Playwrights Horizons has revealed two works joining its upcoming fall season, beginning with Nazareth Hassan's Practice, which will play the Off-Broadway company's Judy Theater October-December, with dates to be revealed. Keenan Tyler Oliphant will direct.
The work follows a performance group that assembles a company of actors to live in an old church in Brooklyn and devise a play about themselves, with press notes describing the show as "a shapeshifting psycho-comedy."
鈥淥ne of the most important events of last year鈥攁t least, for me at my job鈥攊s that I encountered Nazareth Hassan鈥檚 work for the first time," says Artistic Director Adam Greenfield in a statement. "Every once in a while in my career, I've been introduced to a writer who immediately has my head spinning, who has me grasping to get my hands on as many of their new works as I could. Practice follows an ensemble of independent, intelligent, critically aware thinkers who slowly give themselves over to the control of a charismatic leader. When I look around me, stunned by the decay of reason and suddenly scared of my neighbors, in a culture that seems made up of endless pairings of warring factions, I鈥檓 embarrassed to admit I didn鈥檛 think we could be so vulnerable. So easily manipulated and brainwashed. Has our sense of self ever seemed so impressionable?鈥�
Next up will be Jen Tullock and Frank Winters' Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God, performing in the company's Peter J. Sharp Theater in October. Tullock will perform the work, about an author who releases a book about growing up gay in the Evangelical South and the woman who claims that the book's stories of their affair are false. The solo performance sees Tullock playing many characters using multiple cameras and a live looping system. Jared Mezzocchi is directing.
鈥淚鈥檝e never seen anything like it," says Greenfield. "I first responded to the play for its story, which deftly, sneakily weaves narrative lines together, gathering us on board, only to then ask us to question everything we know. And then I fell for the writing, which is both sharp and subtle, and which is so structurally innovative in its overlapping interplay between live feed video, recorded video, and live action. It鈥檚 complex, layered, and expertly crafted. But then I saw Jen Tullock perform the play in an intimate workshop, and I was gob-smacked by what one actor is able to conjure on a bare stage. It鈥檚 a magic act, a tour de force, and unforgettable.
鈥淭his pairing of works in our Fall season is intentional. Though in form, content, and vibe these plays could not be more different from one another鈥攐ne is a large-scale play that studies the cosmology of a group, while the other is an intimate, searing examination of one character鈥檚 psyche鈥攖here鈥檚 an underlying DNA they share. Both plays ask us to consider why we think what we think; where do our beliefs and truths come from? I鈥檓 certainly not the first one to point out that our technology today allows us to cherry-pick the sources we let influence our thinking. It鈥檚 easy to surround ourselves only with points of view we agree with. This, to me, is the opposite of theatre, which has the unique power to expand our range of thought and experience. These two stories reveal patterns of how we might lose ourselves to the mentality of a group, and in doing so make a case for its opposite: a cry for individuality, open-mindedness, and heterodoxical thinking. Both plays, I hope, might help us navigate a treacherous time.鈥�
The theatre is also partnering with Soho Theatre to present the Foreign Exchange Festival in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in December, with four plays by U.S. playwrights getting readings in London and four plays by U.K. playwrights getting readings in New York.
Four additional productions for the theatre's winter and spring 2026 season will be announced in the coming weeks.
Tickets are available at .
