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Oakland, CA (March 18, 2025) – Oakland Theater Project (OTP) is pleased to announce its 2025 Season: Reckoning, featuring five mainstage shows and a bonus OTP Presents production that speaks to this critical time in American history.

“Each play confronts the urgent questions of our era,” said OTP Co-Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran. “From the targeting of trans people and mass deportations to the erasure of truth in authoritarian regimes, the resurgence of colonization, and the role of art as both refuge and resistance. We aim to engage our audience in a way that is personal, compassionate, and moving—not punishing, but also not escapist.”

The season opens with an all-new production of Doug Wright’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama I Am My Own Wife, directed by Michael Socrates Moran (Angels in America; A Thousand Ships), introducing Renee Mannequin in the solo role.

Based on a true story, and inspired by several years of interviews conducted by the playwright, I Am My Own Wife tells the gripping tale of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a trans woman who survived World War II, a Nazi father, and the Gestapo in mid-20th-century Berlin. The play examines the sacrifices she made to survive and the moral conflicts that emerge from such survival.

I Am My Own Wife plays at Oakland Theater Project from March 21—April 6.

Following last season’s hit production of Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living, OTP is thrilled to stage Majok’s breakthrough 2014 play Ironbound, directed by Emilie Whelan (Cost of Living, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus), featuring OTP Associate Artistic Director Lisa Ramirez. An unflinching portrait of an immigrant woman’s struggle for survival.

In a run-down New Jersey town, Darja, a Polish immigrant, is barely getting by on housecleaning and factory jobs. Over the course of 20 years and three relationships, Darja negotiates for her future with men who can offer her love or security—but never both. Darkly funny, perceptive and heartbreaking, Majok’s drama is a portrait of a woman for whom love is both a luxury and a liability—and the American Dream is always just out of reach.

Ironbound plays at Oakland Theater Project from May 2—18.

OTP presents Lorraine Hansberry’s final work—and the one she considered her most important: Les Blancs. The play explores the waning days of colonial control in an African nation, where the dynamics between locals, settlers, and an American journalist unfold—with inescapable consequences.  At a time when discussions of U.S. expansionism—from the Panama Canal to Gaza—are resurfacing, these themes of colonization have never felt more urgent. Les Blancs offers an exploration of power, politics, and liberation that resists simplistic narratives of good and evil, challenging us to confront the brutal complexities of empire.

Directed by James Mercer II, making their directorial debut with Oakland Theater Project after appearing in OTP’s 2024 hit production of Angels in America.

Want more theatre?

See What’s Playing

Les Blancs plays at Oakland Theater Project from July 11—27.

Next, OTP revisits William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, an unmatched drama exploring corruption in the halls of power, and the sacrifice required to overcome systemic injustice.

At its core, Hamlet is a battle between two ways of seeing: the prophetic vision of a seer and the authoritarian surveillance state. The play unearths a crime at the heart of society—one that cannot be confronted without being implicated in it. In this production, Hamlet is the inverse of the Christ figure: whereas Christ dies to save the world, Hamlet must become a killer to redeem it. This radical staging seeks to meet the urgency of our time head-on.

Following the success of 2024’s Angels in America at Marin Shakes’ new indoor theater in San Rafael, OTP will return and partner with Marin Shakespeare Company again to bring its marquee production of Hamlet to Marin Shakes’ larger 165-seat indoor theater. Co-Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran directs this all-new production in a strictly limited run at Marin Shakes (514 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901) from September 5—21.

Up next is a special presentation and OTP Presents production of The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman’s Deportation Proceedings, an urgent docu-drama created from real-life transcripts of a deportation trial, arranged by Arian Moayed.

The story centers on Elizabeth Keathley, a Filipina immigrant who entered the United States on a K-3 visa to live with her husband. After inadvertently checking “yes” on a driver’s license form, she was registered to vote, and participated in a midterm congressional election in violation of US election law. When the mistake was discovered at her citizenship hearings, the Department of Homeland Security ordered her deportation. The transcripts from a Chicago immigration court all the way to the US Court of Appeals present an unflinching look at the American immigration system—and one woman at its mercy.

Set inside an actual courtroom, this production places the audience in the role of a jury, asking them to consider whether justice was truly served. In an era of sweeping immigration crackdowns, The Courtroom brings the stakes of the legal system into sharp focus.

The Courtroom plays at Oakland Theater Project from October 9—19.

The season concludes with an electrifying new production of Kander & Ebb’s Tony award-winning musical Cabaret, directed by Erika Chong Shuch.

In the twilight of the Jazz Age, the Nazis are ascending to power, while the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub carries on. There, a young novelist named Clifford Bradshaw meets a cabaret singer named Sally Bowles—but can their relationship survive the cataclysmic changes in the world around them?

A collision of decadent celebration and psychological thriller, the multi-Tony-winning musical is directed and choreographed by Erika Chong Shuch. This contemporary Berlin-set production explores the tensions between entertainment and complicity. With the rise of the far right in Germany for the first time since the 1930s, Cabaret is no longer just a historical warning—it is a mirror held up to today’s world.

Cabaret plays at Oakland Theater Project from November 21—December 14.

History has shown that authoritarian regimes seek to shut down theaters first,” said OTP Co-Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran. “Theater is one of the last spaces where truth can be spoken through metaphor, where a community can feel its own power, and where human connection is unmediated by technology. In a time of increasing numbness and disillusionment, we believe theater has an essential role to play.”

As the world shifts beneath our feet, we refuse to look away. Oakland Theater Project’s 2025 season is an urgent act of engagement. Theater does not exist in a vacuum—it exists because of you, our audience.

Join us as we confront the questions of our time.

Tickets & Performance Information

Single tickets are available for $10—60 at oaklandtheaterproject.org, by calling (510) 646-1126, or by emailing boxoffice@oaklandtheaterproject.org.

Season Subscriptions are available for $50—300 at oaklandtheaterproject.org/2025-season, by calling (510) 646-1126, or by emailing boxoffice@oaklandtheaterproject.org.

Location

Unless otherwise noted, performances will take place at:

Oakland Theater Project at FLAX art & design
1501 Martin Luther King Jr Way
Oakland, CA 94612

Hamlet will take place at:

Marin Shakespeare Company
514 Fourth Street
San Rafael, CA 94901