Reading, Pennsylvania's Genesius Theatre has revealed its 2026 season, the first programmed by new artistic director, Broadway playwright Douglas Carter Beane.
Notably, the season will close with the world premiere of a new musical from Beane, Society Hill, set to perform December 11-26. In the tradition of musicals like Crazy for You or Nice Work If You Can Get It, Society Hill will match a new, original story with songs from the catalogue of George and Ira Gershwin. Beane's story satirizes black-and-white Katharine Hepburn films, following a Philadelphia debutante who falls in love with a man she meets doing community service after a DUI. Audiences can expect to hear Gershwin favorites like "The Man I Love," "But Not for Me," "Sweet and Lowdown," "Lady Be Good," and more.
Beane is directing the premiere along with penning the musical's book, with musical arrangements and performance by Genesius co-founder Michael O'Flaherty.
The season will open with Beane's The Behavior of Light February 19-22, returning to the Pennsylvania stage following performances of the work last year. Beane is directing. The Broadway favorite will co-direct J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan with James Haggerty, with performances running April 10-19. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, reset to take place in a dance club, will be offered September 25-October 4 with Beane at the helm, while Haggerty will direct Hamilton Dean and John L. Balderston's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula October 23-31.
The season also includes several offerings for younger performers. A new kids' adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance will perform March 6-15, with Dara Tatarowicz at the helm. The Kids edition of Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella—adapted again by Beane from the full-length version he wrote for Broadway—will perform July 23-24 with Becka Malanios directing. And finally, the kids themselves will get to write with the world premiere of Aesop's Fables August 21-22. Director Malanios will lead a cast of kids as they devise their own musical take on such stories as The Tortoise and the Hare, The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, and others.
“This season is about leaning into wonder,” says Beane. “It’s about children and adults performing and sitting side by side, laughing at the same joke for different reasons. It’s about old stories made brash and new again, and new stories discovered together.”
Beane began his theatrical career on Genesius' stage while growing up in Reading, using his experiences there as the partial inspiration behind his community theatre-focused play Shows for Days, which played an Off-Broadway run in 2015 via Lincoln Center Theater with Patti LuPone and Michael Urie starring. Beane took the reins of the company after learning of a leadership vacancy and financial troubles last year.
Since his Pennsylvania days, Beane has become a prominent stage and screen writer, with five Tony nominations to his name. On Broadway alone, his works include The Little Dog Laughed, Xanadu, Sister Act, Lysistrata Jones, Cinderella, and The Nance. His screenwriting credits include To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.
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