The Lucille Lortel Theatre is partnering on two new plays this season: Fantasma by Benjamin Benne at 59E59 Theaters this fall, and You Seem Sad by Leah Nanako Winkler at WP Theater next spring.
Fantasma runs November 7–December 20, 2026 at 59E59 Theaters, 520 Eighth Avenue. Primary Stages presents it with the Lortel, in association with Jan McAdoo. Laurie Woolery directs. The play is set on Christmas Eve, when three generations of women gather in a newly renovated kitchen to make chuchitos, a Guatemalan dish handed down without a written recipe. It runs 90 minutes. The cast is Zabryna Guevara, Alma Martinez, Camila Moreno, Elizabeth Ramos, Nancy Rodriguez and Adriana Sevan; we covered the casting in full here.
You Seem Sad runs April 3–May 2, 2027. It is a WP Theater co-production with Ma-Yi Theater Company, in association with the Lortel, directed by May Adrales. The play moves between Nagasaki after World War II and New York in the early 2000s. It follows Keiko, a young atomic-bomb survivor rebuilding her life in 1950s Japan, alongside a half-Japanese woman in her twenties working through career, love and identity in present-day America.
The Lortel is also streaming a digital reading of American Nightmare by Hassan Abdulrazzak, directed by Donnacadh O’Briain, until October 19. The play is set in a Dubai conference room, where a routine negotiation between two men turns into a contest of power and complicity. Details are on the Lortel website.
