Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum has announced its 52nd annual season of theater, music and performance: the 2025 “Season of Resilience.”
“This season is about endurance,” says Theatricum associate artistic director Willow Geer. “Theatricum carries on following the California wildfires that touched our doorstep and brought devastation and loss to so many. Each of the plays is about coming to grips, rising above, and moving forward, portraying human resilience and resonating deeply in this strange new world we find ourselves living in.”
The month of May signals the start of Theatricum’s annual “School Days” field trip program, bringing students to Topanga to learn about Shakespeare and the craft of theater, as well as MOMentum Place, which creates a fantastical world of aerial and circus performers, dancers and musicians every year on Mother’s Day (Sunday, May 11).
Officially launching the Summer Repertory Season on June 7 and running through Sept. 13, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is one of the most exuberant and spirited battles of the sexes ever written. This sparkling comedy of love, gossip and redemption is sure to offer audiences some much needed escape. Returning June 8 through September 15 by popular demand, the company’s signature production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will transform the surrounding Topanga woods into the beloved magical forest of the Bard’s most entertaining and beguiling comedy.
From June 21 through October 4, Theatricum presents a new production of Strife, the rarely produced 1909 British drama by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and social activist Sir John Galsworthy. A corporation and its workers must consider untenable options at the climactic peak of a labor strike. Theatricum artistic director Ellen Geer resets Galsworthy’s play in 1890s Pennsylvania amid the industrial unrest and labor movements of America’s Gilded Age.
The world premiere of The Seagull: Malibu, playing July 12 through October 5, is Geer’s evocative retelling of Anton Chekhov’s timeless masterpiece. Set against the backdrop of a country transitioning from the ideals of the free-love era to the self-centered “Me Generation,” this production will transport audiences to the sun-soaked, yet tumultuous shores of 1970s Malibu to explore the societal and artistic upheavals of a culture in flux. In the aftermath of the civil rights movement, a disillusioned young writer is haunted by the rise of a consumer-driven, plasticized world and the early warning signs of climate change. With the crashing waves of Malibu as both a literal and metaphorical backdrop, Chekhov’s exploration of human fragility, and the search for love and meaning reminds audiences of the fragile threads that unite us all.
Wine in the Wilderness by celebrated writer Alice Childress is set to open August 24 in a production directed by Theatricum veteran Gerald C. Rivers, with performances continuing through October 19. In 1964, as race riots blaze on the streets outside his Harlem home, painter Bill Jameson works feverishly to complete a triptych depicting his vision of Black womanhood. As he struggles to find his final inspiration, his friends discover the perfect model in Tommy, a woman they meet at a bar after she’s been burned out of her home in the riots. But Jameson’s artistic vision is challenged by the arrival of this unexpected muse who refuses to be bound by his shallow assumptions of all that Black womanhood can be.
Tickets for all shows range from $15 to $60 and go on sale March 15. Low-priced subscriptions are available now. For more information, call (310) 455-3723, or go to theatricum.com.
