Dorset Festival 2026 season announced
The Dorset Theatre Festival has announced its 49th main stage summer season, which will begin on Friday, June 19. The four-show lineup includes “Deceived,” a new adaptation of the classic thriller “Gaslight,” by Johnna Wright and Patty Jamieson, running from June 19 to Saturday, July 4; “The Understudy,” by Theresa Rebeck, from Friday, July 10 to Saturday, July 18; “Advice,” by Brent Askari, Friday, July 31 to Saturday, August 15; and “Lobby Hero,” by Kenneth Lonergan, Friday, August 21 to Saturday, September 5. All performances will take place at the Dorset Playhouse.
Before “gaslighting” was a term, it was a weapon. In fog-bound 1901 London, a young bride begins to sense something terribly wrong - dimming lights, phantom footsteps, whispers in empty rooms. Based on Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 thriller and newly adapted by Wright and Jamieson, “Deceived” delivers shocking twists and a final, breathtaking reveal.
The season continues with “The Understudy,” a fast-paced comedy written and directed by Dorset’s resident playwright and Emmy and Pulitzer Prize nominee Theresa Rebeck. Break a leg! . . . or someone else’s. When a struggling actor lands an understudy role on Broadway in a long-lost Kafka play, the actor thinks his luck has changed, until a swaggering Hollywood star storms into rehearsal. As egos collide and old tensions resurface, a sharp-witted stage manager fights to keep the show from imploding.
Next on the main stage will be a lively and raucous new play, “Advice.” Ron and Joy’s anniversary dinner implodes when Gary, a recently divorced, chronically chaotic, and newly self-declared life coach, arrives with a surprise: a self-help book he’s written called “How To Maximize The Most Successful You.” The catch? Gary’s life is a mess. Askari’s sharp, fast-paced comedy skewers marriage, friendship, and the danger of asking the wrong question at exactly the right time.
The season concludes with Kenneth Lonergan’s Tony Award–winning play "Lobby Hero." In the lobby of a Manhattan apartment building, nothing ever happens - until everything does. When a murder investigation entangles a drifting security guard, a rule-bound boss, and two clashing police officers, the lobby becomes a pressure cooker of secrets and shifting loyalties.
Subscription sales for the 2026 season are now open. Single tickets will be available Wednesday, April 15. For more information go to www.dorsettheatrefestival.org.
