Collective Consciousness Theatre presents Nathan Louis Jackson’s Broke-ology at New Haven’s Bregamos Community Theatre, under the direction of Dexter J. Singleton. The story follows two brothers—distinct in temperament and ambition—who come together with concern for their father as his health declines. Ennis King (Tenisi Davis), the eldest, works as a cook at a local wings spot, committed to providing for his wife, Tammy, and their newborn son. Malcolm King (Eric Clinton), newly armed with a second degree and professional success, returns home for an indefinite stay. Their father, William King (Terrence Riggins), living alone in the house he once shared with his wife, Sonia King (Alexis Trice), struggles with the progression of multiple sclerosis. His condition weighs heavily on his sons, who must each confront life-altering choices. Malcolm in particular feels the strain—torn between returning home to help care for his father or remaining in Connecticut to pursue his own path.

Hartford Stage’s 25/26 season begins with the world premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Rope. This twisted plot appeals to the psychologically inclined and is deeply laden with philosophical nuance. The production tests the recipe for the theory that “idle hands are the devil’s playthings.” Using Frederich Nietzsche’s übermensch (superman) framework for morality, this crime drama explores hedonism and the fault lines of self-defined principles. It shows how a person’s mind bends to their emotional will and offers just a few ways the cookie of consequence crumbles.  

TheaterWorks Hartford kicks off its 40th anniversary with English, a delicately crafted story told through the lens of several poignantly scripted and cast characters, in a way that explores the depths of language in its unifying and divisive nature. English, the Tony-nominated Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Sanaz Toossi, takes audiences on a journey towards acceptance, by way of understanding, around the bend of miscommunication, barreling through language barriers, with an accented undertone of an apology for an inability to drown out nature and nurture to the end of acquiescing to someone else’s native tongue. Under the direction of Arya Shahi, English successfully places audience members in the shoes of both the native and the novice, and asks the question, “How long can you live in isolation from yourself?”

Under the direction of Zoë Golub-Sass, Hartford Stage presents Hurricane Diane, a play centering on a lust-filled demigod on a quest to flaunt her power, who descends on a cul-de-sac of unsuspecting New Jersey housewives. Consent is out the window, and coercion takes its place in the show of force that is Hurricane Diane. This depiction of the antics of the Greek god Dionysus is humor-filled but also burdened by a vulgarity that drowns the potential for a nuanced plot.

TheaterWorks Hartford's production of José Rivera’s hilarious and sobering play, Your Name Means Dream, is the story of a 74-year-old recluse named Aislin who is forced to face the events of her life that led her to her present loneliness. In Aislin’s story, Rivera hands us all a mirror, offering us an opportunity to reflect on our own relationships, against the backdrop of an individualized culture and the rise of technology standing in as representatives turned replacements for roles humanity once filled.  

Theater Works Hartford’s production of Primary Trust, a play by Eboni Booth, directed by Jennifer Chang, explores the boundaries of a mind in its strengths and frailties. This story, set in Cranberry, New York (A medium-sized suburb of Rochester), narrows in on the life of Kenneth (Justin Weaks), who, at 38 years old, is exploring the stability of his singular friendship with Bert (Samuel Stricklen). Primary Trust peels back the layers of nuance with subtle nods to real-time issues that plague our world and how life, at the intersection of all that goes on—even in a medium-sized suburb—is impacted by each change in the proverbial tide of the immediate world around them. 

Hartford Stage presents Laughs in Spanish, a comedy, directed by Lisa Portes, that tackles themes of love, art, culture and the nuances of relationships. The show is set in Wynwood, Miami during the famed Art Basel and illustrates the nuances of the struggle between identity and fulfillment.

Theaterworks Hartford’s production of King James, a comedy by Rajiv Joseph, directed by Rob Ruggiero, explores themes of love and grief as time takes its toll. Matt and Shawn, two Cleveland Cavalier fans meet over the sale of a set of season passes in 2004—a moment that forges a lifetime of friendship. This production takes the surface of sports fandom and excavates all that life stores behind it.

Long Wharf Theatre gets inside the character with an incredible production of El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom. This play, directed by Sinan Valdez, explores the themes of representation, assimilation, the identity crisis that comes with being “otherwise cultured” in a not-always-so-inclusive country.

Hartford Stage breathes new life into the world of August Wilson with a captivating production of Two Trains Running directed by Gilbert McCauley. Civil rights blues rips through 1969 Pittsburgh and a group of neighborhood regulars tussle with the weight of it in Memphis Lee’s restaurant. 

Long Wharf Theatre presents She Loves Me at The Lab at ConnCORP in Hamden, CT. Under the direction of Jacob Padrón, this classic musical is given new life that emanates a quiet dignity. There’s something to be said about a production that can make a person nostalgic for a time they hadn’t experience. She Loves Me captures the simplicity of a time before left or right swipes and the complexities of love that exists without regard for the era from which it’s being pursued.

The timeless tale of A Christmas Carol comes to life at Hartford Stage in a production comparable to any cinematic iteration of Charles Dickens’ original story ever produced. Directed by Michael Wilson, this production visually heightens the juxtaposition of the joy, life, and merriment of the Christmas holiday with the grief, death, and misery of those who’s hearts have calloused over the years. It’s doubtful that this production can be topped.

Kevin McCallister, Elf on a Shelf, and Charlie Brown walks into a bar. TheaterWorks Hartford celebrates another holiday season with a production of Christmas on the Rocks  directed by Rob Ruggiero (and sponsored by Floyd W. Green, III) that takes the best memories of the holidays, adds a few dashes of adulthood trauma, double strains the somber, and pours up the laughter.

From the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, Disney’s The Lion King musical is brought to life in fantastic fashion at The Bushnell’s enchanting Mortensen Hall. This production makes it clear that no matter how familiar a story is, there’s always potential to create awe in young and elderly alike. Produced by Peter Schneider and Thomas Schumacher and directed by Julie Taymor, this musical taps into the heart of the African culture surrounding the original and timeless story.

It’s difficult to see the bigger picture from inside of the frame. Exhibiting Forgiveness, Titus Kaphar’s brilliant work of difficult truths creates a cutout of shared emotional burdens for audiences to insert themselves into— it pulls back the rug on all of the familial things we thought we healed from, reminding us that healing isn’t linear. Exhibiting Forgiveness is a thoughtfully scripted and delicately executed vision of shared emotional experiences where the through line runs across a range of emotions that make perfect sense and no sense simultaneously.

HeartBeat Ensemble offers us a peek, even if only by way of musings, into the lives of James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry in Jimmy & Lorraine. The convergence of art, love, and politics is a camp fire by which Black revolutionaries sat in the company of other brilliant, bar-raising, freedom-fighting, creative spirits. We honor their contributions and all of their sacrifices in the fight that should not have been— in their tenacity in keeping the baton of the struggle for longer than anyone should ever have to embody the vitriol of vehement and baseless rejection. We’ve gone as far as romanticizing the fight, given its own resilience. But, Jimmy & Lorraine romanticizes the sacrificial lives of two of Black History’s own in a new way. This production imagines what the love and camaraderie between these two civil rights visionaries could have been in a visual salve that attempts to heal the wounds created by the relentless battles they fought for a better America.

“He who fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” — Nietzsche

Hartford Stage sets ablaze the black and white notion of good and evil with a shrill and provocative interpretation of Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde. This production, under the direction of Melia Bensussen, opens Hartford Stage’s 24/25 season with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde like you’ve never seen them before. This iteration of Stevenson’s gothic psychological thriller warns us of the danger of labeling the worst of humanity in ways that shelves our own innate propensity for darkness.

TheaterWorks Hartford kicks off its 24/25 season with a gripping production of Jeffrey Leiber’s Fever Dreams, directed by Rob Ruggiero. Set present day, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, Fever Dreams pulls at the threading of the ties that bind in the tangled mess that is the connection between characters. This production explores the emotional range of grief, and the animalistic tendencies of human survival that give truth to the idea that, “it's not love on which the strongest foundations are built. It's the decency of merciful lies.”

Shelton, Connecticut’s Center Stage Theatre delivers a hilarious and slightly convicting production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change just in time for cuffing season. In a season when bronzed and sun drunk singles sober up in time to think more seriously on their prospects before the cold season emerges, director Justin Zenchuk stirs up audiences with a scared straight to the alter theme that challenges the impossible way we approach dating and relationships.