Love, legends and lightning: UMaine School of Performing Arts unveils 2025-26 theatrical season

The curtain is about to rise on the 2025-26 theatrical season at the University of Maine School of Performing Arts (SPA), with students acting out tales of romance, betrayal, gods and glory from acclaimed playwrights across the centuries.

The upcoming season from the Division of Theatre and Dance features a quartet of productions packed with comedy, drama, action and romance, with shows ranging from the classic to the contemporary. 

Running from Oct. 19-26 in the Hauck Auditorium, the first show of the season is “The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs,” a 17th-century play by Ana Caro that explores the other side of the Spanish legend of Don Juan. When Leonor decides to become Leonardo and follows Don Juan, her fickle sometime-lover, to Brussels, she earns the love of ladies and the admiration of all, using her wits as deftly as her sword.

The show is directed by assistant professor of theatre and English Rosalie Purvis, who also co-adapted the piece from the original Spanish.

“I am directing ‘The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs’ because it embodies so much of what I teach and value in global theatre history: rediscovering and staging the works of marginalized writers who have too often been left out of the canon,” said Purvis. “I’ve adapted Caro’s sprawling 17th-century work into a fast-paced version that highlights its suspense, wit and hilarity. It’s a joy to bring this timeless, subversive and laugh-out-loud play to our UMaine community, especially with a cast and crew who are approaching the work with such talent, enthusiasm and playfulness.”

Next comes “Love & Information,” written by British playwright Caryl Churchill, from Nov. 14-23 in the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre. It’s an experimental piece with scenes that can be rearranged with impunity and concepts that defy conventional narrative, and presents plenty of challenges — and plenty of rewards — to all involved.

The show is directed by guest artist Liz Carlson, a lecturer in the Department of Theatre at the University of Southern Maine.

“‘Love & Information’ is a wild meditation on what it means to be connected to one another,” she said. “With over 76 snapshot scenes and no overarching plot, the play invites audiences into a sensory rather than a narrative experience. The playwright, Caryl Churchill, provides a script that is open to the interpretation of the artists creating the piece — so every production is entirely unique, based on the collaborators. 

The first show of the spring semester is “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,” which will run from Feb. 27 to March 8 in Hauck Auditorium. SPA is bringing a musical back to the Hauck Auditorium stage for the first time in nearly a decade, and it’ll be the first theatrical production under the brand-new Hauck lighting system.

Based on the 2005 novel by Rick Riordan, the show follows the titular Percy Jackson on an adventure of self-discovery as he learns about the divine nature of his origins, even as his own thoughts and feelings remain ever human. The musical’s book is written by Joe Tracz, with music and lyrics by Rob Rokicki. Assistant professor of theatre D. Granke will direct the performance.

“For those who don’t know, the source material for “The Lightning Thief” is one of the most popular YA (young adult) novels of the past 20 years,” Granke said. “It features gods and monsters from Greek mythology in a modern setting, and asks questions about what it means to feel like you belong when it seems you never fit in. It’s filled with action, music and some of your favorite legendary characters.”

Closing out the 2025-26 slate will be the annual Maine Masque production, an ongoing tradition wherein UMaine’s student theatre group — one of the oldest in the country — produces the fourth and final show of the season.

This season’s finale is “The Glass Menagerie,” written by Tennessee Williams, and it will run from April 3-12 at the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre. A foundational American classic, this tale of familial love and loss follows a man confronting the realities of his past, while also acknowledging the potential unreliability of his story even as he shares it. UMaine Senior Owen Hines is the director of the production.

“Tennessee Williams’ ‘The Glass Menagerie’ has stood the test of time in the canon of classic American theatre. First produced in Chicago in 1944, the play now makes its way to UMaine in 2026, and despite being 82 years since its first audience, the play holds up a striking mirror to the world we live in today,” Hines said. “A love letter to the magic of live theatre, and a testament to its ability to shed light on the depths of the human condition, ‘The Glass Menagerie’ invites us to step into a world that gives us ‘truth, in the pleasant disguise of an illusion.’”

(Read the UMaine News story here.)