Classic Stage Company announces NY Premiere of Wilder's The Emporium
Classic Stage Company (CSC) (Jill Rafson, Producing Artistic Director) announced today their 2025-26 Season.
“This season at CSC is about looking deeper rather than looking back,” says Producing Artistic Director Jill Rafson. “I love that all of our shows are about filling in the missing pieces of great classic stories: a long-awaited major New York production for a gorgeous, underappreciated musical; a highly theatrical look at the origins of a legendary figure; and a play that completes the unmatched body of work of one of the most celebrated American writers of all time. There’s a fresh urgency to all of these pieces today, and I know that they will thrive in CSC’s incredibly special space.”
CSC’s season will begin in October 2025 with The Baker’s Wife, featuring music & lyrics by Oscar, Grammy, and Tony Award winner Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, The Queen of Versailles), a book by Tony Award winner Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof), based on the film La Femme du Boulanger by Marcel Pagnol and Jean Gionoand, and direction by Gordon Greenberg (The Heart of Rock and Roll).
In February 2026, CSC will present the World Premiere of Marcel on the Train, co-written by Tony Award nominee Ethan Slater (Spongebob Squarepants, Wicked) & Marshall Pailet (Who’s Your Baghdaddy, Private Jones), directed by Pailet, and starring Slater as “Marcel Marceau.”
CSC’s season will conclude in May 2026 with the New York Premiere of master American dramatist Thornton Wilder’s final play, The Emporium, adapted and completed by Kirk Lynn (Lipstick Traces) and directed by Rob Melrose (Born with Teeth).
“Launched in 1947 amid a storm of rising acclaim and honorable artistic duties and distractions here and abroad, Thornton Wilder (who appeared on the cover of Time in January 1953) struggled unsuccessfully for a decade to complete a major new drama. Thanks to enticing and regular press coverage, its title was known far and wide: The Emporium,” said Tappan Wilder, nephew to Thornton Wilder.
“The Wilder family can’t be too grateful to Kirk Lynn for exploring the known published and little-known vast unpublished archival record of this work, grounded in Wilder’s passionate post-WWII encounter with existentialism, and then agreeing to complete a play exploring the loneliness of the American experience in all its humor, sadness, hope--and freedom. With a deep bow of thanks to Classic Stage Company, it is no small benefit of this unusual artistic collaboration across the decades that it celebrates the life, times and creativity of two distinguished artists, then and now.”
The New York Premiere of
THORNTON WILDER’S THE EMPORIUM
Adapted and Completed by Kirk Lynn
Directed by Rob Melrose
May - June 2026
More than 75 years in the making, an unfinished work by one of America’s greatest dramatists takes the New York stage at last. The Emporium unveils Thornton Wilder’s final play, brought to life through playwright Kirk Lynn’s masterful completion. As a young man journeys through the city and beyond, he encounters a world of wonder, meaning, and the elusive truths of life itself. Wilder’s long-unseen masterpiece is finally ready to be discovered, offering a rare chance to experience a new work from a legendary voice.