27 Mar
2025 Season
Tickets on sale now!
On the PATRICIA NEAL STAGE
MAY 15, 16 & 17
(3 public readings following a two-week workshop)
AMERICAN ARTIST
LOIS MAILOU JONES
A new play by Elaine Savory Jones / Directed by MJ Bruder Munafo
Commissioned by Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse
To achieve her goal to become a significant American artist, Lois Mailou Jones had to battle racism, sexism and the conditions of the art market at home. Her mother, her Haitian husband and her French friend gave her a secure base where she could strategize successes, cope with defeats and embrace the making of her unique work.
SPRING SOLO SHOWS
May 22,23,24
(3 performances only)
DRIVER’S SEAT
Obsessive Compulsive Disaster
Written and performed by Ellie Brelis. Directed by Emily Mikolitch.
Buckle up for a shockingly funny and twisted ride through a young woman’s epic breakup, major breakdown, coming out, and – just possibly – learning how to drive.
May 29,30,31
(3 performances only)
SEEGER
A Multi-media show with the music of Pete Seeger
Written and performed by Randy Noojin.
Original production directed by Mary Beth Easley.
Iconic folksinger-activist, Pete Seeger, plays for a benefit advocating an end to the trade embargo with Cuba, where he
uses his signature songs— If I Had a Hammer, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Turn! Turn! Turn! and Guantanamera—
to tell his story of being “embargoed” by the Blacklist during the McCarthy era.
June 20 – July 5
(Preview June 20. Opening night June 21. 12 performances total – no show on July 4)
World Premiere
DEAR EDVARD
By Richard Michelson, Librettist, and Steven Schoenberg, Composer
Directed by Kevin Newbury / Musical direction by David Sytkowski
Starring Carlyn Connolly & Timothy McDevitt
Dear Edvard is set in Dr. Jacobsen’s Clinic for Nervous Disorders and Alcoholism, where the artist, Edvard Munch, committed himself in 1908. His young nurse, now elderly, confesses her long ago passion for her famous patient, and transports us back to the beginnings of psychoanalysis, sexual liberation, and the birth of modern art. Equal parts music theatre, performance art and gallery installation, Dear Edvard is an intimate, 80-minute piece – an art history biopic, love story, psychological exploration, and family drama.
JULY 25 – AUGUST 16
(Opening night July 26. 21 performances total)
CHILMARK
Written & directed by Catherine Rush
In nineteenth-century Chilmark, deafness was not a disability. Some people could hear, others could not. And everyone learned sign language as a matter of course. A compelling drama that premiered at MV Playhouse in 2018 about a remarkable community, based on historical events.
AUGUST 28, 29, 30
(3 public readings following a two-week workshop)
UNCLE CHRIS
A new play by Allison Snyder and Christopher Hemphill
Featuring the Journals and Letters of Christopher Hemphill
Directed by Michael Herwitz
Sometime between 1982 and 2022, in a building between Lexington and Park, a brother and a sister find themselves living together once again. Adapted from the letters and diaries of ghost writer Christopher Hemphill, Allison Snyder tells her uncle’s story in this zany and tender comedy about a family desperate to stay together whilst also staying apart.
SEPTEMBER 5 – 26
(Preview Sept. 5. Opening night Sept. 6. 14 performances total)
MV Playhouse presents, in Association with Luna Stage
MRS. STERN WANDERS THE PRUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY
By Jenny Lyn Bader / Directed by Ari Laura Kreith
Starring Ella Dershowitz, Drew Hirshfield, and Brett Temple
Berlin, 1933. With martial law in effect, political activism has become a capital crime. A young Gestapo officer arrests a graduate student suspected of illegal research. This interrogation promises to be most challenging as he faces the iconic 20th-century thinker Hannah Arendt. Is she innocent? Or an enemy of the state? Inspired by real events, this fantastical drama delves into the life and mind of one of history’s most profound thinkers.
MV Playhouse is thrilled to bring Luna Stage’s production of Mrs. Stern to our stage after their sold out and extended run in NYC.
TISBURY AMPHITHEATER
JULY 16 – AUGUST 10
(16 performances scheduled, Wednesdays through Saturdays, subject to weather)
THE TEMPEST
by William Shakespeare. Directed by MJ Bruder Munafo
Starring Victor Talmadge as Prospero.