Season 33, 2025-2026
Power. Legacy. Truth
A newly crowned queen forced to confront the wreckage of old friendships.
A father and daughter struggle to connect when they need each other most.
A group of outsiders gather to reclaim their humanity.
The three shows in A Red Orchid’s 33rd Season interrogate how we hold power, the legacy and consequences of our actions, and who ultimately gets to define the truth.
“In a world where power shifts on a dime, the future feels uncertain, and the truth seems always up for debate, how do we stay connected to each other and our own humanity?” asks Artistic Director Kirsten Fitzgerald. “I cannot fully express how inspired I am by each of these playwrights and their creations. To collaborate with them and the visionary directors attached is my current answer. Each of these three plays presents deeply complex humans in deeply complicated relationships with each other and the world around them. Whether laugh or love or cringe inducing, it is thrilling as an artist to navigate and share their personal and intersocial collisions.”
Season 33 includes:
Veal
Written by Jojo Jones
Directed by Ensemble Member dado
Performance Dates: Oct 2 – Nov 9, 2025
Preview Performances: Oct 2 – 11, 2025
Press Performances: Oct 11, 2025
Regular Run Performances: Oct 12 – Nov 9, 2025
World Premiere!
Following a violent coup, a young woman named Chelsea becomes Queen of North America. Into her new palace walk three friends from middle school — Franny, Lulu, and Noa — with whom she hasn’t spoken in years. They’ve come to ask Chelsea for a big favor, but before she grants it, she’s going to make them revisit their shared friendship — and its terrible end.
Birds of North America
Written by Anna Ouyang Moench
Directed by Artistic Director Kirsten Fitzgerald
Featuring Ensemble Member John Judd
Performance Dates: Jan 15 – Feb 22, 2026
Preview Performances: Jan 15 – 24, 2026
Press Performances: Jan 24, 2026
Regular Run Performances: Jan 25 – Feb 22, 2026
Chicago Premiere!
John and his daughter Caitlyn are birders. As they scan the skies over their backyard in suburban Maryland looking for elusive birds, years go by. Relationships begin and end. Children grow up and parents age. The climate and the world change in small and vast ways. BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA takes a close look at the relationship of a father and daughter over the course of a decade as they struggle to understand the parts of one another that defy understanding.
The Targeted
Written by Hanna Kime
Directed by Grace Dolezal-Ng
Featuring Ensemble Members Kirsten Fitzgerald, Lawrence Grimm, Sadieh Rifai, & Natalie West
Performance Dates: April 23 – May 31, 2026
Preview Performances: April 23 – May 2, 2026
Press Performances: May 2, 2026
Regular Run Performances: May 3 – 31, 2026
World Premiere!
Welcome to the Unity and Hope Conference. A gathering of the most persecuted, tortured, and misunderstood people in the entire world. They call themselves Targeted Individuals, and they are victims of a vast and covert program of systematic torture, surveillance, and harassment by global intergovernmental powers. Over the course of this weekend in the woods they will discuss strategies to take down the deep state, bring awareness to their plight, and despite their suffering, stay human.