This summer, a new chapter begins for the performing arts at Chautauqua. With the opening of the Roe Green Theater Center, Chautauqua Theater Company enters its first season with a permanent, purpose-built home designed for all phases of the creation of theater — a robust and vibrant complement to our beloved Bratton Theater.  This theater center has rehearsal studios, indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, a flexible black box theater, a prop shop, offices and — perhaps most delicious — a bar. My colleagues and I are deeply grateful to Roe Green for her transformational gift, and to the many Chautauquans who have also given generously to make this dream a reality.   

A spirit of possibility is reflected in CTC’s 2026 season — which also happens to be one of the funniest in recent memory. Alongside the world premiere of Sharyn Rothstein’s Best for Baby, a sharp, wildly theatrical comedy inspired by the ongoing Johnson & Johnson baby powder scandal, comedy will thread through nearly every corner of the summer. The New Play Workshops will include the irreverent Ahoy-Hoy: A Play About That Relatable Feeling When Someone Else Invents the Telephone Three Hours Before You Do and a new musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, while the FutureNow Labs will feature ERASERS: A Bloodthirsty Comedy and The Bone Wars, two inventive and witty new works, written by CTC’s inaugural class of Playwrighting Fellows. The season will also celebrate one of America’s greatest playwrights with August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned, directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Jade King Carroll.   

The Roe Green Theater Center was designed, with input from Jade and CTC’s Managing Director, Emily Glinick, to be an artistic “beehive” where composers, playwrights, students, directors and more could develop new plays and musicals — from quiet off-season writing residencies, to in-process readings and workshops, to full productions. And indeed, this summer will find some of America’s top theater-making talent holed away in the new building — from Kwame Alexander, Christopher Jackson and Candrice Jones, the writing team behind CTC’s commissioned musical The Crossover, to CTC commissioned playwrights Sarah Burgess (American Crime Story) and Broadway favorite Theresa Rebeck.   

Summer 2026 also introduces our first-ever Late Nights series: intimate 10 p.m. performances filled with music, comedy and cabaret. Guests will be able to grab a drink, settle into the new venue and experience one-hour performances that dazzle and delight. Featuring artists with personal ties to this place — including Kwame Alexander, Sarah James, Mike Thornton and the Midnight Quartet, the Opera Conservatory, Sally Love, Meechelle and Unscripted! — the series promises a new kind of nighttime energy for the Institution: spontaneous, sophisticated and unmistakably alive.  

Taken together, I imagine these experiences at Bratton Theater and the Roe Green Theater Center will feel less like a single summer of theater and more like the beginning of something special and enduring.  A new home. New plays. New artists. New late-night traditions. Grab a ticket and bring a friend, so you can say “I was there when it all began!” I cannot wait to see you there.   

Laura Savia
Vice President of Performing and Visual Arts