Though the campus is now covered with fresh, white snow, before long the snow will melt and give way to spring’s gentle rain. By then, the University will be geared up for a season of thrilling spring shows. The Argus presents a comprehensive list of theater productions going up in the 2026 spring semester! Mark your calendars and reserve your tickets as soon as they are available, as seats are highly sought after. For updates, follow the Spike Tape, Center for the Arts (CFA), and SHADES Instagram pages.
This Friday, Jan. 30, and Saturday, Jan. 31, Spike Tape will be putting on a festival of one-day plays, starting Friday at 7 p.m. In these 24 hours, students will write, produce, and act in original plays.
The next performances arrive at the end of February. “The Easily Lovable and Endlessly Persistent,” a senior thesis for the theater major written by Sage Saling ’26, goes up in the Romance Language Building’s Highwaymen Common Room on Thursday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 28 at 3 p.m. Performed as a staged reading, the play uses material from interviews with non–male identifying artists to explore the themes that shape women’s roles. This highly provocative work both questions and challenges gendered expectations to emerge with a more dynamic understanding of female characters.
SHADES, Wesleyan’s theater collective for students of color on campus, will be putting on four different productions this spring. The first is “Horse Girls,” written by Jenny Rachel Weiner and directed by Celeste McKenzie ’26. The dark comedy follows the story of twelve-year-old Ashleigh, who learns that her family’s stables will be sold and her horses butchered for meat. It’s “a play about pre-teens: their obsessions, their insecurities and their desperate need to find a place in the world,” as the description from Concord Theatricals reads. See “Horse Girls” in the Patricelli ’92 Theater on Friday, Feb. 27 and Saturday, Feb. 28.
March begins with a staging of the Senior Capstone Theater production “Escape Room” in Theater Studio 001, on Monday, March 2 at 7 p.m., 8 p.m., and 9 p.m. Created by Wennan (Avivi) Li ’26 and Liang Liang ’26, the immersive production merges theater, games, and art, while incorporating audience involvement through its multimedia approach to performance art.
“[T]his interdisciplinary capstone invites the audience to explore absence and presence, choice, and illusion within a world shaped by puzzles, light, shadow, and silence,” the capstone’s description from the CFA website reads. “Inside a black-box space, participants become both players and storytellers, uncovering fragments of a forgotten campus ritual.”
After a relaxing two weeks of spring break, Spike Tape will kick off the second half of the semester with staged readings of student-written plays and musicals on Friday, March 27 and Saturday, March 28, as well as Friday, April 3 and Saturday, April 4. Over two weekends, original thought and creativity will come to the stage at a to-be-determined location. During the weekend of April 3 and 4, make sure you also catch the SHADES production of “Fuddy Meers” written by David Lindsay-Abaire and directed by Jerry Persaud Jr. ’26. The dark comedy follows the life of a woman named Claire, whose amnesia causes her to forget each day. Suddenly, her life takes an unexpected turn when she’s abducted by a limping man. A surreal and darkly hysterical journey ensues, filled with bizarre characters, including a stoner teen and a ventriloquist.
The rest of April is jam-packed with five theater productions. First up, Spike Tape presents “The Ninth Hour: The Beowulf Story” on Friday, April 10 and Saturday, April 11 in WestCo Cafe. This rock opera musical, full of folk-pop and rock-noir ballads, was originally created by Kate Douglas and Shayfer James and will be directed by Ezekiel Allman ’27. For all the English lovers out there, this production takes a uniquely creative approach to the beloved epic poem “Beowulf.”
The following weekend, two more productions will take place. Spike Tape will continue its creative adaptations of literary classics with its ’80s glam rock musical production of William Shakespeare’s “Richard III” on Friday, April 17 and Saturday, April 18 in WestCo Cafe. Directed by Sophie Brusini ’26, this adaptation will follow Richard III on a journey full of threat, danger, lies, and schemes as he seeks to secure the throne of England. On Saturday, April 18 at 7 p.m., Lola Cortez ’26 will present a musical adaptation of the manga “Banana Fish” in the Patricelli ’92 Theater.
On Tuesday, April 21 in the Ring Family Performing Arts Hall, SHADES will present “Tears of Gold.” Performed as a staged reading, this original play was written and directed by Senica Slaton ’26.
“After the passing of her grandmother, a young woman is trapped in the only thing she has left of her grandmother: a fairytale story she told her every night before bed,” a description from the SHADES Instagram reads.
Spike Tape closes out April in a musical bang with a production of “The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee” on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25 in WestCo Cafe. This story, directed by Sasha Nelson ’28, follows six middle school–aged students’ journeys during a spelling bee championship. Comedic yet deeply touching, this musical will rely on audience participation.
As the semester comes to an end, May begins with the Theater Department’s staging of “The Crucible,” authored by Arthur Miller. This production is directed by Visiting Professor of Theater Alex Keegan and will take place in the CFA on Thursday, April 30 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, May 2 at 1 p.m.
“[A] timely parable that exposes the devastating consequences of mass hysteria and the erosion of justice…Arthur Miller’s investigation of groupthink, betrayal, and morality offers a searing critique of McCarthyism, serving as a stark and urgent warning for our times,” a description from the CFA website reads.
Spike Tape’s last show of the semester, “Sunday in the Park with George” by James Lapine, will take place Friday, May 1 and Saturday, May 2 in the Patricelli ’92 Theater. With music by Stephen Sondheim, this musical follows a fictionalized account of the real-life pointillist painter Georges Seurat as he struggles to balance his quest to create a masterpiece and his relationship with his mistress. After his mistress, Dot, becomes pregnant and moves away to America, the story takes a turn and follows the journey of Georges Seurat’s great-grandson and his struggles with his own artistic practices.
The final theater performance of the Spring 2026 semester comes from the students in “Adaptations for Performance Theater” (THEA221). This class, taught by Professor of Theater Ronald Jenkins, will showcase performances of adapted texts on Tuesday, May 5 at 4 p.m. in the Ring Family Performing Arts Hall.
SHADES’ “Does it Matter What We Dream?” is an original theatrical concert experience created by Ting Tsai ’27. This multimedia performance will contain live music performances, a music video screening, dance choreography, theatrical pieces, and interactive elements that explore themes of desire, love, and imagination. Dates will be announced during the semester.
Amelia Haas can be reached at ahaas01@wesleyan.edu.
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