Ensemble Studio Theatre's 2024-25 Season Includes New Comedy by Lloyd Suh

Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) announced that its 2024-25 Season will include two new comedies by alumni of the theater’s Youngblood Playwrights Program, commissioned and developed through the EST/Sloan Project. This year celebrates the 25th anniversary of the partnership between EST and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

EST’s 56th season will open with the New York premiere of Franklinland, a new comedy by EST member and Pulitzer Prize finalist Lloyd Suh (The Far Country) and directed by Chika Ike (Kin), running from October 9-November 3 at EST’s long-time home on West 52nd Street. Franklinland is a story of growing up as the only son of the greatest scientific mind in the world, Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the lightning rod, urinary catheter, glass harmonica, bifocal glasses, and the United States of America.

In March 2025, the spring mainstage production will be the world premiere of the comedy Have You Met Jane Goodall and Her Mother? by Michael Walek and directed by the program director of the EST/Sloan Project and EST member Linsay Firman. The play is about Jane Goodall brnging her mother when the Tanzanian government allowed her to study chimpanzees in the wild under the condition that she bring a chaperone.

New play development with continue in the 2024-25 season through ongoing programs, including EST’s award-winning emerging playwrights collective Youngblood. The EST/Sloan Project will continue to support the development of plays about science and technology with its annual First Light Festival presented throughout the season and will award a new round of Sloan commissions this season.