Mainstage Productions

Our fully staged productions featuring new works, and unique perspectives on existing work by established and emerging artists alike.

Inspired by True Events

JULY 2024

Written by Ryan Spahn
Developed by Michael Urie

Directed by Michael Herwitz

In the green room of a community theater in Rochester, the Uptown Players are getting ready to play to a full house after opening to rave reviews the night before. When their star actor arrives in a dangerously unhinged state, they must improvise on and off stage in ways they could not have imagined. By turns hilarious, harrowing, and horrifying, Inspired By True Events follows a tenacious group of show people who must determine at what cost the show must go on.

Inspired By True Events received development workshops with New York Stage & Film, The Vineyard Theatre and EST.

See What I Wanna See

SEPTEMBER 2024

Written by Michael John Lachiusa
Music Direction by Adam Rothenberg

Directed by Emilio Ramos

Based on three Japanese short stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (Rashomon), OOTB’s production of See What I Wanna See will feature Japanese puppetry and translations and an AAPI cast. Examining distinctly Western circumstances through a distinctly Eastern-inspired lens, LaChiusa’s musical adaptation is about the ineffable, unreliable, ephemeral nature of the truth and the responsibility that comes with knowing it.

Call Me Abigail

FEBRUARY 2025

Written by Shelli Pentimall Bookler

Call Me Abigail is a comedic drama about a father and daughter conflict based in politics and the adult entertainment industry. Though focusing on family conflict, obscenity is challenged in light of other scandals highlighted, giving a unique perspective of art and censorship. Call Me Abigail was previously produced by Out of the Box Theatrics and Jennifer Campos Productions in OOTB's 2022 reading series Building the Box.