Charleston audiences have long appreciated the convergence of history and intimacy that can happen at the Dock Street Theatre. So when Charleston Stage managing director Timothy Rogers and artistic director Marybeth Clark perched on raised chairs flanking a shiny yellow cocktail table on March 27 and quipped with one another and with patrons, it tracked.
The occasion was a benefit for the organization that was timed with World Theatre Day, the annual date earmarked internationally to toast the art form and to raise awareness for the enduring agency of theater arts in our lives and times. To that end, a returning performer and longstanding patron chimed in with insights. Current emerging professionals from its Resident Acting Company and students from its youth program lent vocals to crowd-pleasing numbers.
The 2026-27 season
The aim was to tease out Season 2026-27, the company’s 49th. Throughout the hourlong presentation, guests were warmed up with some good-natured mugging from Clark, often unbeknownst to Rogers, and even more so by some gorgeously performed numbers from the coming lineup: “Astonishing” from Little Women; “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz; and “A Heart Full of Love” from Les Miserables.
Clark also offered a look under the curatorial hood, explaining reasoning for her choices and reluctance to shows like Little Women, until her team won her over.
And that season abounds with perennially popular, hum-along productions. The lineup includes: Little Women (July 14 through July 26); The Wizard of Oz (Aug. 26 through Sept. 27); Broadway Bound (Oct. 14 through Nov. 1); A Christmas Carol (Nov. 28 through Dec. 20); The Cottage (Jan. 20 through Feb. 7, 2027); and Les Miserables (March 24 through April 25,
2027). Also on offer are three productions for the Family Series: Miss Nelson Is Missing! (Oct. 31); The Velveteen Rabbit (Dec. 12 and 19); and Pete the Cat (Feb. 20, 21, 27 and 28, 2027).
A gander at Gander
At the same time, the benefit tipped up the remaining show of the current season, Come From Away, the musical with books, music and lyrics by Ireen Sankoff and David Hein, which all but elides with the next that this year gets going in the midsummer throes of July. Clark paced patrons through the fast-tracked season, which sprung from available timeslots at the Dock Street Theatre.
The deeply affecting, soul-stirring work is based on actual events immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when 38 planes were ordered to land at Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, grounding thousands of passengers. They were then embraced by the local community, devising ways to shelter and feed them, caring for them in ways that were transformative in a time of profound tragedy.
“The most surprising thing about this show is how uplifting it is,” Clark said. “ It is not a music about 9/11, it is a musical about what happened to a town and 7,000 strangers who were thrown together during a national tragedy.”
Clark has wanted to do the show since it first opened, and has been waiting for it to become available to regional theaters.
“I try to see as many new shows as I can, and always in the back of mind I am wondering if a show would work for Charleston Stage. Come From Away was so unique in its presentation and story that it went to the top of my list,” she said, noting also that the current musical balanced well with the classic on the lineup, The Sound of Music.
And nearing a decade since its Broadway debut, Clark determined that the messages in the work also lend to today’s current climate.
“I believe it is the perfect time to be reminded that no matter how different we think we are, there are things that are universal,” she said. “In a time with so much animosity and anger and violence, I think seeing Come From Away will touch something in everyone.”
At the benefit, Clark offered the crowd a rare glimpse behind the curtain of the production’s set. Landing in Gander, the audience saw a set created by Charleston Stage set designer that departs from the minimalist Broadway version. It had been concealed behind the pastel wash of a drop that had been part of another recent production, Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
From April 8 to May 3, theater lovers and anyone who is seeking uplift in today’s fraught times can land in Gander, too, settling into the warm embrace of a theater to prepare for departure.
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