Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts at Northwestern University

No matter how different we all are, we are united by one commonality: our need to go. Using the structure of an ancient religious ritual, this show is both ceremony and celebration. Discussions about matters of digestion, philosophy, and faith arrive with explosions of song, audience participation, and unexpected textual twists.

Based on immersive reporting from the trenches of democracy, Hoyle’s shape-shifting performance introduces us to more than a dozen remarkable characters, all based on real people and conversations. From a crew of Latino barbers in Las Vegas to a Christian socialist from Colorado to a former gang-member turned social worker in Chicago, Takes All Kinds channels powerful, funny, and complex people caught in the social forces roiling the country, offering hope and ways forward in these tumultuous times.

In this foot-stomping new musical, Grace accidentally knocks down the fence between her dad’s well-manicured backyard and Mr. Hertz’s wildflower garden, where she discovers three monarch butterfly eggs on a broken milkweed plant. To make amends, she vows to raise them. Unfortunately, the caterpillars are eating machines, and finding more milkweed for them to eat is hard in the suburbs. Follow Grace as she learns all about these miraculous animals and the preservation they need to thrive.

Obie Award winner and “multi-media whiz” (New York Times) Jared Mezzocchi tells the story of his mother’s relationship to NASA and outer space while asking us to think about the passage of time, parent-child relationships, and holding competing truths. Using the simplest tools—a VCR camera from the 1980s, an overhead projector, and a pull-down screen—he transports audiences from a diner into outer space, while he seamlessly transitions from playing his mother, his father, his aunt, and of course, himself.

Under the glow of a flickering screen, a daughter reconstructs her deceased father. Pixel by pixel, contradiction by contradiction. 2021 is a live performance where theatre, AI, and video game storytelling converge, blurring the boundary between human remembrance and machine logic. An audience member steps into the role of Brian, an unhoused veteran reliving his final weeks inside a looping digital hospital: a labyrinth of corridors, bureaucratic dead ends, and fleeting human contact. Guided by his daughter’s narration, fragments of data become playable memory. Each decision glitches reality a little more. How do we provide dignity in death to those we fundamentally disagree with? Part elegy, part experiment, 2021 exposes the tenderness and terror of digital resurrection. It asks not whether machines can think, but whether memory itself is a kind of simulation.

The Mikos Lazlos play Parfumerie, on which She Loves Me is based, has inspired many adaptations, including the beloved film You’ve Got Mail starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Set in a 1930s European perfumery, we meet shop clerks, Amalia and Georg, who often don’t see eye to eye. After both respond to a “lonely hearts advertisement” in the newspaper, they now live for the love letters that they exchange, but the identity of their admirers remains unknown. Join Amalia and Georg to discover the identity of their true loves…and all the twists and turns along the way!

It starts with the sound of a spoon scraping against glass and the wet noise of lips smacking together. June and Lurie have a haunting new houseguest—and she’s ravenously hungry. They do their best to keep her fed and happy, but Beatrice always demands more. As she burrows deeper and deeper into their lives, the couple faces a horrific question: What will it cost to exorcise Beatrice forever?  Kirsten Greenidge’s spine-chilling gothic tale, about a contemporary Black couple haunted by the ghost of a young white girl, deftly explores questions of race, class, and the American Dream.

Michelle signs up for Slutbot, an AI sexting service, as a creative writing exercise. Through increasingly intimate conversations with AI chatbots, Slutbot and Replika, Michelle confronts her fear of vulnerability, her struggle with self-worth, and her inability to express what she truly wants. What begins as playful experimentation becomes an exploration of desire, loneliness, and self-discovery.

SLUTBOT is an experimental, meta-theatrical play that blurs the line between playwright and character, reality and performance. The play explores real interactions with AI chatbots creating a darkly comedic meditation on intimacy in the digital age. Can we learn to love ourselves through machines? What happens when artificial affirmation forces us to confront our deepest shame? How do we move from fear and self-sabotage toward readiness for genuine human connection?

This docudrama on the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected public official in the country, uses court transcripts and public records to dramatize the trial of this controversial case. Focus is on accused killer Dan White, a disgruntled former city supervisor, and on the jury, which chose to convict him not of cold-blooded murder but of manslaughter, in what became known as the notorious “Twinkie defense.”

Set in Lima, Peru in 1993, Vladimir tells the story of a mother who must go to the heart of the empire that she has fought all her life in search of a future that cannot be found in her country. Her teenage son, Vladimir, decides not to follow his mother and seeks to make his own life.

Inspired by the twisted genius of the fantastical British author, the Tony Award-winning Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical revels in the anarchy of childhood, the power of imagination, and the inspiring story of a girl who dreams of a better life. Matilda is a little girl with astonishing wit, intelligence, and psychokinetic powers. She’s unloved by her cruel parents but impresses her schoolteacher, Miss Honey. The two forge a bond as Miss Honey begins to recognize and appreciate Matilda’s extraordinary personality. Matilda’s school life isn’t completely smooth sailing, however — the school’s mean headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, hates children and just loves to punish those who don’t abide by her rules. But Matilda has courage and cleverness in equal amounts and could be the school pupils’ saving grace! Packed with high-energy dance numbers and catchy songs, Matilda the Musical is a joyous girl power romp. Children and adults alike will be thrilled and delighted by the story of the special little girl with an extraordinary imagination.

Join us for the Danceworks 2027 exploration of doing good and meaning well! What happens when we share our beliefs and desires through dance? Can we make a better world? And how can we move with ethical clarity and intention to help others and share the bounty of life? Is this something you do every day? Is your conscience clear?

In an attempt to rid themselves of a belligerent customer, the staff and patrons of a Texas drag bar are banding together to put on a play. The story they’re telling centers on a family in uproar. Patriarch Baptista won’t let his youngest daughter, Bianca, wed until her elder sister, Katherina, ties the knot—and Katherina’s not having any of it. Enter the peculiar Petruchio, who claims he can make a proper wife out of Katherina and solve everybody’s problems. But what will this unruly couple discover about each other on the rough-and-tumble road to love? This reimagining of Shakespeare’s divisive romantic comedy, set in a queer honky tonk, puts the play’s knotty relationship to gender center stage and asks what it means to be truly seen in a society that denies your very existence.

A gang of teenage girls gathers in an abandoned treehouse to summon the ghost of Pablo Escobar. Are they messing with the actual spirit of the infamous cartel kingpin? Or are they really just messing with each other? A roller coaster ride through the danger and damage of girlhood — the teenage wasteland — has never been so much twisted fun.

This “breathtakingly exciting” (Evening Standard) theatrical tour-de-force captures timeless passion through spoken word, contemporary poetry, and raw physicality. Cyrano seduces in raps and rhymes, using his linguistic brilliance to help another man win the heart of his one true love, championing, above all, his own unbridled love for words. A genius with language, Cyrano secretly loves the radiant Roxane, but she loves the beautiful but inarticulate Christian. Convinced of his own ugliness, Cyrano offers to act as go-between, setting in motion a poignant and often hilarious love triangle in which each character is torn between the lure of physical attraction and the seductive power of words.

Join us for a vibrant and engaging introduction to the magic of theatre, specially designed for children ages 2-5 and their grown-ups. Our multi-sensory performances offer a delightful first taste of live theatre, crafted by a dedicated team of educational artists who specialize in early childhood development alongside undergraduate students focused on theater for young audiences. Come and experience the joy of interactive storytelling and creative exploration with your little ones!