Artwork by Yadira Hernandez
(UNION, NJ) -- Premiere Stages at Kean University has announced its upcoming season, featuring a robust selection of new plays in various stages of development. The season includes Mala Aria by Gloria Majule (winner of the 2025 Premiere Play Festival), Flawless by John Wooten, and Effa Loves Baseball by Pia Wilson (winner of the 2025/26 Liberty Live Commission).
“2026 marks our most ambitious season yet.” stated John J. Wooten, Premiere’s Producing Artistic Director. “With 894 plays submitted to our Play Festival, three full productions, two Liberty Live commissions, three new funders added to our roster of foundations, and a wide array of community partners and collaborators, we could not be more excited to launch into summer.”
Mala Aria by Gloria Majule. Artwork by Yadira Hernandez.
The season will kick off in July with Mala Aria by Gloria Majule, directed by Jamil A.C. Mangan (July 16-August 2, Bauer Boucher Theatre Center). Mala Aria was the winner of the 2025 Premiere Play Festival, the theatre’s annual competition for unproduced scripts written by playwrights affiliated with the greater metropolitan area. In this compelling new play, Amazia, hoping to discover a way to eradicate Malaria, leaves her family in Tanzania to pursue a PhD abroad. Experiences with love and loss force her to decide between staying in the West and going back home to honor a promise.
Gloria Majule is a storyteller born and raised in Dodoma, Tanzania. She seeks to tell stories that bring multiple black voices together from across the world and are accessible to black audiences no matter where they are. Gloria has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship and Artist Trust and commissions by Audible, Atlantic Theater Company and Princeton University/The Civilians. A three-time O'Neill Finalist and six-time Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominee, Gloria’s work has been developed at New York Theatre Workshop, Union Arts Center, The American Playwriting Foundation, Abingdon Theatre Company, The Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration, Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater, American Blues Theater, The New Group, The Alliance Theatre, and Great Plains Theatre Commons, among others.
Flawless by John J. Wooten. Artwork by Yadira Hernandez
The second full production in the 2026 season is the New Jersey Premiere of Wooten’s Flawless, directed by Joe Brancato (September 3-20, Bauer Boucher Theatre Center). Flawless had its World Premiere at Penguin Rep and will have its third Equity production at Shadowland Stages in October. A writer and an AI software designer battle to create the next great play in this cautionary tale about the impending intersection of technology and creativity.
John Wooten’s plays have been produced Off-Broadway, internationally and in regional theaters across America. Productions include Trophies (Cherry Lane), The Mission Home (King’s Head Theatre in London) and regional productions of his plays Kiss the Bride, Humbug, UnCivil War, Happy Hour, Duck Crossing and The Role of Della (also produced in Greece, Italy, France, England, Montenegro, and Australia). John’s work has been published by Dramatists Play Service, Concord/Samuel French, Dramatic Publishing Company and Playscripts. Screenplays include The Role of Della (Toronto, Ft. Lauderdale, Cleveland and DC Film Festivals) and Cat in the Pan (Montreal Film Festival).
Effa Loves Baseball by Pia Wilson. Artwork by Yadira Hernandez
The final full production of the season is Effa Loves Baseball by Pia Wilson, directed by marcus d. harvey (October 15-25, Enlow Recital Hall). Effa Loves Baseball was the winner of the 2025/26 Liberty Live Commission, which is committed to developing and producing new plays that celebrate New Jersey’s rich and diverse history. Effa Loves Baseball is the true story of Effa Manley, the manager of the Newark Eagles, a team she wants to take all the way to the Negro League World Series. Effa battles the press, coaching staff, segregation, and sometimes herself to win at the business of the game she loves most of all, even if it costs her everything.
Pia Wilson wrote the audio component in the Harriet Tubman Monument in Newark, New Jersey, performed by Queen Latifah. She is also a 2024 Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Grove participant, Traveling Master for Dramatist Guild Foundation, resident with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Sundance fellow, and member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater. Her plays have been produced across the country. Her Webby Award-winning fiction podcast, If I Go Missing The Witches Did It, starring Gabourey Sidibe, was listed as one of the Best New Podcasts of 2021 by Variety and Mashable. She has also written for Audible’s Till Today podcast and Wondery's Black History For Real. In television, Pia was a staff writer for NatGeo’s Genius Aretha and BET’s Sacrifice.
The Premiere Play Festival Reading Series will be held from June 4-7 in the Bauer Boucher Theatre Center. Selected from 894 submissions, four promising plays will have one-day professional readings. Attendees will have the unique opportunity to hear up to four plays in four days, meet the playwrights, and provide feedback to help Premiere select two of the four scripts for expanded development. The four Finalists will be announced later this month.
Premiere Stages continues its commitment to new play development with multiple free readings of new plays, including the staged reading of a 2026 Play Festival Finalist in December 2026. One Finalist of the 2026 Play Festival will receive extended development with two staged readings in December at the Bauer Boucher Theatre Center.
Premiere Stages will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with two events, both in partnership with the Liberty Hall Museum. In August 2026, At Liberty Hall by James Christy, a previous Liberty Live Commission, will return for a special one-day reading in the Liberty Hall Museum tent. This time-bending story uncovers the parallel lives of an unlikely pair of American immigrants. Premiere Stages has commissioned playwright Erin Breznitsky (Premiere Stages' Satellites) for the next Liberty Live Commission. Remember the Ladies, a new play about the group of women who worked alongside the Founding Fathers as they set about creating a new nation, will have three staged readings in November 2026 in the Liberty Hall Museum Carriage House.
All readings at Premiere Stages are by invitation. To learn more about attending invited readings, please contact [email protected]. Information about Semiquincentennial events at Kean University, including the Kean Galleries and Collections, will be shared in Summer 2026.
Premiere Stages also offers summer camp programs for middle school and high school students and a musical performance series for the young and young-at-heart. For more information about educational programs, click here.
Tickets for Premiere Stages’ three mainstage productions are now on sale. Prices range from $18 - $60, with discounts available for season packages, groups, seniors, and students. To purchase tickets or inquire about opening night or season packages, call the box office at 908-737-7469 or visit premierestagesatkean.com.
Premiere Stages offers affordable prices, air-conditioned facilities and free parking close to the theatre. A series of free interactive lobby talks and post-show discussions are scheduled in conjunction with select performances. All Premiere Stages facilities are fully accessible spaces, and companion seating is available for patrons with disabilities. Premiere Stages also provides free or discounted tickets to patrons with disabilities. Assistive listening devices and large print programs are available at all times; publications in alternate formats are available with advance notice. Sign-interpreted and audio described performances are available by request, at least three weeks in advance. Please call 908-737-4077 or email [email protected] to request these services.
Premiere Stages is made possible in part through funding from W. John Bauer and Nancy Boucher, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Shubert Foundation, The 1772 Foundation, Carole Shaffer-Koros and Robert Koros, The Northfield Bank Foundation, Blue Foundry Charitable Foundation, Union County Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, The Union Foundation, E.J. Grassmann Trust, The New Jersey Theatre Alliance, The Union County HEART Grant and through the generous support of individual patrons and local organizations. Discover Jersey Arts is their marketing partner. Visit JerseyArts.com for more information about other arts programming happening around the Garden State.
Premiere Stages is committed to producing topical plays and interactive programs that reflect people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, national origins, nationalities, ancestry, religious groups, gender expression or identities, sexual orientation, political beliefs, ages, abilities and disabilities.
Created in 2004, Premiere Stages is the professional Equity theatre in residence at Kean University. Through its unique partnership with Kean, Premiere’s play development programs, educational initiatives, and professional development opportunities actively embrace the university's academic curriculum while expanding the scope, accessibility, and prestige of the professional programming on campus.
Kean University, New Jersey’s urban research university, is a national institution of higher education recognized for its diversity, innovation and the social mobility of its graduates. Designated an R2 research university by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, Kean ranks among the top eight percent of U.S. universities for research and doctorate production. Founded in 1855 as a teachers college, Kean has evolved into a thriving research university that supports students as they persist to graduation, give back to their communities and launch successful careers. Kean’s six colleges offer more than 50 undergraduate programs, seven doctoral degree programs and more than 70 options leading to master’s degrees, professional diplomas or certifications, across a full range of academic subjects. With campuses in Union, Toms River and Manahawkin, New Jersey, and Wenzhou, China, as well as Kean Online, the University provides students of all backgrounds an affordable and accessible world-class education.
