Current Season
Stage Center Theatre | 2026-2027 Season
Fall 2026
10th Annual Nuevas Voces Playwriting Festival
Directed by Sade Cooley, CMT alumna
Founded by alumnus and former Northeastern professor Jim Blair to create a platform at Northeastern Illinois University for new playwrights, Nuevas Voces is a thrilling launch point for new work from Northeastern and its vibrant community. Featuring multiple prize-winning short plays selected from an extensive competition, Nuevas Voces reveals the complexity of our human experience through the many lenses that make up Northeastern.
We are thrilled that this year marks the tenth anniversary of Nuevas Voces, and to mark the occasion we revisited past honorable mentions and selected one to feature in this year's festival.
- 1st Place, $250: A PURPLE BUTTON by Dan Wirth (CMT Senior Instructor)
- 2nd Place, $200: EL CONCIERTO by Sam Andrade Escobedo (Current NEIU Student)
- Featured Honorable Mention from NV 2023, TRIPPING ON XANAX AT A MUMFORD AND SONS CONCERT by David Lipshutz (Community Member)
Performance Dates
- 7:30 p.m. Oct. 1; an opening reception begins at 6:30 p.m. and talkback session at the conclusion of the opening night followed by desserts.
- 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2
- 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. Oct. 3
POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive by Selina Fillinger (performance rights pending)
Guest Directed by Dan Washelesky
About the Play: From acclaimed stage and screen writer, Selena Fillinger, POTUS: or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive is an all female farce that takes a hilarious, bold, and darkly irreverent look at sex and politics. A derogatory comment, a summit gone awry, an anal abscess—it’s a bad day at the White House. When the President unwittingly spins a PR nightmare into a global crisis, the seven women he most relies upon risk their careers, families, and freedom to save the day. Stage Center favorite, and Managing Director of Bramble Theatre Dan Washelesky returns to NEIU to lead this dynamic work that took Chicago and Broadway by storm when it premiered in 2022.
HISTORY: Selina Fillinger’s brilliant, all-female farce took Broadway by storm in a star-studded production that earned three 2022 Tony nominations. POTUS: or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive premiered on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on April 27, 2022. Directed by Susan Stroman, the production featured Lilli Cooper, Lea DeLaria, Rachel Dratch, Julianne Hough, Suzy Nakamura, Julie White and Vanessa Williams.
Performance Dates
- 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12-14, and Nov. 18-20
- 2:00 p.m. Nov. 21
Spring 2027
The Moors by Jen Silverman (performance rights pending)
Guest Directed by Hannah Todd
About the Play: Join us for an electric and often biting take on the gender dynamics of Victorian novels. Two sisters and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, and dream of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all three on a strange and dangerous path. The Moors is a dark, disruptive, immediate comedy about love, desperation, and visibility. Hannah Todd directs this potently relevant work and makes her Stage Center debut.
HISTORY: The Moors premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT in February 2016 under the direction of Jackson Gay.
Performance Dates
- 7:30 p.m. Apr. 15-17 and Apr. 21-13
- 2:00 p.m. Apr. 24