A dynamic slate of new work, celebrated artists, and theatrical events that continue to position Baltimore as a home for what’s next in American theater
BALTIMORE, MD — Baltimore Center Stage (BCS) proudly announces its 2026/2027 season, a bold lineup of world premieres, musical celebrations, and American classics that reflects the theater’s growing role as both a national incubator of new work and a cultural home for Baltimore audiences.
This 10-show season, including three world premieres, brings together artists whose work is shaping the contemporary American theater. From intimate plays to large-scale musical events, the season continues BCS’s commitment to developing new voices while producing work that resonates deeply with audiences here in Baltimore and beyond.
“With three world premieres, this season is a reflection of who we are and where we’re going,” said Stevie Walker-Webb, Tony-Nominated Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage. “Baltimore Center Stage is a place where new work is born, where artists take risks, and where audiences get to experience stories at the very beginning of their journey. What excites me most is that this work belongs to the city. We can be a national tastemaker and a hometown theater at the same time, and this season fully lives in that truth.”
The 2026–2027 season kicks off in August with the world premiere of Bocking, a scandalous new comedy directed by Stevie Walker-Webb. This irreverent satire explores the collision between public respectability and private desire—and audiences will be the first to experience it in Baltimore before it transfers to the award-winning Off-Broadway company The New Group.
In November, BCS will unveil CHARMZ: The Other Reindeer, the world premiere of a holiday musical infused with heart, humor, and a soulful, Motown-inspired sound. The show follows Charmz, a determined reindeer who dreams of shining just as brightly as Rudolph.
King Hedley II, premiering in March 2027, is one of August Wilson’s most powerful and least frequently produced plays. Directed by Ken-Matt Martin, this American classic follows a man determined to build a future in a world that has given him few tools to succeed, exploring cycles of survival, love, and hope within a community shaped by both hardship and resilience. The production is part of the citywide Baltimore August Wilson Celebration.
Inspired by ballroom pioneer José Xtravaganza, the world premiere of XTRAVAGANZA brings audiences inside the culture that helped shape Madonna’s iconic hit Vogue. Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, the production explores the underground ballroom scene of the 1980s and 1990s and the artists who transformed it into a global cultural force.
Over the course of the season, BCS will present four special engagements: Bess Wohl’s critically acclaimed Broadway play Liberation, solo performances by Laura Benanti and Betty Buckley, and the Drama Desk Award-nominated Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now featuring three original cast members from Hairspray.
Additionally, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical! and Pete the Cat produced by TheaterWorksUSA®, will offer family-friendly programming for children and their families.
6-show, 10-show, and Family packages for the 2026/2027 season will be available for purchase May 12, 2026. Patrons are encouraged to purchase packages to secure the best seats and experience the full breadth of this bold new season. Single tickets will go on sale this summer.
For more information, visit www.centerstage.org or contact the box office at 410-332-0033.
2026/2027 SEASON
Bocking
August 14–September 6, 2026 | Opening Night: August 22
In Association with The New Group
Written by: Preston Crowder
Directed by: Stevie Walker-Webb
Be among the first to experience Bocking, a wildly irreverent new comedy making its world premiere at Baltimore Center Stage before transferring to the award-winning Off-Broadway company The New Group in New York.
This scandalous satire begins when two children innocently repeat what they overheard at home, landing their very embarrassed parents in the principal’s office. What follows is a chaotic and hilarious unraveling involving a preacher, a so-called gay exorcism, and a mysterious chicken named Danalana Parmesana.
As the parents scramble to contain the damage, long-buried secrets, personal quirks, and social taboos rise to the surface. Blending sharp humor with outrageous theatricality, Bocking explores the collision between public respectability and private desire, all wrapped in a fast-paced romp that refuses to behave. It is bold, absurd, and unapologetically cheeky.
Make sure you see it here first, but be warned Bocking contains strong language and very adult behavior. Definitely not for kids—unless you’re trying to end up in the principal’s office.
Bock bock, muthacluckers!
Laura Benanti: NOBODY CARES
September 17-26, 2026
Directed by: Annie Tippe
Performer and Writer: Laura Benanti
Co-Writer and Music Director: Todd Almond
Direct from an acclaimed run at Edinburgh Fringe and two sold-out Off-Broadway engagements comes Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares, a one-woman comedy show from the mind of Tony Award® winner Laura Benanti. Known for her dazzling Broadway performances and razor-sharp wit, Benanti takes the stage to share her hilarious, heartfelt, and sometimes brutally honest takes on motherhood, people pleasing and the joys of aging. Blending side-splitting storytelling with original songs, New York Times Critic’s Pick Nobody Cares is a love letter to recovering ingénues, mothers, and anybody working on themselves.
Mama I’m A Big Girl Now
October 2-4, 2026
Performers: Kerry Butler, Laura Bell Bundy, Marissa Jaret Winokur
With 16 Broadway shows and over 300 episodes of television between them, this trio has truly done it all! From Beetlejuice to Big Brother, Mean Girls to Legally Blonde, Dancing with the Stars to Beauty and the Beast, Wicked to Gypsy, and even the Country Music Awards, the three met while originating the roles of Tracy, Penny and Amber in the Tony Award- winning show Hairspray!
They spend the evening revisiting the show that helped launch their careers and lifetime friendship, all the while singing hits from the shows that made you fall in love with them.
Join these powerhouse performers on a hilarious and meaningful musical journey about their origins, friendships, careers, and becoming mamas themselves. For decades, they performed as teenagers on stage, now see the fully bloomed divas they’ve become in Mama I’m a Big Girl Now!
A night of Broadway music and stories you will never forget.
CHARMZ: The Other Reindeer
A Motown Inspired Christmas Musical
November 13-December 27, 2026 | Opening Night: November 21
Music and Lyrics by: Nygel D. Robinson
Book by: Ken-Matt Martin
Directed by: Melody A. Betts & Victor Musoni
Choreographed by: Ken-Matt Martin & Victor Musoni
CHARMZ: The Other Reindeer is a new holiday musical that blends heart, humor and soulful sound. The show follows Charmz, a determined reindeer who dreams of shining just as brightly as Rudolph. Full of warmth and big aspirations, the story celebrates self-belief, friendship, and discovering that your own light is more than enough.
Featuring original songs from Nygel D. Robinson written for a Motown-inspired North Pole, CHARMZ delivers festive joy with rhythm and style.
LIBERATION
January 16-February 7, 2027 | Opening Night: TBD
In Association with Philadelphia Theatre Company
Written by: Bess Wohl
Directed by: Taibi Magar
Ohio in the 1970s, Lizzie gathers a group of women to talk about changing their lives and the world. What follows is a necessary, messy, and bitingly funny exploration of what it means to be free and to be a woman.
In Liberation, Lizzie’s daughter steps into her mother’s memory—into the unfinished revolution she once helped ignite—and searches the past to find the answer for herself. “The best play I’ve seen this season.”—Sara Holdren, New York Magazine
Tony Award nominee Bess Wohl (Grand Horizons) and Obie Award Winner Taibi Magar directs this refreshingly irreverent and intensely relevant powerhouse of a play about what we inherit, what we forget, and what we’re still fighting to understand.
PETE the CAT
October 31st & November 1st, 2027
Approximate Running Time: 50 Minutes
Recommended Ages: Pre-K through 3
For Pete the Cat, life is an adventure no matter where you wind up. So the minute the groovy blue cat meets The Biddles, he gets the whole family rocking. That is, except for young Jimmy Biddle, the most organized second grader on planet Earth.
But when Jimmy draws a blank in art class during the last week of school, it turns out Pete is the perfect pal to help him out. Together, they set out on a mission to help Jimmy conquer second grade art, and along the way, they both learn a little something new about inspiration. Join Jimmy and Pete on an adventure of friendship, all the way to Paris and back in a VW Bus!
Director/choreographer Dan Knechtges is a Tony Award nominee and has directed or choreographed five Broadway shows.
Betty Buckley in Concert
January 22 & 23, 2027
Writer and Performer: Betty Buckley
Spend an evening with Tony Award winner Betty Buckley, Broadway’s original Grizabella in Cats and one of the American theater’s most beloved voices. In this intimate concert, Buckley will perform a stunning mix of Broadway classics, American Songbook favorites, and heartfelt storytelling drawn from her extraordinary career on stage and screen.
King Hedley II
March 11–April 11, 2027 | Opening Night: March 20
By: August Wilson
Directed by: Ken-Matt Martin
One of the most powerful and least frequently produced works in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, King Hedley II is a rare opportunity to experience a profound and deeply human American classic on stage.
Set in 1980s Pittsburgh, the play follows King, a man determined to build a future in a world that has given him few tools to succeed. As he struggles to reclaim dignity, stability, and purpose, Wilson lays bare the cycles of survival, love, and violence that shape a community and a nation.
Part of the citywide Baltimore August Wilson Celebration, this production continues Baltimore Center Stage’s enduring commitment to Wilson’s legacy and to stories that illuminate the complexities of Black life in America.
This is a landmark work from one of the greatest American playwrights of all time. Don’t miss it.
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical!
April 3 & 4, 2027
Whatever you do, don’t let the Pigeon star in his own musical production! With a script by Mo Willems—creator of the #1 New York Times best-selling and Caldecott Honor–winning Pigeon picture books—and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma (Elephant & Piggie’s We Are in a Play!), Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical! from TheaterWorksUSA® is even more fun than staying up late and having a hot dog party.
It’s not easy being the Pigeon—you never get to do ANYTHING! But when the bus driver faces a crisis that threatens to make her passengers (gasp!) late, maybe that wily bird can finally help. Packed with an innovative mix of songs, silliness, and feathers, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical! is sure to get everyone’s wings flapping.
XTRAVAGANZA
May 7–June 13, 2027 | Opening Night: May 22, 2026
In Association with 1000% Productions and Broadway Music Group
Book by: R. Eric Thomas
Music and Lyrics by: Khiyon Hursey
Music Supervision by: Bill Sherman
Choreography by: Kyle Abraham
Directed by: Stevie Walker-Webb
Before Vogue became a global phenomenon, the Ballroom that birthed it was already alive with artists, underdogs, and chosen families claiming their runway, shaping pop culture, and changing the world forever.
XTRAVAGANZA is a new musical inspired by the legendary House of Xtravaganza and Ballroom pioneers like Angie Xtravaganza, José Xtravaganza and Venus Xtravaganza, artists whose style, language and movement helped shape one of the most iconic moments in pop culture history. As choreographers and featured performers in Madonna’s Vogue music video and worldwide tour, House stars brought the energy and vocabulary of Ballroom to a global stage.
The original musical, set in New York City’s Ballroom scene of the 1980s and 1990s, follows the rise of a community of Black and Latinx artists who built a world of chosen families, beauty, resilience and radical self-expression in the face of marginalization and overwhelming odds.
Featuring a book by R. Eric Thomas and an original score by Khiyon Hursey, created in collaboration with a powerhouse team of songwriters and producers, XTRAVAGANZA is set to the sounds of Ballroom, House, and iconic ’80s and ’90s pop. Bill Sherman will serve as music supervisor, leading a music team including LA-based producer duo Matthew Campfield and Daniel Klein of Some Randoms.
With direction by Stevie Walker-Webb and choreography by Kyle Abraham, audiences are invited into a community that continues to shape culture long before the world catches on. This is not just the story behind a movement. It is the story of the people who built it, lived it and refused to be erased.
ABOUT BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE
Baltimore Center Stage, designated the State Theater of Maryland in 1978, is a nationally recognized leader in the development of new work and a cultural cornerstone of the Baltimore community. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Stevie Walker-Webb and Producing Director Ken-Matt Martin, BCS has become a home for artists and audiences seeking bold, urgent, and joyful storytelling.
Known for developing work that moves beyond Baltimore to stages across the country, Baltimore Center Stage is a vital incubator for new plays and musicals, a place where artists take risks and audiences experience stories at the very beginning of their journey. At the same time, BCS remains deeply rooted in its city, serving thousands of students, families, and community members through expansive education programs, civic partnerships, and accessible public offerings.
Everything at Baltimore Center Stage is guided by a belief that theater is both an art form and a public forum. Grounded in the core values of Joy, Service, and Connection, BCS is committed to creating work that reflects the fullness of our communities and ensures that the culture belongs to everyone.
For more information, visit www.centerstage.org.