What does the future hold? Can we change the world? Those are the questions at the heart of Chester Theatre Company’s 2026 season.
Our four plays are strikingly different, yet each brims with humor, courage, a touch of grit, and the thrill of discovery. Futurist Buckminster Fuller, fearless activist Fannie Lou Hamer, a group of scientists confronting the unexplainable, and a peevish columnist offering transcendent advice; the season is alive with characters who dare to ask, “What is our hope for tomorrow?”
We’re thrilled to welcome both longtime collaborators and new members of the Chester Theatre family, bringing together great performers, masterful plays, inspired directors and designers, an accomplished technical team and some of the liveliest, most curious audiences to be found anywhere.
Subscriptions go on sale to the public on March 17. Single tickets go on sale April 7.
Tickets can be purchased by vising chestertheatre.org.
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE
By D.W. Jacobs
From the life, work and writings of R. Buckminster Fuller
Directed by Barbara Karger
June 19-28, 2026
Futurist, environmentalist, architect, inventor and geodesic dome designer Buckminster Fuller takes us on a wild journey from his childhood in Massachusetts, to meeting Albert Einstein, to his extraordinary inventions, explaining how doing more with less can save both humanity and the planet.
FANNIE (THE MUSIC AND LIFE OF FANNIE LOU HAMER)
By Cheryl L. West
Directed by Gilbert McCauley
July 2-12, 2026
Filled with music, humor and spirituality, this is the impassioned story of American civil rights activist and hero, Fannie Lou Hamer, from her beginnings as the daughter of a sharecropper, to co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, to her historic speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention and beyond.
PREMIERE
AMCHITKA
A New Play by Mark St. Germain
Directed by Julianne Boyd
July 24-August 8
In a monitoring station at Amchitka, a volcanic island 170 miles off the coast of Alaska used for underground nuclear testing in the 1960s, three scientists find themselves cut off from the outside world as an event seems to be underway. But what? A new philosophical thriller by Mark St. Germain, author of Magdalene and Freud’s Last Session.
EAST COAST PREMIERE
DEAR ALIEN
By Liz Duffy-Adams
Directed by Michelle Ong Hendrick
August 14-23
In this cheeky existential comedy, a reclusive advice columnist known as “Dear Alien” attempts to finish a book, respond to their readers, help the lovelorn, enlighten the confused, avoid financial ruin, hide from online trolls, escape desolation and explain the nature of human existence. All under a deadline.