There’s a certain alchemy to New York Stage & Film’s summer season—the sense that what you’re watching isn’t finished, not yet fixed in amber, but alive in the moment. That ethos returns July 10 through August 2, as the longtime Hudson Valley incubator unveils its 2026 lineup across Marist University and the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, a slate that leans into risk, range, and the thrill of first drafts spoken aloud.
For more than four decades, New York Stage & Film has functioned as a proving ground for new work, with projects often moving from these early workshops to Broadway, regional theaters, and beyond. The pedigree is real—Pulitzers, Tonys, Oscars—but the appeal lies in proximity: audiences sit close to the act of creation itself, catching stories like the Tony-award winning “Hadestown” before they calcify.
This year’s season opens with a one-night-only benefit reading of “The Maltese Falcon,” adapted by Betty Shamieh from Dashiell Hammett’s noir classic. It’s a fitting curtain-raiser: a familiar title refracted through a contemporary lens, setting the tone for a program that toggles between reinvention and discovery.
Photo: Deborah Lopez
From there, the lineup sprawls in compelling directions. Jesús I. Valles’s solo piece “bala.fruta./bullet.fruit.” traces the psychic and cultural aftershocks of violence with language that feels both poetic and incantatory. C.A. Johnson’s Lagniappe shifts to a New Orleans subdivision shaped by generational memory, blending humor and ache in a portrait of community life. Shamieh returns with “Unmoored,” a prequel to “Othello” that recasts Shakespeare’s tragic figure as a teenager navigating power and identity in a Moroccan royal court.
Musical theater also claims a significant share of the season. “Paper Menagerie,” adapted from Ken Liu’s short story, pairs a book by Lloyd Suh with music and lyrics by Thao Nguyen to explore a biracial son’s fractured relationship with his immigrant mother, conjuring memory through paper animals brought to life onstage. At the other end of the spectrum sits Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Whistle Down the Wind,” reimagined in collaboration with Deaf West Theatre. The production integrates American Sign Language and deaf culture into its storytelling, expanding the emotional vocabulary of a tale centered on belief, belonging, and childhood mythmaking.
Elsewhere, the season leans into biography and lived experience. “Daylight,” by Kate Cortesi, draws on the real-life story of a man imprisoned for 21 years, using pop music as both structure and lifeline. Quiara Alegría Hudes’s “Menafee” examines institutional history and moral reckoning through the story of a dining hall worker confronting a buried legacy. And “The Death Chronicles (portraits),” written and performed by dael orlandersmith, turns toward mortality itself, offering a series of meditations on loss, transition, and remembrance.
Even the lighter moments carry an undercurrent of inquiry. Jake Brasch’s “Trip Around the Sun,” set in a Florida retirement community, hints at late-in-life reinvention, while a still-to-be-announced third musical suggests that the season’s sense of openness extends beyond what’s already on the page.
That openness is by design. As artistic director Ian Belknap puts it, the works this summer are “stories full of love, joy, and sorrow,” spanning murder mysteries, personal narratives, and “soaring and aspiring musicals.” It’s a broad brief, but one that reflects the organization’s core belief: that development is not a niche stage of the process but the process itself.
The expanded partnership with Bardavon Presents underscores that ambition, bringing larger-scale workshops into the historic theater while deepening the organization’s ties to Poughkeepsie. Together with Marist, the collaboration positions the city as a destination for audiences willing to trade polish for immediacy—and to experience the messy, generative middle where theater finds its shape.
Season passes and tickets for the opening benefit are on sale now, with individual tickets to follow in May. But the real draw isn’t access—it’s access to becoming.
