Artistic Director Marti Lyons and Remy Bumppo Theatre Company are proud to announce its 30th anniversary season. Remy Bumppo’s 2025 - 2026 season includes the Chicago premiere of Wish You Were Here, September 18 - October 19, by Sanaz Toossi and directed by Azar Kazemi and Hedda Gabler, by Christopher Shinn, based on the literal translation by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey and directed by Artistic Director Marti Lyons, February 5 - March 8, 2026 and the third edition of its reading series, Readings on Ravenswood in spring 2026. Performances for Wish You Were Here and Hedda Gabler will take place at Theater Wit, 1229 West Belmont Avenue in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. Readings on Ravenswood takes place at Remy Bumppo’s Rehearsal Room, 1751 W. Grace St. Subscriptions for the 2025 - 2026 season are $61 - $105 and are currently on sale at RemyBumppo.org.
“Marking our 30th anniversary, I am thrilled to announce the line-up for the upcoming season at Remy Bumppo Theatre Company," said Artistic Director Marti Lyons. “This season will celebrate the rich history of our past and the bold vision for our future. It will meet our current moment with delightful and daring plays that exemplify the artistic excellence for which we are known.”
The Remy Bumppo Theatre Company’s 30th anniversary season includes:
CHICAGO PREMIERE
Wish You Were Here
By Sanaz Toossi
Directed by Azar Kazemi
September 18 - October 19
Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.
Previews: Thursday, Sept. 18 - Saturday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m.
Press Opening: Sunday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m.
Performance schedule: Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets: $15 - $55
Subscriptions are now available at RemyBumppo.org
Single tickets go on sale Wednesday, July 30 at 12 p.m. at TheaterWit.org
Set in Iran from 1978 to 1991, this breathtaking and unabashed comedy-drama explores the evolving relationships among a group of five women during the escalation, height and aftermath of the Iranian Revolution.
“Wish You Were Here is an exquisite examination of friendship. Set in Iran and spanning 1978 to 1991, Sanaz Toossi’s play charts the bonds between five women as they grapple with events in their lives and in the world,” said Lyons. “I am thrilled to present Sanaz Toossi’s work, directed by Azar Kazemi, at Remy Bumppo this fall. This piece epitomizes Remy Bumppo’s love of language and commitment to artistic ensemble.“
The cast of Wish You Were Here includes Shadee Vossoughi (Nazanin), Yourtana Sulaiman (Zani), Gloria Imseih Petrelli (Salme), Tina Arfaee (Shideh/New Friend) and Joan Nahid (Rana).
Hedda Gabler
Adapted by Christopher Shinn
Based on the literal translation by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey
Directed by Artistic Director Marti Lyons
February 5 - March 8, 2026
Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.
Previews: Thursday, Feb. 5 - Saturday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 8 at 2:30 p.m.
Press Opening: Monday, Feb. 9 at 7 p.m.
Performance schedule: Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets: $15 - $55
Subscriptions are now available at RemyBumppo.org
Single tickets go on sale Wednesday, July 30 at 12 p.m. at TheaterWit.org
This Broadway adaptation of Ibsen’s timeless drama presents a sympathetic, striking and powerful Hedda in the classic tale of her struggle to find a means of escape from a loveless, ordinary existence. Beginning with the return from her honeymoon, Hedda finds herself bored of her husband and longing for the days when she was free to exercise her wild and independent whims. With the return of an old flame and a proposition from an amorous judge, she begins a dangerous game, amusing herself by manipulating and destroying everyone around her in an attempt to regain control of her life.
“Hedda Gabler is a classic that could not be more contemporary. Ibsen’s work, in Christopher Shinn’s sharp adaptation, keenly illustrates the moral complexity of characters both trapped by their circumstances and complicit in their own destruction. I am elated to direct Hedda Gabler featuring Remy Bumppo’s Core Ensemble,” said Lyons.
The cast of Hedda Gabler currently includes Aurora Real de Asua+ (Hedda Gabler), Greg Matthew Anderson (Judge Brack), Eduardo Curley+ (Tesman),
Annabel Armour+ (Miss Tesman), Linda Gillum+ (Berte) and Gloria Imseih Petrelli (Thea).
+Connotes Remy Bumppo Theatre Company Core Ensemble Member.
Readings on Ravenswood
Spring 2026
Remy Bumppo Rehearsal Room, 1751 W. Grace St.
Complete list of plays, actors, directors and dates to be announced in 2026.
Readings on Ravenswood returns for its third season with more plays featuring favorite playwrights and Core Ensemble members. Each reading includes a conversation with audience members immediately following that night’s selected play.
Dates and other information shared are subject to change.
ABOUT SANAZ TOOSSI, playwright, Wish You Were Here
Sanaz Toossi is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, California. Her plays include the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-nominated English (co-production, Atlantic Theater Company/Roundabout Theatre Company) and Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons; Williamstown/Audible, released 2020). She is currently under commission at Atlantic Theater Company (Launch commission; Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant), Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (American Revolutions Cycle).
In television, Toossi recently staffed on “Invitation to a Bonfire” (AMC), “A League of Their Own” (Amazon) and “Five Women” (Marielle Heller/ Big Beach), and sold an original idea, “The Persians,” to FX with Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields attached as executive producers. Toossi is a member of Youngblood and the Middle Eastern American Writers Lab at the Lark and an alum of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group. She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow, a recipient of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award, the 2022 recipient of The Horton Foote Award and, most recently, the 2023 recipient of the Best New American Play Obie Award. She has an MFA from NYU Tisch.
AZAR KAZEMI, director, Wish You Were Here
Azar Kazemi is first-generation Persian American and thrilled to be directing the Chicago premiere of Wish You Were Here by Sanaz Toossi. Kazemi is a freelance director and educator based in Chicago who directs socially-charged plays where the political and personal collide. She is an Equity Jeff-nominated director for her work on Rivendell Theatre Ensemble's critically-acclaimed world premiere of Motherhouse by Tuckie White. Last season, she directed a sold-out run of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind at Raven Theatre and Steep Theatre's world premiere of Happy Days Are Here (Again) by Omer Abbas Salem at Steppenwolf's 1700 Theatre, which was named one of the top ten shows of 2024 by the Chicago Tribune. Kazemi received her MFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she is also on faculty and received the 2021 Excellence in Teaching Award. Before moving to Chicago she assistant directed three Off-Broadway productions with The New Group, two under the direction of her mentor Ethan Hawke. She is a proud member of Stage Directors and Choreography Society.
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER SHINN, playwright, Hedda Gabler
Christopher Shinn is a playwright who lives in New York. Several of his plays have premiered at the Royal Court: Four, Other People, Where Do We Live (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting), Dying City (2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist) and Now or Later (shortlisted for the Evening Standard Theatre Award, Best Play). Other plays include The Narcissist (Chichester Festival Theatre), Against (Almeida Theatre), Teddy Ferrara (Goodman Theatre and Donmar Warehouse), An Opening in Time (Hartford Stage), Picked (Vineyard Theatre), On the Mountain (South Coast Rep), What Didn't Happen (Playwrights Horizons) and The Coming World (Soho Theatre).
His adaptation of Hedda Gabler premiered on Broadway in 2009 and his adaptation of Judgment Day premiered at Park Avenue Armory in 2019 and was nominated for a 2020 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Adaptation. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005, a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard in 2019-2020, a Cullman Fellow at New York Public Library in 2020-2021, a MacDowell Fellow in 2023 and a Hawthornden Fellow in 2024.
ABOUT MARTI LYONS, director, Hedda Gabler
Marti Lyons (she/her/hers) most recently directed Yasmina Reza’s ‘ART,’ Love Song by John Kolvenbach and Galileo’s Daughter by Jessica Dickey at Remy Bumppo Theatre Company. Other selected credits include the world premiere of John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower at Studio Theatre in D.C.; Little Women adapted by Kate Hamill at Seattle Repertory Theatre and Milwaukee Repertory Theatre; Wife of a Salesman by Eleanor Burgess at Milwaukee Rep; Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberly at Northlight Theatre; The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess at Writers Theatre; Cymbeline and Sense and Sensibility at American Players Theatre; The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe and Kings by Sarah Burgess at Studio Theatre; the world premiere of How to Defend Yourself by liliana padilla, a Victory Gardens and Actors Theatre of Louisville co-production; Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee at Victory Gardens and City Theatre in Pittsburgh and Merrimack Repertory Theatre; Witch by Jen Silverman at Geffen Playhouse and Writers Theatre (LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Direction); Native Gardens by Karen Zacarías at Victory Gardens Theatre Company; Botticelli in the Fire by Jordan Tannahill at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; I, Banquo, Short Shakes! Romeo and Juliet and Short Shakes! Macbeth at Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Title and Deed by Will Eno at Lookingglass Theatre Company and Laura Marks’ Bethany and Mine at The Gift Theatre. Lyons is an ensemble member at The Gift Theatre and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
ABOUT REMY BUMPPO THEATRE COMPANY
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company expands and enriches their community’s view of the world, and their own, by producing both the great plays of the past and the important plays of today. As an ensemble-driven theater company, Remy Bumppo authors a more humane culture that listens to, and seeks to understand, the voices, the ideas and the stories of one another.
Since its inception in 1996, Remy Bumppo has produced a blend of modern classics and complex contemporary works, presented in an intimate setting with clarity, wit and passion. We invite audiences to engage directly with the art through conversation with the artists.
Top row: (L to R) WISH YOU WERE HERE Playwright Sanaz Toossi and Director Azar Kazemi
Second row: HEDDA GABLER Playwright Christopher Shinn, translation by Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey (not pictured) and Director Artistic Director Marti Lyons.