CELEBRATING FAMILY FOR THE HUMAN RACE THEATRE COMPANY’S 40th ANNIVERSARY SEASON
What better way to celebrate a birthday than to think about family in all its beautiful, complex forms?
Our upcoming season explores those bonds that define us, challenge us, and carry us through. Family is a complicated word, creating relationships that are as unique as each human being on this planet. It goes beyond gene pool, or shared characteristics. It can be something built over time with care, it can be found through shared passions. We are given family, chosen family, found family.
The 40th Anniversary Season features six productions, combining fresh and favorite works, all showcased in the unique style of The Human Race Theatre Company. Three world premieres, a throwback to our founding production, and fan favorite local artists take center stage this coming season. As we celebrate this incredible milestone, we are thrilled to present a season that’s both bold and heartfelt — filled with the love, fear, hope, belief, and joy that make us who we are.
Kicking off the birthday party, join resident artist Jake Lockwood for his world premiere, Dad’s Place. This farce about fathers and sons grew from a short scene Jake wrote for the 2022 Playwright Race – one of our new play development programs.
In a nod to the very first production by The Human Race Theatre Company in 1986, we present Kate Hamill’s fierce and funny Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really.
Seasonal Shorts delivers an evening of 6 short holiday themed plays in all their messy, silly and frustrating glory! Created by area artists Kelsey Celek, Chris Leyva, Marley Masterson, Aleah Vassell, Torie Wiggins, Robb Willoughby, join us for a festive and feisty set of short plays crafted just for you.
Broadway and cabaret luminary Sally Mayes returns to Dayton to share her one-woman show Contradictions of a Southern Soul in a limited run. A memory play with music, this love letter to mothers and daughters looks backwards to move forward. In collaboration with Weathervane Playhouse in New Hampshire.
Hay Fever, Nöel Coward’s 1924 biting family satire, blossoms onstage in the spring. The Bliss family hopes for a weekend retreat that goes gloriously off script. In collaboration with Wright State University.
Ready, set FRY! The final show of the season is Katori Hall’s 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama Winner – The Hot Wing King. Cordell, Dwayne and the whole “New Wing Order” pursue the culinary crown, when a family emergency might topple the whole plate.
Subscriptions come in many sizes, are suited to any budget, and offer the best value with the most flexibility including our new Generation HRTC rate for ages 20-40! Can’t commit? Choose a 3-Show package or our membership program instead. By popular demand, a Parents Day Out Series is available at no additional charge. Military and student discounts available. Renewals will begin at the start of May and new subscriptions are available at any time. All tickets are available through Dayton Live Box Office at 937-228-3630 or https://www.daytonlive.org/series/loft-season/.
The Human Race Theatre Company
2025-2026 Loft Season
Dad’s Place – A Farce
By Jake Lockwood
Director Joe Deer
September 3 – 14, 2025 – World Premiere
Paul briefly steps away from a lucrative writing career in LA to help his father, Karl, go through an apartment that’s overrun with “stuff”. Paul seeks to use this time away from corporate clients to write something more meaningful, but the distractions of Karl’s life prove to be more than Paul’s creative inspiration can overcome. In the end, Paul finds he has just as much “stuff” to work through.
Recommended if you liked The 39 Steps, Deadline, Shipwrecked!
Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really
By Kate Hamill
Director Emily N. Wells
October 29 – November 9, 2025
Bouncing between horror and humor, Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel is a thrilling play that questions where the true monsters hide. No damsels in distress, no romanticized villains – just a gleeful stake through the heart!
Recommended if you liked Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B; Lizzie
Seasonal Shorts
By Kelsey Celek, Chris Leyva, Marley Masterson, Aleah Vassell, Torie Wiggins, Robb Willoughby
Director Heather Wilson-Bowlby
December 10 – 21, 2025 – World Premiere
Six short plays celebrating seasonal memories, moments and silliness—for adults only! Featuring all the ups and downs of winter, our local playwrights’ original plays will have your sides splitting and leaving the theatre in a festive mood.
Recommended if you liked Reindeer Sessions, Who’s Holiday, A Frosty Night
Contradictions of the Southern Soul
By Sally Mayes, with
Director Brett Cullen
February 24 – March 1, 2026 – World Premiere
An actress returns to her East Texas hometown in the wake of a family tragedy to make peace with the past and accept the future. A love letter to people in her family, this memory play with music sparks the human need for connection.
Recommended if you liked My 80-Year-Old Boyfriend; Indigo
Hay Fever
By Nöel Coward
Director Bob Hetherington
April 8 – 26, 2026
Hoping for a quiet weekend in the country with some guests, Judith and David Bliss, a retired actress and her novelist husband, find peace to be impossible when their children, Simon and Sorel, appear with guests of their own. A houseful of misunderstandings, tempers, and drama ensue as the quiet weekend comes to a hilarious and exhausting end.
Recommended if you liked Noises Off; This is Tom Jones!
The Hot Wing King
By Katori Hall
Director Darnell Pierre Benjamin
June 3 – 14, 2026 – Regional Premiere
It’s time for the annual “Hot Wang Festival” in Memphis Tennessee, and Cordell Crutchfield knows he has the wings that’ll make him king. Supported by his beau Dwayne and their culinary clique, The New Wing Order, Cordell is marinating and firing up his frying pan in a bid to reclaim the crispy crown. When Dwayne takes in his troubled nephew, however, it becomes a recipe for disaster. Suddenly a first-place trophy isn’t the only thing Cordell risks losing.
Recommended if you liked Barbecue; A Distinct Society
The Human Race expresses gratitude for the public and private support which makes these productions possible: Loft Season Sponsor: Jack W. and Sally D. Eichelberger Foundation; Sustainability sponsors: Anne F. Johnson, Steve and Lou Mason, and The Toulmin Fund; Additional Season support: Erma R. Catterton Trust, Funds at The Dayton Foundation, Virginia F. Kettering Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Schiewetz Foundation, the Sam Levin Foundation, and The Charles D. Berry Foundation; Organizational support: Culture Works, Montgomery County, Ohio Arts Council. Media Sponsors: WDPR Discover Classical, Key Ads. Pay What You Can Sponsor: Enterprise Holdings Foundation. Parent’s Day Out: Rabbit Hole Books/Dayton Book Fair.
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DRACULA: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really 
Behind the Curtain Cincinnati 