Past Events

Penny and Polly are best friends and gymnastics rivals. They like to make up stories and eat donuts in the car. They get in a big fight, grow up, get religious. They’re lonely and in love and still competing over something neither of them can name. Penny gets sad and Polly gets sick. So does a king living elsewhere. Have you read Uncle Vanya? This isn't like that. This is a play about getting lost at sea and seduced by power; about two friends and how each informs the other; and about beauty, grief, love, and ambition.

We are sick and tired. So you know it’s time to believe us when we are ready to talk. To have our words chopped. To taste our tongues as if tasting honey and eyebrow. We do our best to keep our jobs. We do our best to answer all the calls, and stay on top of our friends’ lives. We give up and feel great giving up. So please be quiet. Protract the silence while we find hard ways of making sense of ourselves. 

A group of outcasts inside a medieval convent obsesses over a young girl famous for theatrical exorcisms. But as the exorcisms turn more and more violent, the obsessions become a new kind of devil, haunting them all. A play about envy, longing, loneliness and what being trapped does to the soul. 

A high school typing teacher, who prides himself on never failing a student, has a new student who threatens to end that streak. While trying to keep the new student from failing, the teacher learns to confront the past harm of focusing on this self-imposed competition and not on the students. On top of learning how to use proper typing techniques, the other students in class deal with all the end-of-year obligations as seniors: prom, graduation, and the inevitability of adulthood. It's a play about dealing with the past, and present, so a better future won't be out of reach.

Hello! It’s 1895. A young writer on a Russian estate recruits his crush to perform his new play for his mother, her boyfriend and the estate workers. It goes badly, but he refuses to give up. It’s also 2025. A company of actors in Austin, Texas performs a new play for you. It’s a cacophony of animals living and dying before your very eyes. But can anything truly be “new”—art, our lives, our problems? If not, then what do we need to feel whole? Come spend a thousand years with us in just one night trying to find out.

UTNT (UT New Theatre) presents newly developed works from playwrights of Texas Theatre and Dance and Michener Center for Writers. Now celebrating its 18th season, this festival exists as an incubator for new work, with many plays continuing on to be professionally produced across the country. UTNT (UT New Theatre) 2025 will feature three fully produced plays by graduate playwrights, in addition to new play readings and workshops.

In this delightful stage adaptation, Roald Dahl’s classic tale is faithfully told by James himself along with the insect characters – Miss Spider, Old-Green-Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybird and Earthworm. The play begins at the end of the story, when James and his friends are living in the giant peach stone in Central Park, New York. 

One of Shakespeare's most cherished comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream follows the story of four star-crossed lovers who find themselves caught in a tangle of amorous confusion. Set between the court of Athens and the enchanted forest beyond, the play explores themes of love and illusion (mixed with a bit of fairy magic) in a world turned upside down.

A Thanksgiving play called by sports announcers. Every family holiday is full of tradition. Every family holiday is full of strife and joy. Where do our traditions come from? Why do we hold so tightly to them? Join the family at Wembly Stadium as they play the game called Thanksgiving Day: a day of gratitude in which we watch some people knock some other people down in order to get the ball over the line.

Exploring the Arts, Exploring the Self is a week-long day camp at the Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas at Austin where youth going into grades 2-5 (approximately seven to 11-year-olds) will explore the self through art, music dance and theatre. Each day, the group will engage the arts to present and perform ideas of who they are, as individuals and as a community. All youth will be involved in each of the disciplines and be challenged to further develop their skills in art forms they are more familiar with as well as try art forms that are less familiar to them. On the final day (Friday, July 19), the group will showcase their art in an hour-long, youth devised exhibit and informal performance for invited family and friends. The full week-long workshop will be interactive and youth should come prepared to move, explore and collaborate every day.