Public Theater's 2024-25 Season to Feature James Ijames' Good Bones, the Return of Gatz, the Delacorte's Grand Reopening and More

The Public Theater's 2024-25 season is set, featuring a New York premiere from Pulitzer Prize winner James Ijames, a quartet of short plays by Caryl Churchill and an encore engagement of Elevator Repair Service's Gatz. 

The season will open with the North American premiere of Belvoir St Theatre's Counting and Cracking, written by S. Shakthidharan and directed by Eamon Flack. A multi-generational journey of a Sri-Lankan Australian family from 1956 through 2004, the show comes to New York following acclaimed productions in Australia and the UK. Performances will run at NYU Skirball from September 6 through September 22. The cast will feature Rodney Afif, Prakash Belawadi, Antonythasan Jesuthasan, Nadie Kammallaweera, Ahi Karunaharan, Abbie-Lee Lewis, Gandhi MacIntyre, Radhika Mudaliyar, Shiv Palekar, Dushan Philips, Sukhbir Singh Walia, Nipuni Sharada, Kaivu Suvarna, Raj Velu, and Sukania Venugopal. They will be joined by musicians Kranthi Kiran Mudigonda, Janakan Raj, and Venkhatesh Sritharan.

James Ijames, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright behind Fat Ham, will present the New York premiere of Good Bones, directed by Ijames' Fat Ham collaborator, Tony nominee Saheem Ali. Exploring gentrification and the growing price of the American dream, the production will run from September 19 through October 13. 

Australian playwright David Finnigan writes and performs the North American premiere of his play Deep History, interweaving 75,000 years of humanity with a personal story of the bushfires that ravaged his hometown of Canberra. The production runs from October 5 through October 27. 

Elevator Repair Service's Gatz returns to the Public over a decade after its original engagement in honor of the centennial of The Great Gatsby's 1925 publication. The 6.5-hour production, directed by Elevator Repair Service Artistic Director John Collins, enacts the entirety of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel within the office of a mysterious small business where an employee finds a copy amid the clutter of his desk. Scott Shepherd reprises his role as the Narrator and is joined by most of the original New York cast. The company includes Laurena Allan, Jim Fletcher, Ross Fletcher, Maggie Hoffman, Mike Iveson, Vin Knight, Aaron Landsman, Annie McNamara, Pete Simpson, Susie Sokol, Tory Vazquez and Ben Jalosa Williams. Performances run from November 1 through December 1. The Great Gatsby is also currently represented on Broadway and in another upcoming musical adaptation at the American Repertory Theater.

The Public Theater season will also include the New York premiere of Sumo, a co-production with Ma-Yi Theater and La Jolla Playhouse, written by Lisa Sanaye Dring and directed by Ralph B. Peña; the North American premiere of Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp., four short plays by Caryl Churchill, directed by James Macdonald; and the world premiere of Let's Keep Dancing: A Death Row Story, an audio play directed by Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis.

The world premiere of Else Went's Initiative will be the first production of the 2025-26 season. Directed by Emma Rose Went, the piece charts the intertwined lives of seven teens from 2000-2004, offering a bittersweet reflection on adolescence at the dawn of the new millennium. 

The Public Theater has also announced that a Free Shakespeare in the Park production ofTwelfth Night, directed by Saheem Ali, will re-open the Delacorte Theater in summer 2025 following its period of extensive renovation. 

For more information about the Public Theater's 2024-25 season, visit the website here.