We’re excited to share our new season—packed with bold, creative, and thought-provoking work. This year’s lineup includes two contemporary plays, our high-energy annual dance concert featuring original choreography from both students and faculty, and a fresh, collaborative take on a Shakespeare classic.
Theme: (Un)reliable Narrator
This season, we’re diving into stories that make us question everything. Who gets to tell the story? What even is the truth? This theme explores the gray areas of memory, history, and perspective—challenging us to think about how narratives are built, adapted, or reclaimed. Expect work that’s layered, surprising, and deeply relevant to our current times..
Student-Directed Workshops
We're also spotlighting our student-directed workshops—where students get to experiment, take risks, and bring their vision to life. These pieces are developed in a creative lab setting and end with fully staged performances. This work is hands-on, immersive, and all about the creative process.
Fall Choreography Showcase
Our Fall Showcase will highlight brand-new dance works choreographed and performed by students, supported by our amazing faculty in choreography, stage management, and design. This is a chance to see what happens when collaboration and creativity collide.
TDPS Callboard
We welcome all UC Berkeley students to participate in our productions! Details about Fall Auditions, Run Crew (Theater 167), and Production Labs (Theater 168) will be posted on the TDPS Callboard.
The Trials
By Dawn King
Directed by Daniel Larlham
In this dystopian courtroom drama set in a near future devastated by climate change, a jury of twelve teenagers deliberates, argues, and passes judgment on the adults who failed to act while there was still time. As the young jurors do their best to serve their society's brutal apparatus of judgment, resentments arise and hatreds crystallize, leading one of them to ask: "If we lose our humanity totally, what's the point of surviving?"
She Kills Monsters
By Qui Nguyen
Directed by Karina Gutiérrez
“But this story remains. And isn't that essentially all that life is — a collection of stories?"
A thrilling amalgam of action, comedy, and heartfelt storytelling, She Kills Monsters features dynamic stage combat, fantastical D&D characters, and fast-paced dialogue exploring the complexity of grief, love, and sibling bonds while celebrating the inner nerd within us all.
Fall Choreography Showcase
Directed by Latanya d. Tigner
Highlighting the work of student choreographers, dancers, and designers, this annual showcase features original solos and duets drawn from a wide range of movement styles and influences. Up to three pieces from the showcase will be selected to be re-staged for Berkeley Dance Project in the Spring semester.
Auditions for Dancers:
Thursday, September 11, 2025
2pm–4pm
(during class time)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Patrick Russell
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
Are you ready for some mischief? As we move through an ever-tangled world of uncertainty, Shakespeare’s fever dream of a play feels especially timely. A Midsummer Night’s Dream invites us to embrace the wonder of human existence, explore who we are becoming, and relish the fire and messiness of love in all its forms — reminding us that joy, connection, and clarity are always within reach.
Berkeley Dance Project 2026
Directed by Lisa Wymore
Berkeley Dance Project will feature a restaging of award-winning Bay Area choreographer Randee Paufve’s Sisters, focused on women’s reproductive rights, a devised community-engaged project in collaboration with the Next River Institute by Sarah Crowell, the acclaimed Bay Area Theater and Dance artist/activist and TDPS faculty member Lisa Wymore. The program will also include selected pieces from 2025’s Fall Choreography Showcase.
Interested students should look into auditioning in early spring or taking the Fall Choreography class (Theater 146A) as a choreographer or dancer.
Workshops provide a laboratory space for student choreographers, directors, and writers to develop new ideas. Focusing on performance and language with minimal technical production, workshops consist of three weeks of rehearsal and two evenings of public performances. Auditions will be held at the beginning of each semester.
This Random World: The Myth of Serendipity
By Steven Dietz
Directed by Tehya Frances Scarth
Adaptation
By Elaine May
Directed by Joshua Gould
Development and workshop of a new play
By Erin Weitzman
Directed by AeJay Antonis Marquis Mitchell
The New Play Reading Series presents in-development or recently completed plays by emerging playwrights. Readings are performed by a student repertory company and directed by graduate students from the Ph.D. program in performance studies. Auditions will be held at the beginning of each semester.