The 2026 Season at LNT

Show Overview

It's Theatrical Bliss in 2026!

Time turns, and round we go again,
Counting blessings for a year that’s been,
Holding out hope next year will be when
We’ll all be so much better Then!

Shining a Light on the Invisible Threads Connecting our Community:

 

• Season Tickets  On-Sale NOW!!
• Individual Tickets go on-sale Mid-January.
• Education Programs are On-Sale Now!

The 2026 Season
will tickle you, take your breath away, and leave you breathless with laughter and wonderment and celebrate how we create community!

Classic Stories, New Stories, Musical Stories, Fairy Tales and Documental Tales take the stage at Lost Nation
-  your award-winning professional theater!

LNT has been hailed as “One of the Best Regional Theaters in America” by NYC Drama League and "Theater of the Decade" by Broadway World.

New Faces and Longtime LNT performers, directors, and designers from the past 35+ years at Montpelier City Hall will be part of the scene! 

Artists like:

Maura O'Brien - Maura's dimensional, disarming and uproarious performances in such solo shows as Becoming Dr Ruth, Both Eyes Open - the Annie Oakley story along with her complex character roles in Lost in Yonkers, Deathtrap, Sylvia, Couple of White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, etc, have endeared her to so many. What a treat to have her onstage with us again.

Stoph Scheer - who won howls of laughter starring in such shows as Complete Works of Shakespeare-Abridged, Hound of the Baskervilles,  etc), touched hearts in 2024's I Am My Own Wife, and did Both in 2025's The Revolutionists.  

Plus choreographer/actor/dancer/singer Alexa Kartschoke (Cabaret, Side by Side), designers Jessica Della Pepa, John Devlin, Mark Evancho, Cora Fauser,  directors Kianna Bromley and Jennifer Sassaman, and of course artistic directors Kim Bent and Kathleen Keenan.

Join us in 2026 for shows that celebrate:

- making connections, 
- savoring the moment, 
- finding new paths,
- and making our voices heard

2026 is "typical" LNT " - an eclectic assortment of comedy, drama, dramedy, musical theater, and new work!

Get your Season Tickets! Subscribe and have no fear of missing out!

 

On The MainStage in 2026:

(scroll down for Special Events and Theater FOR Kids BY Kids Shows)

April 16–26:  OUR TOWN
Pulizter Prize Winner by Thornton Wilder

“People have it in mind that Our Town is old. [But] Our Town is synonymous for our world, for our time.” — Vogue

“No play ever moved me so deeply.” – The New Yorker

This beloved American classic wowed Broadway audiences as recently as 2024!
Surprisingly modern ordinary moments become unforgettable in Our Town.

"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings." - The Stage Manager, Our Town

Our production of this funny & touching masterwork will feature local actors & ‘characters’ some of whom may have been “born to play the part.”
LNT founder Kim Bent takes on The Stage Manager (a role he first played in high school). Humorous, poignant, & profound.

“No play describes more powerfully how we imagine ourselves.” – New York Daily News

 

 

June 4–14:
SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

By Jane Wagner
for Lily Tomlin  

Drama Critics and Tony-Award Winner!

“A human comedy that strikes home so sharply it brings gasps of recognition as well as outbursts of laughter.” – Newsweek

Intimate. Infamous. Incorrigible.

Through the eyes of a lovable, eccentric sharp-witted “bag lady” with a heart as vast as the cosmos she ponders, Wagner weaves a rich tapestry of interconnected stories. 

Full of a host of quirky characters, Search for Signs celebrates a mosaic of humanity in all its beauty, chaos, and contradiction, revealing the invisible threads that connect us all! 

“A true goosebump experience” - The New York Times

“Makes you laugh until you hurt.” – WABC TV.

 

 

July 22 –August 2: INTO THE WOODS  

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim 
Book by James Lapine

An Epic Adventure
Winner of THREE Tony Awards -  including Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical.

Explore the darker side of “Happy Ever After.”

This Tony-Winning Musical from the Giant of Musical Theater (Stephen Sondheim) has The Brothers Grimm tales colliding on stage in an epic adventure of wishes, family dynamics, and the choices we make!

Director Kianna Bromley reimagines this journey into the woods as a fun 10-actor casting showcasing physcial acting, quick changes, and soaring vocals! 
LNT Artistic Director Kathleen Keenan follows up her acclaimed performances in The Drowsy Chaperone and Next to Normal by reprising her role as "The Witch".

"What makes this Stephen Sondheim musical of colliding fairytales so irresistible is its doubleness: First we laugh at its wisecracks and wit, then we feel for its lost folkloric icons." - The Guardian

 

 

October 1-11:  What the Constitution Means to Me

by Heidi Shreck

Winner: NY Drama Critics Circle Award: Best American Play! 
               OBIE Award - Best New Play

Does our Constitution, the symbol of American ideals promising freedom, justice, and equality for all citizens, truly serve “We the People”? 

At 15, playwright Heidi Shreck earned her college tuition by winning debate competitions about the Constitution. 
In her hilarious, hopeful, and achingly human play based on those experiences, she documents how this founding document of our country informed and shaped the women in her family through four generations. A boundary-breaking exploration that breathes new life into our Constitution.  

Directed by Jennifer Sassaman.  Featuring Kianna Bromley. 
(mature content advisory)

“Endearingly funny and deeply affecting, it would be hard to identify a work for the theater with its finger more on the pulse of America right now.” – The Washington Post

“Uproariously funny, wrenchingly moving, critically challenging, and politically inspiring.” – New York Book Review

 

 

Special Events (in chronological order):

 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL - A GHOST STORY! 

LIVE ON STAGE DEC 7 at 2pm
(Available via digital recording through Dec 31, 2025)

Willem Lange's inimitable performance of Charles Dickens' winter holiday classic,
his 50th Anniversary year, performing the tale!
(Lange uses the same "cutting"  that Dickens himself performed.)

 Get Tickets HERE 

 

 

A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES. - AND OTHER TALES

LIVE ON STAGE DEC 13 at 2pm

(Available via digital recording through Dec 31, 2025)
Mich Kabay,  the "man of 1000 voices", reads his favorite holiday tales and poems.

Includes the Dylan Thomas classic, plus works by Robert Frost and others
It's Free! In LNT's specially decorated lobby. 
Concessions will include Hot Chocolate! (Yum!)  Run time approx 35 minutes.
Get Tickets HERE 

 

December 31, 2025 MONTPELIER'S NEW YEAR'S EVE CELEBRATION: THE BEAT GOES ON!

Shidaa Projects and Lost Nation Theater lead Montpelier’s New Year’s Eve 2025-2026 celebration with their 3rd Annual THE BEAT GOES ON! at City Hall Arts Center!

The Beat Goes On: The undeniable and irresistible joy of Singing, Storytelling, Dancing, and Drumming will take the stage at LNT from 6PM to 8PM! 
The concert will be livestreamed beginning at 6pm.  A digital recording will be available through January 5, 2026.

Youth Drumming workshop at 1 pm! 

A Musical Showcase with Christopher McWilliams & Friends at 3pm. 
Funded in part by Montpelier Alive. Get the Details Here

 

January 16 & 17, 2026: A Mortal Thing by Nan Prince

A Collaboration with The Montpelier Performing Arts Hub. Kianna Bromley directs this workshop production of the new play by local playwright Nan Prince.
 It's a possible a sequal to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. In the woods of Athens, we find our favorite characters exploring what "happily ever after" means.

 

February 11 & 12, 2026: The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

Lost Nation Theater is thrilled to be bringing this ground-breaking theatrical experience, still all too relevant today, to central Vermont once again!
A staged reading performed by veteran LNT actors, directed by Kathleen Keenan.

Spellbinding, funny, and almost unbearably moving.”  – Variety

A Benefit Performance. Two Days Only!

 

March - A celebration of LNT's 2026 Mainstage Season and the seasons of other central Vermont performing organizatons will raise the roof with fun! Details forthcoming!

(March 7 - LNT hosts Summit School's Spice on Snow Event.)

April : Anything Goes Poetry Slam hosted by Geof Hewitt  - LNT proudly partners with Kellogg-Hubbard Library to celebrate Poem City and April as Poetry Month in Montpelier with this annual, wild, fun, Slam for all ages. (Exact dated TBD)

April  - Our Town Poetry Contest and Our Town Photo Contest. Details TBD

 

Fri-Sun, May 1 – 3: Creatures of Yes! Live On-Stage!

A full evening of innovative, multimedia puppetry wizardry...

For years, the Creatures of Yes have been entertaining dozens of childless adults with their magic, whimsy, and subtle but potent absurdism. 
Now, for the first time ever, The Workshop of Experimental Magic and Light is bringing The Creatures of Yes to life onstage at Lost Nation Theater in this innovative multimedia puppetry performance, created by LNT favorite Stoph Scheer (puppeteer for The Jim Henson Company, The Muppets, and Banksy) and Jacob Graham (puppeteer for the Walt Disney Company, independent filmmaker, and collaborator of Marina Abramovi?.) 

In fun news: Stoph recently made her Broadway Debut pupetteering Gonzo & Fozzy Bear in Rob Lake's Magic Show with Special Guests The Muppetts. LNT is proud to host "Creatures of Yes- Live On Stage" premiere!

 

 

Theater FOR Kids BY Kids

February 27 & 28, 2026:  A Wrinkle in Time - dance theater adaptation

Madeline L’Engle’s timeless novel is transported to the stage in this adaptation by Morgan Gould.
All your favorite characters from the book, and all the fantastical adventures, are here!

Meg journeys through space and time with her brother and a friend to rescue their father from a dark planet completely controlled by a disembodied brain called "IT." IT has imprisoned Meg's scientist father and has enslaved the planet's inhabitants. Ultimately, Meg must understand that only her capacity for love wil overcome the evil IT and rescue her family. 

Our dance theater adaptation will be a wonderfully imaginative ensemble-oriented show, providing opportunities for all performers to shine. 
The show celebrates trust, the power of true connection, and of course the fun and unpredictability of inter-universe travel!

“There's nothing left except to try." — Mrs. What

(The culminating project of LNT’s advanced intermediate dance-theater production camp, performed by LNT's students age 9-17.). 
Directed & Choreographed by Alexa Kartschoke. LNT's professisonal designers create the magical environment.

June 26 & 27: Disney's The Lion King - Kids

Elton John & Tim Rice's Smash Hit Musical
in a special 45-minute adaptation

directed & choreographed  by Alexa Kartschoke
in collaboration with Shidaa Projects, Inc

The culmination of LNT's "Musical Theater Storytelling Production Camp" has participants presenting this exhilarating fully-staged show! 

The best songs and characters from the original Broadway Musical are part of this adaptation!

The script and score is specially adapted for younger voices. 
Features West African drumming and dance.
From Page to Stage in just 1 week! 
Fun for the whole family!
 

All shows subject to change due to rights availability. Curtain Times will remain the same!.

Word on the street is that we will once again have A WORKING ELEVATOR Sometime in 2026! 
The target date is Town Meeting Day - but no guarantees can be made right now.

Please call us (802-229-0492) or email info@lostnationtheater.org for more details.

New Season Ticket/Subscriptions Packages for 2026!  Check Them Out!

2026 Education Programs announced too! Click Here to Read More

 

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