Frontmezzjunkies reports: VINEYARD THEATRE’s Two World Premieres Light Up The 2025–26 Season
WORLD PREMIERE
THE BURNING CAULDRON OF FIERY FIRE
WRITTEN BY ANNE WASHBURN
DIRECTED BY STEVE COSSON
A CO-PRODUCTION WITH THE CIVILIANS
WORLD PREMIERE
||: GIRLS :||: CHANCE :||: MUSIC :||
WRITTEN BY EISA DAVIS
DIRECTED BY PAM MacKINNON
A CO-PRODUCTION WITH AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER
A THIRD SHOW AND ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING TO BE ANNOUNCED
(New York, NY – June 25, 2025) – Vineyard Theatre Artistic Director Sarah Stern is pleased to announce the company’s upcoming 43rd Season, which will include two world premiere productions, with a third winter production to be announced soon. The season begins in Fall 2025 with the world premiere of The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire, written by Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play) and directed by Steve Cosson (The Great Immensity), in a co-production with The Civilians.
In Spring 2026, Vineyard will present ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||, a new play written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Eisa Davis (Bulrusher) and directed by Tony Award winner Pam MacKinnon(Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), in partnership with American Conservatory Theater. Details for the Winter 2026 production will be announced shortly.
Artistic Director Sarah Stern says, “We are excited to share that our upcoming season will feature three extraordinary new productions, including world premiere plays from Anne Washburn and Eisa Davis – two of the most original, brilliant and daring voices in the American theatre today. Anne’s electric tale of an off-the-grid community in crisis, and Eisa’s exhilarating story of talented young musicians navigating loyalties to one another and their craft, are boundary-pushing, emotionally rich, and wildly imaginative explorations of how we live, connect, and create meaning in unpredictable times. It’s a true privilege to be the home for these new works, which will be brought to life by the gifted directors Steve Cosson and Pam MacKinnon.We can’t wait to share them with our adventurous audiences, and there’s more to come – as we have one more exciting production to announce soon.”
The recipients of The Vineyard’s 2025–2026 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, Susan Stroman Directing Award, and Colman Domingo Award residencies will be announced later this fall. The Vineyard’s current Artists-in-Residence include Jake Brasch, Martha Clarke, Josiah Davis, Nazareth Hassan,andKameron Neal.
Memberships are now on sale for The Vineyard’s 2025–2026 season. Three-ticket packages start at $125. Theatre Artist and Under 40 memberships are $40. All memberships ensure the earliest access to tickets at a fraction of regular prices. To purchase and for more information, visit https://vineyardtheatre.org/memberships/ or call the box office at 212-353-0303.
Vineyard Theatre 2025–2026 Season
The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire
By Anne Washburn
Directed by Steve Cosson
Fall 2025 World Premiere
Co-production with The Civilians
Presented at Vineyard Theatre
Somewhere in foggy Northern California, an intentional community tries to live off the land and keep an unsteady world at bay. But when one of their own dies unexpectedly, ideals are tested and faith in their independence is rocked. The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire is a tender, funny, probing story about a death, a pageant, a rescue, a resurrection, pigs, and the act of saying grace. The kids may not be all right.
This world-premiere play reunites renowned playwright Anne Washburn and Obie-Award-winning director Steve Cosson, following their acclaimed collaborations on Mr. Burns, A Post Electric Play (“downright brilliant”, NYT) and A Devil at Noon.
Anne Washburn (Playwright)is a New York-based playwright. Anne’s plays include The Internationalist (Vineyard Theatre), Mr. Burns, A Post Electric Play (New York Times Critic’s Pick; listed as #4 on The New York Times “The 25 Best American Plays Since Angels in America”), 10 Out Of 12, Antlia Pneumatica, A Devil At Noon, Apparition, The Communist Dracula Pageant, I Have Loved Strangers, The Ladies, Shipwreck, The Small, an adaptation of The Twilight Zone, and transadaptations of Euripides’ Orestes and Iphigenia In Aulis. Her work has been produced nationally and internationally and has premiered with 13P, Actors Theater of Louisville, the Almeida, American Repertory Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Civilians, Dixon Place, Ensemble Studio Theater, The Fogler, Playwrights Horizons, Soho Rep, Two River Theater Company, Vineyard Theatre and Woolly Mammoth. Honors include a Guggenheim, a Whiting, an Alpert Award, a PEN/Laura Pels award for artist in mid-career, a NYFA Fellowship, a Time Warner Fellowship, and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo. She is an associated artist with The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb and New Georges and is an alumna of New Dramatists.
Steve Cosson (Director) is a director, writer and Artistic Director of The Civilians. He’s led many projects with the company created from creative field research, working with various communities ranging from Evangelical Christians, to L.A.’s porn industry, to inmates in Colombia’s national women’s prison. With The Civilians, he was the first theater company to be Artist-in-Residence at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recently, the new musical Sex Variants of 1941 at NYU Skirball Center. Other recent theater credits include four world premieres: Radio Downtown (writer/director) Artificial Flavors by Cosson and the company, Marin Gazzaniga’s The Unbelieving, What You Are Now by Sam Chanse; New York premiere of Whisper House by Duncan Sheik and Kyle Jarrow; world premiere of Paul Swan is Dead and Gone by Claire Kiechel; the Encores! Off-Center revival of Gone Missing (book writer); Jill Sobule’s musical Times Square, book writer and director of The Abominables at Children’s Theater Company, writer/director of The Undertaking at BAM Next Wave and international tour; director of José Rivera’s Another Word for Beauty, (Goodman Theatre); director of Michael Friedman and Bess Wohl’s musical Pretty Filthy; and the Off Broadway revival of The Belle of Amherst starring Joely Richardson; and he directed the world and New York premieres of Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a post-electric play.www.stevecosson.com
||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||
By Eisa Davis
Directed by Pam MacKinnon
Spring 2026 World Premiere
Co-production with American Conservatory Theater
Presented at Vineyard Theatre
Four gifted teenagers collaborate and collide one pivotal summer at a prestigious girls’ music program in Berkeley. As their connections intensify, the world outside thrums with a steady undercurrent of disaster and emergency – and they must find new ways to improvise on stage and off. Featuring a live score with elements unique to each performance, this world-premiere play from acclaimed playwright-composer-actor and Pulitzer Prize finalist Eisa Davis (Bulrusher, Warriors concept album) is a sharp, hilarious, aching story about coming of age under pressure. What does it mean to make something beautiful when everything might fall apart?
||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| was commissioned by Vineyard Theatre and American Conservatory Theatre, and is directed by Pam MacKinnon, the Tony Award-winning director of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Eisa Davis is the inaugural recipient of Vineyard Theatre’s Roth-Vogel Commission.
Eisa Davis (Playwright)is a performer, composer, and writer. A recipient of a USA Artists Fellowship, Creative Capital Award, an AUDELCO, an Obie for Sustained Excellence in Performance and the Herb Alpert Award in Theater, Eisa was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play Bulrusher. Along with other stageworks such as Angela’s Mixtape, ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||, and the score for Devil In A Blue Dress: The Musical, she has written for television, recorded two albums of original music, Something Else and Tinctures, and directed a short film, Remembrance. Notable performance work includes Kindred, Mare of Easttown, The Wire, Kings, The Essentialisn’t, the musical of The Secret Life of Bees, and Passing Strange. An alumna of the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley, New Dramatists, and a Cave Canem fellow, Eisa co-created the Warriors concept album with Lin-Manuel Miranda. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Pam MacKinnon (Director)started with A.C.T. in the 2018/19 Season as the theater’s fourth artistic director. She is a Tony, Drama Desk, Joe A. Callaway, and two-time Obie Award–winning director, having directed upwards of 80 productions around the country, off Broadway, on Broadway, and in London. Her Broadway credits include Amélie: A New Musical(with Phillipa Soo), Beau Willimon’s The Parisian Woman (with Uma Thurman), David Mamet’s China Doll (with Al Pacino), Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles (with Elisabeth Moss), Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance (with Glenn Close and John Lithgow), Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Director of a Play) and Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park (Obie Award for Direction). Other recent credits include Itamar Moses and Gaby Alter’s Nobody Loves You, the Musical, Kate Attwell’s Big Data, Christopher Chen’s The Headlands and María Irene Fornés’s Fefu and Her Friends (A.C.T.), the world premiere of Downstate (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, London’s National Theatre, Playwrights Horizons; Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Direction, and The Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction); Lydia R. Diamond’s Toni Stone(Roundabout Theatre Company, A.C.T., and Arena Stage). She has been recognized as among the “25 Most Influential San Franciscans of 2020” by San Francisco magazine, along with Jennifer Bielstein. Pam is the most recent past president of SDC, the national union representing stage directors and choreographers.
PRODUCTION INFORMATION
The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire
By Anne Washburn
Directed by Steve Cosson
Fall 2025 World Premiere
Co-production with The Civilians
Presented at Vineyard Theatre
||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||
By Eisa Davis
Directed by Pam MacKinnon
Spring 2026 World Premiere
Co-production with American Conservatory Theater
Presented at Vineyard Theatre
