Studio Theatre recently announced its 2026-2027 season, featuring several recent New York hits and a bevy of familiar names and faces.
The season will open with “Wish You Were Here” by Pulitzer Prize winner Sanaz Toossi. Toossi’s play “English” was a blockbuster hit at Studio in 2023. “Wish You Were Here” will be directed by returning director Sivan Battat, a one-time Studio apprentice whose directing career includes work at Playwrights Horizons, the Atlantic and The Old Globe.
The next production of the season will be “Wilderness Generation,” the hilarious new family drama from Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames. Ijames is best known for “Fat Ham” (2023), another one of Studio’s most popular plays. Studio’s production is in association with Philadelphia Theatre Company, where “Wilderness Generation” just wrapped up its world premiere. The Philadelphia Theatre Company production director, Taibi Magar, continues as the play’s director for its Studio run.
“We Had a World” brings the cutting and poignant work of Joshua Harmon back to Studio. Harmon penned “Admissions” and “Bad Jews,” also both record-setting hits at Studio in 2019 and 2014, respectively. “We Had a World” enjoyed its first public reading at Studio in 2024, ahead of its acclaimed off-Broadway run at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2025. The production will be directed by Studio Associate Artistic Director Jess Chayes, in her Studio directorial debut.
In the spring, Studio will bring Bess Wohl’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Liberation” to Washington, with the production led by the show’s Broadway director, Whitney White. The show — an expansive and personal look at the promises and shortcomings of 1970s feminism — is part of a yearlong co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Geffen Playhouse. “Liberation” won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is currently nominated for Tony Awards for best play, best direction of a play and best costume design of a play.
Next in the lineup will be Alice Childress’s rarely produced classic “Wine in the Wilderness” (1969). The show will be directed by frequent Studio collaborator Psalmayene 24, serving as the third in a series of 20th-century classics of Black theater that inform the contemporary repertoire, following his directing turns on “The Colored Museum” (2024) and “Purlie Victorious” (2026).
Studio will close its season with the latest play from acclaimed playwright James Graham, the 2026 Olivier Award winner for best new play, “Punch.” After a successful West End run, the show toured the U.K. to critical and audience acclaim. The show will be directed by David Muse, in his final production as Studio’s artistic director.
In addition to featuring plays from beloved playwrights and works that have met with recent critical and commercial success, the season is also notable as the final season of Studio’s longtime artistic director, David Muse. Muse is only the second artistic director in Studio’s 48-year history, having succeeded Studio founder Joy Zinoman in 2009.
Muse, writing to subscribers about his final season at the helm of Studio, said: “I thought about going out with some nostalgic revivals from my 17 years here, or directing my face off this year, filling the season with plays from my personal bucket list. But there is too much good work out there right now that I want to share with D.C. audiences, so I’ve opted for a classic Studio season, albeit one filled with artists who have helped make my time here so rich.”
About the Shows
“Wish You Were Here”
by Sanaz Toossi
Directed by Sivan Battat
Salme’s getting married and her four best friends get her ready in a flurry of tulle and teasing about the wedding night ahead. But it’s 1978 in Karaj, on the eve of the Iranian Revolution, and over the next decade everything changes for these tight-knit friends, their country and the futures they find for themselves. In another moment of upheaval in Iran, Sanaz Toossi (“English”) brings her trademark wit, insight and more than a few dirty jokes to this story of diaspora from the people who stay.
“Wilderness Generation”
by James Ijames
Directed by Taibi Magar
In association with Philadelphia Theatre Company
Four cousins are back at the family homestead to pack up their grandmother’s house in Tidewater, Virginia. Over a weekend of board games and in-jokes, the cousins crack each other up, spill secrets and face some difficult truths about the choices their parents made for them. A moving new comedy from James Ijames (“Fat Ham,” “Good Bones”) that looks at the layers of legacy within a family and asks whether preservation means holding on or learning to let in something new.
“We Had a World”
by Joshua Harmon
Directed by Jess Chayes
Joshua’s grandmother calls with a mission: She’s dying, he’s a playwright, and it’s time for him to write about the family. She has one request: “Make it as bitter and vitriolic as possible.” Joshua Harmon casts his comic eye close to home in this sharp-tongued play about mothers and daughters, legacy and addiction, fierce cruelty and extraordinary love. The writer of two of Studio’s biggest hits (“Bad Jews,” “Admissions”) returns with a daringly personal play.
“Liberation”
by Bess Wohl
Directed by Whitney White
A co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Geffen Playhouse
It’s 1970 in Ohio; feminism is promising change and journalist Lizzie wants in. Soon she’s meeting weekly with five other women, all learning to tell the truth about their lives and beginning to show up for each other and for the future they have started to imagine. Fifty years later, Lizzie’s daughter stares down the same questions her mother did and turns to the past to untangle how change stalled out. A messy and audacious look at solidarity, sacrifice and the unfinished political work of the 1970s. Tony Award nominees Bess Wohl (“Grand Horizons”) and director Whitney White (“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”) bring “Liberation” to Studio’s intimate Victor Shargai Theatre. Winner of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
“Wine in the Wilderness”
by Alice Childress
Directed by Psalmayene 24
Bill is sheltering in his apartment during the Harlem riots of July 1964 when his friends burst in for refuge, bringing a woman they want him to meet. He’s a painter, looking for a model to finish a series on Black womanhood, and she might be the answer he needs. But Tomorrow “Tommy” Marie isn’t quite who Bill assumes she is. As their borough burns, Tommy and Bill flirt, butt heads and end up wrestling with class, colorism and worth. A rediscovered classic by the trailblazing Black playwright Alice Childress, directed by Studio favorite Psalmayene 24 (“The Colored Museum,” “Purlie Victorious”).
“Punch”
by James Graham
Directed by David Muse
Jacob is just looking for a bit of fun when he joins his mates at a pub fight, but an impulsive punch has fatal consequences. When Jacob returns from prison, angry and rudderless, the last thing he expects is a letter from his victim’s parents. A kinetic and unflinching look at grief, masculinity, justice and forgiveness. David Muse directs this Olivier Award-winning play as his last production as Studio’s artistic director.