THE SEASON ARC
As America celebrates its 250th birthday (July 4, 2026), New City Players gathers Broward County residents in the public square to produce big plays containing even bigger questions that span a century of American struggle.
Each play examines a different community at a breaking point. These plays ask the question: What holds us together when truth, tradition, and survival collide? Put another way—what holds us together when we’re pushed apart?
Theatre has always been democracy's rehearsal space. It’s a place where we practice listening to views that challenge us, sitting with discomfort, and imagining together what comes next. This season, we lean into that civic role.
Main Stage Productions at Island City Stage
AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
By Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Amy Herzog
Directed by Ali Tallman
Nov. 13-29, 2026 at Island City Stage
Premiered on Broadway in 2024.
THE SETUP
A doctor discovers the town's water supply is poisoned. When he proudly tries to warn the public, the town turns on him because fixing the problem would destroy the economy.
THE QUESTION
What holds us together when truth threatens profit and self-righteousness threatens connection?
AMERICA AT 250
This is democracy’s original question: how do we make decisions together when the stakes are high and the answers aren’t easy? Originally written in 1882, this play predicted every modern crisis: climate denial, pandemic politics, corporate malfeasance, and whistleblowers destroyed by those who profit from lies.
HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING
By Will Arbery
Directed by Timothy Mark Davis
Apr. 16-May 2, 2027 at Island City Stage
Premiered Off-Broadway in 2019; 2020 Pulitzer finalist; 2020 Obie Award Winner for Playwriting; 2020 Best Play Award by the NY Drama Critics’ Circle
THE SETUP
August, 2017. Four young Catholic conservatives gather in a Wyoming backyard to celebrate their mentor becoming college president. Over one night, they tear each other apart over the meaning of tradition, faith, and conservatism during Trump’s first term.
THE QUESTION
What holds us together when we can’t agree on what’s real?
AMERICA AT 250
A time capsule of ideological fracture, Heroes of the Fourth Turning asks us to sit in a backyard with people of deep faith wrestling with politics, tradition, and modernity and actually listen. Not to agree necessarily, but to understand. Disagreement is baked into democracy. At 250, we’re still learning what it costs to listen... and what it costs not to.
ANNA IN THE TROPICS
By Nilo Cruz
Directed by Victoria Collado
Aug. 20–Sept. 5, 2027 at Island City Stage
Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. World Premiere in 2002 at the New Theatre in Coral Gables, FL.
THE SETUP
In a 1929 Tampa cigar factory, Cuban workers roll tobacco while a lector reads Anna Karenina aloud. As Tolstoy’s story of love, betrayal, and survival unfolds, the workers’ own lives begin to mirror the novel, all while the threat of machine takeover looms.
THE QUESTION
What holds us together when efficiency threatens to replace humanity?
AMERICA AT 250
After witnessing community shatter over truth (An Enemy of the People) and fracture over ideology (Heroes of the Fourth Turning), Anna in the Tropics reminds us what sustains community: shared story, craft, and beauty. At 250, we’re still arguing about who belongs. The immigrants in this play remind us that what makes America isn’t just work—it’s craft, art, and soul.
Limited Run Productions in the Abdo New River Room at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts
In partnership with the Broward Center's Amplify Arts program
SHORT PLAYS: LAUDER MADE VOL. III
By Various Local Playwrights
Feb. 26-28, 2027 at the Broward Center (Abdo New River Room)
New City Players' acclaimed NCPLab playwright development program presents its third annual festival of hyperlocal, world-premiere short plays written by South Florida playwrights.
ABOUT NCPLab
Each month, local playwrights gather at LauderAle Brewery for feedback, craft development, and community. The program culminates in Short Plays: Lauder Made, where the best new work receives full production at the Broward Center.
THIS YEAR’S WRITING THEME: AMERICA AT 250
Playwrights will explore the same question driving our Main Stage season—What holds us together when we’re pushed apart?—through the lens of South Florida stories. Expect comedy, drama, and perspectives you won't find anywhere else.
Limited engagement: Four performances.
WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT
By Nassim Soleimanpour
Jun. 11-13, 2027 at the Broward Center (Abdo New River Room)
The play that no one knows—not even the actors.
At each performance, a different actor steps onto the stage and opens a sealed envelope containing a script they've never seen before. No rehearsal. No director. Every night is opening night.
Written by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour when he was forbidden to leave his country, White Rabbit Red Rabbit became a "message in a bottle"—a way to use theatre to communicate the experience of living under censorship, restriction, and authoritarian control.
Wild, unpredictable, and utterly original, this 70-minute experience explores themes of freedom, obedience, complicity, and what it means to be truly present. It's been performed over 3,000 times worldwide from the West End to Off-Broadway by actors including Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, David Tennant, Martin Short, Alan Cumming, Darren Criss, Michael Sheen, and Cynthia Nixon—but never twice by the same person.
AMERICA AT 250
After witnessing communities choose comfort over truth (An Enemy of the People) and fracture over ideology (Heroes of the Fourth Turning), we ask the question: What holds us together when freedom itself is at stake?
White Rabbit Red Rabbit reminds us that democracy isn't guaranteed—and that every generation must practice the courage to question authority, resist complicity, and choose freedom.
Limited engagement: Four performances by four different actors. Every performance is unique. Every audience makes a choice.
Photos from our 26-27 Season Reveal Party
