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May 25, 2026 | Theatre,
Introducing ArtsEmerson’s 26/27 Season!
On May 20, ArtsEmerson announced our 16th season to an audience of excited patrons live onstage at the Emerson Paramount Center! The 26/27 Season welcomes bold, globally inspired artists – from a MacArthur Award-winning drag icon to a Tony-winning South African playwright – for eight productions that span rock opera, Shakespearean villainy, Irish celebration, digital grief, Scottish mysticism, and indigenous reckoning.
Let’s take a look at what’s coming to our stages for our 2026-2027 Season:
Taylor Mac and Matt Ray: Songs from Bark of Millions
The season opens in October with an electrifying reunion: MacArthur Award-winning icon Taylor Mac and Obie Award-winning composer Matt Ray, who will bring their epic song cycle Bark of Millions to the Robert J. Orchard Stage at the Emerson Paramount Center. Following their celebrated 24-Decade History of Popular Music, this concert performance features original songs inspired by queer figures past and present, bursting with the fierce elation of a pride parade. In Mac’s own words: if you’re not invited to the party, throw a better one.
October 28–November 1, 2026, Robert J. Orchard Stage
Tony Award nominee and Grammy Award winner Patrick Page turns his singular talents to Shakespeare’s darkest creations in this thrilling, hilarious solo tour-de-force. Moving swiftly through the canon, Page illuminates more than a dozen of the Bard’s most wicked characters, revealing the hidden humanity beneath the malevolence. Directed by Simon Godwin and produced by Mara Isaacs’ Octopus Theatricals, this is a masterclass on the most terrifying subject of all: human nature.
November 19–22, 2026, Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre
A genre-defying live concept album from Grammy Award–winning band The HawtPlates blurs the boundary between dreams and waking life. Part concert, part theatrical event, Dream Feed invites audiences into a hypnagogic soundscape where music and performance dissolve into one another. It’s an immersive, one-of-a-kind experience unlike anything else on our stage this season.
February 11–14, 2027, Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre
Glitter, beats, and banging tunes: this Irish wake is the ultimate celebration of life. Kicking off 2027, Wake is a production that is equal parts grief and revelry, transforming mourning into a joyful, communal act of remembrance.
February 25–28, 2027, Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre
Under the glow of a flickering screen, a daughter reconstructs her deceased father, pixel by pixel. 2021 is an intimate, digital-age elegy exploring memory, loss, and the eerie intimacy of the internet archives we leave behind. In an era when so much of our lives is captured online, what does it mean to grieve someone whose digital presence refuses to disappear?
March 10–14, 2027, Robert J. Orchard Stage
A New York Times Critic’s Pick and Vogue’s “world-renowned mentalist,” Scottish illusionist Scott Silven brings his breathtaking solo show to Boston following an acclaimed off-Broadway run and sold-out engagements at the Sydney Opera House. Far beyond a traditional magic show, Wonders weaves illusion with personal storytelling to create a shared experience that explores the power of human connection and the boundless capacity of imagination.
April 1–11, 2027, Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre
Written and performed by Tony Award–winner John Kani (Black Panther, Sizwe Banzi is Dead), this “poignant two-hander”is set in post-apartheid South Africa. A celebrated classical actor, Jack Morris, has just received a career-defining role as King Lear…and a life-changing diagnosis. As he confronts his mortality with at-home caregiver Lunga Kunene, two men from radically different worlds discover an unexpected bond through their shared love of Shakespeare.
The season closes with a powerful musical song cycle reckoning, from ArtsEmerson’s own Ronee Penoi. The show explores the the legacy of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first and most influential of the federal Indian boarding schools that forcibly separated Native children from their families, languages, and cultures. The Carlisle Project honors those who survived and those who didn’t, bearing witness to a history that is not past.
We are so thrilled to welcome these extraordinary artists to our stages and can’t wait for you to join us for these special performances. Season packages are available now. Build your package here or join our email list to be notified when single tickets go on sale. Which production are you most excited for? Let us know in the comments below!
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