Central Square Theater’s next season puts characters on “the precipice of choice” – confounded by a crucial decision or caught in moments that require courage.
“I think that came together somewhat intuitively because, frankly, it’s the time we’re in,” said Lee Mikeska Gardner, executive director of the theater. “We’re looking at how do we activate our own values, not only within our theater company – but within our own personal lives.”
This 2025-2026 season includes “Silent Sky,” “Summer 1976,” “The Moderate,” “Breaking the Code” and “The Mystery of Irma Vep – A Penny Dreadful.” While fulfilling a mission of featuring feminine perspectives, the intersection of arts and science, and social justice, programmers say, the selection tries to start eye-opening conversations and broaden audience perspectives.
“A play gives you the opportunity to look at the world a different way,” said Catherine Carr Kelly, the theater’s artistic director. With the slate coming along, “it’s less that we’re trying to say any one thing, but we’re trying to open people up to conversation and to thinking beyond ourselves.”
Gardner and Kelly are proud of the breadth of this year’s plays – “Silent Sky,” for example, features a cast of five and centers on a local story, human computer Henrietta Leavitt of Harvard. “Breaking the Code” is also based on scientific history, and tells the story of Alan Turing, his instrumental work toward the Allied victory in the World War II and the homophobia later levied against him. “Summer 1976” is an intimate work about an unlikely friendship between two women – and stars only two actors. Each season is planned years in advance, with plays cultivated from the tastes of the directors, connections with agents and actors and local partnerships and even connections in New York.
“We have a list which is ever-growing – sometimes it’s a little lean, but ever growing – of plays that fit our mission,” Gardner said. “It allows us to actually look beyond just one idea, or it allows us to look at an idea from different approaches.”
The original season announcement June 20 had one slot still marked as “TBA,” but that has been filed with “The Moderate,” a world-premiere play set during the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020; Gardner and Kelly said they were awaiting cast and crew confirmations before announcing. The play largely takes place over Zoom, posing a unique challenge in constructing the set design for the show.
“When we workshopped this play last year, that was one of the big questions,” Kelly said. “How do you stay in the work? How do you have big screens helping to tell the story and then keep the story intimate as well?”
This year, projections and technology will play a large role in the set designs, from the centrality of Zoom in “The Moderate” to the science and technology at the center of “Silent Sky” and “Breaking the Code.” The artistic and executive direction at Central Square Theater will work through this new challenge in a changing theatrical world, much like the characters in this season’s works.
“With the advent of projections and all this high-tech stuff, the theatrical world has been experimenting with what is that balance?” Gardner said. “When do we tip over into losing the human story because of so much tech onstage?”
The chronology of the season, like the programming, is a blend of logistics and artistic intention. The upcoming season will begin with a tale truly about sisterhood in “Silent Sky” and end with a weird, quirky comedy in “The Mystery of Irma Vep – A Penny Dreadful.” Gardner hopes to illustrate not only a journey within each play, but a journey throughout the entire season.
“The first show of the season is also really important, because we’re back, we’re coming out of summer, join us for the next nine months,” Gardner said. “The final show of the season, we want people to leave the season excited about what they just saw.”
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