May 24, 2024 | Theatre,

Introducing ArtsEmerson’s 24/25 Season!

On May 22, ArtsEmerson, along with over 500 eager guests, convened in the Emerson Paramount Center for our annual Season Preview Party, where Interim Artistic Director Ronee Penoi introduced the shows coming to Boston for our 2024-2025 Season. This upcoming season will no doubt be another exciting one, with nine shows from over four countries — let’s take a look at what is coming this next year:

ArtsEmerson is thrilled to welcome back Christopher Rivas (The Real James Bond…Was Dominican) for a special summer performance of his latest work, Rough Magic, running for a limited time from July 12-13 at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre. In this new play, Christopher Rivas and Annie Gonzalez explore the complications and nuances of a tangled relationship and what it means to question “is it love”?

The Fall Season kicks off from September 20-21 with Fight Night, from Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed. This interactive show, running at the Robert J. Orchard Stage at the Emerson Paramount Center, begins with five candidates on stage and through a series of guided prompts and questions, the audience must help guide the journey in choosing the best candidate.

The September excitement continues with In the Same Tongue, a vibrant full-length movement, sound, and language based-performance brought to life by legendary dancer and choreographer Dianne McIntyre. With original music by celebrated composer Diedre Murray, this show reveals how language creates worlds of beauty, alienation, harmony, tension, or peace. Don’t miss this remarkable performance running from September 26-29 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

From October 21-November 3, ArtsEmerson will welcome Papel Machete’s On the Eve of Abolition to the stage of the Robert J. Orchard Stage. This story, set in the year 2047, imagines a future where abolition camps, formerly incarcerated people, families, and organizers are close to reaching the end of their journey in the fight to end all prisons. Using puppets, video projections, and miniature sets, this bilingual, multimedia masterpiece creates a vision of an abolitionist future.

2025 kicks off with The Life & Times of Michael K based on the the Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name written by J.M Coetzee, running at the Robert J. Orchard Stage from January 31-February 9. South Africa’s Baxter Theater and Handspring Puppet Company’s inventive, poignant adaptation of this story uses intricate marionettes to follow Michael K, a simple man who embarks on a journey through South Africa, ravaged by civil war, to return his mother to die on the farm where she was born.

Prison Dancer: The Musical has been postponed. Inspired by a legendary YouTube viral video, this Broadway-ready musical by award-winning Filipino creators Romeo Candido and Carmen De Jesus brings audiences along a journey of redemption, suffering, and joy that embodies the original story of the dancing inmates of a maximum-security prison in the Philippines and their subsequent internet fame.

In a presenting partnership with Boston Lyric Opera comes The Seasons, running at the Robert J. Orchard Stage from March 12-16. This performance is a meditation on the relationship between our contemporary moment and Vivaldi’s iconic Four Seasons, which is paired with additional arias and ensembles for this must-see production.

Hot off the back of their smash-hit Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Soho Theatre NY runs comes It’s a Motherf**king Pleasure, a scathing satire on the monetization of identity politics that spares no one and literally has audiences catching their breath between fits of laughter. This show, brought to Boston from the UK by disability-led theatre company FlawBored, runs from April 2-13 at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box.

Rounding out the 24-25 Season is Utopian Hotline, a special engagement at the Museum of Science Planetarium and produced in association with Octopus Theatricals, running from May 1-18. Inspired by the 1977 NASA Voyager mission, which launched a vinyl recording of natural sounds found on Earth into space, this experimental and interactive performance from Theater Mitu begs the question: if we were to send another message into the  distant future, what message would we send?

Tickets are currently available for Fight Night, In the Same Tongue, On the Eve of Abolition, Life & Times of Michael K, Prison Dancer, and It’s a Motherf**king Pleasure are currently available exclusively in ticket packages – the Choose Any 4 Package or the Full Season Package – single sale tickets will go on soon later in the year! Single tickets for Rough Magic may be purchased today or can be added onto a ticket package. Tickets for The Seasons and Utopian Hotline will go on sale later in the year as well, so check back soon!

What show are you most excited to see this upcoming season? Let us know in the comments below. We look forward to seeing you at our venues soon!