgrim for the Lock Her Up era. A play about the legacy of misogyny, witchcraft, and even Arthur Miller, Becky Nurse is a truth-teller for our times.
FEATURING: Melanie Jeffcoat, Kyle Holman, Sydney Batten, Jarod Brumley, Reagan Baker, Debbie Smith, and Jonathan Goldstein
Airness
ALABAMA PREMIERE
Written By Chelsea Marcantel
Directed By Ezra Brown
January 23-February 8, 2026
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday Matinees at 2:30pm
When Nina enters her first air guitar competition, she thinks winning will be easy. But as she befriends a group of charismatic nerds all committed to becoming the next champion, she discovers that there's more to this art form than playing pretend; it's about finding yourself in your favorite songs, and performing with raw joy. Will Nina be able to let go and set herself free onstage? Following her mission to shred or be shredded, Airness is an exuberant reminder that everything we need to rock is already inside us. A comedy about competition, completion, and finding the airness inside yourself.
AIRNESS premiered at the 41st Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2017. Meredith McDonough directed the production.
Appropriate
ALABAMA PREMIERE
Written By Branden Jacobs Jenkins
Directed By Lesli Johnson
March 27-April 12, 2026
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday Matinees at 2:30pm
Every estranged member of the Lafayette clan has descended upon the crumbling Arkansas homestead to settle the accounts of the newly-dead patriarch. As his three adult children sort through a lifetime of hoarded mementos and junk, they collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father’s possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations.
Winner of the 2024 Tony Award for “Best Revival of a Play”
Collective Rage
A Play in 5 Betties
ALABAMA PREMIERE
Written By Jen Silverman
Directed By Carron Clark
May 8-24, 2026
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday, May 17 at 7:30pm
Sunday May 10 & May 24 at 2:30pm
Jen Silverman’s hilarious play, which The New York Times called “a fult-tilt lesbian/bi-curious/genderqueer/Shakespearean comedy for everyone,” explores anger, sex, love and the “thea-tah” through the the experiences of five women named Betty.
What happens when anger, desire, insecurity, friendship, competition, and a little bit of queer chaos collide at the local swimming pool? Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties is a hilarious, explosive, and unexpectedly heartfelt theatrical ride through identity, intimacy, and the beautifully messy business of figuring yourself out.
Part satire, part confession, part full-blown rebellion, this sharp contemporary comedy asks what it means to be seen, what it means to be wanted, and what happens when women stop behaving the way they’re supposed to.
Funny, strange, sexy, and just a little unhinged. In other words, exactly the kind of party you want to be invited to.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Written By William Shakespeare
Directed By Marcus Lane
June 12-28, 2026
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday Matinees at 2:30pm
One of William Shakespeare’s most enduring classics, and one of the most produced pieces of theatre of all-time, A Midsummer Night’s Dream follows four Athenian lovers - Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena - as their romantic chaos and confusion unfold in a magical forest, thanks to the mischievous fairy Puck and a love potion. As madcap as it is romantic, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the foundation for every romantic comedy that has come since.
Barbecue
ALABAMA PREMIERE
Written By Robert O’Hara
Directed By Marc Raby
July 31-August 16, 2026
Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm
Sunday Matinees at 2:30pm
The O’Mallery’s have gathered in their local park to share some barbecue and straight talk with their sister Barbara, whose spiral of drugs and recklessness has forced her siblings to stage an open-air intervention. But the event becomes raucous and unpredictable as familial stereotypes collide with hard realities, and racial politics slam up against the stories we tell—and maybe even believe—about who we were and who we’ve become.
Barbecue premiered at the Public Theatre in New York, NY on September 22, 2015.