News
In Masquerade, a new immersive Off-Broadway production directed by Theatre alum Diane Paulus '97, audiences get to step into the world of the Phantom of the Opera. The show is set in a haunted opera house and follows the young soprano Christine Daaé, being tutored by the titular Phantom. Audiences are split into six groups, each guided through multiple interactive rooms and floors by a different pair of actors playing the lead duo.
Five Playwriting alums have their short plays included in Methuen Drama’s new anthology, The Future is Short, edited by Mitchell Thomas, award-winning actor, director, and professor at Westmount College. The anthology features 20 short plays of various genres with a run time under 15 minutes, “written by some of the most exciting contemporary voices in American theatre.” These inventive, resonant plays are catered to college and high school students developing their craft.
Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), has selected Goldie E. Patrick '23 as the 2026-2027 Lloyd Richards New Futures Resident Artist.
Playwright, librettist, and dramaturg Mo Holmes '26 has been awarded the 2026 Yale Drama Prize for her play Amanda. Holmes’s play was selected by Pulitzer- and Tony-winning playwright and current Yale faculty member Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Past recipients of this prize include playwright and Northwestern faculty member Ariel Stess and playwright Jen Silvers.
Can a story about a group of 8th century nuns living in rural Italy entertain and provoke contemporary audiences? Playwright Miranda Rose Hall, finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, thinks so—and Shayok Misha Chowdhury '16 is directing the world premiere of her original play, Work of Devotion, for Second Stage in February 2027, at the Pershing Square Signature Center.
Suicide Cowboys by Greg T. Nanni '21 has been selected as one of four plays for the Playwrights Foundation's 47th Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) lineup out of a highly competitive pool of 601 applicants.
Since The Public's newly renovated Delacorte Theater reopened last summer, Columbia alums have featured prominently on stage and behind the scenes at one of New York City's most iconic summertime traditions: Shakespeare in the Park. In case you missed it, Saheem Ali '07 directed the park's first production of Romeo and Juliet in 20 years—and romance was in the air.
Awake and Sing!, Clifford Odets's landmark 1935 play about the struggles and aspirations of a Depression-era Jewish family in the Bronx, will return to Broadway next winter for the first time in two decades—and will mark the Broadway debut of director Tyne Rafaeli '14.
Playwriting student Anterior Leverett was awarded the Hansberry-Lilly Fellowship from the Dramatists Guild Foundation, created to support generations of female-identifying playwrights of color.
The Classical Theater of Harlem has announced that its 2026 Uptown Shakespeare in the Park production will be Othello—one of Shakespeare's most emotionally-charged tragedies, exploring power, rage, and racism—directed by Carl Cofield '14 with assistant direction from Kanika Asavari Vaish '22.
The Off-Broadway hit, School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls by Playwriting alum Jocelyn Bioh '08, is getting its Broadway bow with leading nonprofit theatre company, Manhattan Theatre Club, this fall.
