5TH WALL
THEATRE’S
2026-2027 SEASON
What Do We Do With
What We've Been Given?
We are all shaped by the worlds we inherit—a family, a community, a history, a set of circumstances we did not choose. But inheritance is not the same as destiny. At some point, we decide what to carry forward, what to leave behind, and what we might build in its place.
The 2026/2027 season at 5th Wall Theatre explores that tension through four theatrical worlds, with productions in Richmond and New York City.
Our season begins this fall with Wet Brain by John J. Caswell, Jr., a darkly comic exploration of family, addiction, love, and forgiveness. In the spring, we’ll bring an exciting new adaptation to Richmond, reimagining a New York work through the lens of our own city. This one is still a bit of a secret, but we look forward to sharing more soon!
In New York City, we’re proud to co-produce Stories to tell at the end of the World by Gina Femia with New Light Theater Project in spring 2027. The production is co-directed by 5th Wall Artistic Director Kaitlin Paige Longoria and Tabatha Gayle with dramaturgy by Kendal Walker. Be on the lookout as this production makes its way to RVA later in the year!
We’ll close our season summer of 2027 with our second co-production with Blk Virginia Theatre Alliance, Is God Is by Aleshea Harris—a Spaghetti Western, Aftropunk, Revenge Thriller about two sisters on a fierce and mythic journey of revenge.
Beyond the mainstage, 5th Wall In Practice will support two Virginia-based artists as they develop and produce their own work. We’ll also open our doors for a pop-up holiday bar and cabaret, with more gatherings and surprises throughout the year.
There’s a lot to look forward to. We can’t wait to share the season with you!
Wet Brain
BY John J. Caswell, Jr.
Directed by Kaitlin Paige Longoria
October 15 - November 8, 2026
PERFORMANCES AT 5TH WALL THEATRE
(300 E. Broad St. Richmond, VA 23219)
Dad is dying. His organs are failing. And he says aliens have been abducting him for years.
Inspired by true events and hopeless imaginings, WET BRAIN follows three distant siblings as they confront their father’s end-stage alcoholism, complicated family history, and increasingly impossible claims of extraterrestrial encounters. What’s real, what’s imagined, and what do we do when we can’t tell the difference?
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
JOHN J. CASWELL, JR.
John J. Caswell, Jr. is a writer originally from Arizona, a recent fellow at Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program, the recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award at Vineyard Theatre, and the winner of the L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award for Wet Brain (Playwrights Horizons + MCC). Other recent works as playwright include Man Cave (Page 73) and Scene Partners (Vineyard Theatre).
Additional honors include the Jean Kennedy Smith Playwriting Award, the Rita and Burton Goldberg Playwriting Prize, a MacDowell Fellowship, a SPACE on Ryder Farm Creative Residency, and the 2017 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship. Education: Juilliard School, Hunter College, Arizona State University. Commissions: Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Williamstown Theatre Festival.
More information on this exciting collaboration COMING SOON!
STORIES TO TELL AT THE
END OF THE WORLD
BY GINA FEMINA
A CO-PRODUCTION WITH NEW LIGHT THEATER PROJECT
CO-DIRECTED BY TABATHA GAYLE & KAITLIN PAIGE LONGORIA
Stories to Tell at the End of the World is a new solo play in development that weaves three interconnected stories spanning 150 years, set in the same forested place. Three young women bound by memory and loss, confront a changing environment that reshapes their choices and sense of home across generations. As each character faces the collapse of her small world, the trees stand as silent witnesses to actions that ripple across generations, determining what survives and what is irrevocably lost—an intimate, haunting meditation on our shared humanity.
Stories to Tell at the End of the World is a commissioned solo play with more ANNOUNCEMENTS coming soon!
IS GOD IS
BY ALESHEA HARRIS
A CO-PRODUCTION WITH BLK VIRGINIA THEATRE ALLIANCE
JUNE 26 - JULY 25, 2025
PERFORMANCES AT 5TH WALL THEATRE
(300 E. Broad St. Richmond, VA 23219)
Is God Is is a modern myth about twin sisters who sojourn from the Dirty South to the California desert to exact righteous revenge. Winner of the 2016 Relentless Award, this darkly funny and unapologetic tale of revenge by Aleshea Harris evokes the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western and Afropunk.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Aleshea Harris’s play Is God Is (directed by Taibi Magar at Soho Rep and Ola Ince at the Royal Court) won the 2016 Relentless Award, an Obie Award for playwriting in 2017, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award in 2019 and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. What to Send Up When It Goes Down, a play-pageant-ritual response to anti-blackness, had its critically acclaimed NYC premiere in 2018 (directed by Whitney White and produced by The Movement Theatre Company), was featured in the April 2019 issue of American Theatre Magazine, and received a rare special commendation from the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. The play was subsequently remounted at Woolly Mammoth, A.R.T., BAM and Playwrights Horizons. Her newest play, On Sugarland (directed by Whitney White) premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in the spring of 2022.
Awards: Windham-Campbell Literary Prize, Mimi Steinberg Playwriting Award, Hermitage Greenfield Prize, Horton Foote Playwriting Award, Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Harris is a two-time MacDowell Fellow and has enjoyed residencies at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Hedgebrook and Djerassi.