At a “sneak peek” event in its home in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, on March 1, 2026, the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) announced its summer program of five new plays, four of which are world premieres. The season runs from July 10 to August 2.
Artistic Director Peggy McKowen described the season theme as theater being an “occasion for joy.” During the event, CATF presented brief scenes from each of the season’s shows.
Lisa D’Amour’s The Smoker takes place in a smoking area outside a building in New York, where five disparate characters mingle in various combinations, forming a community of friends as they share their need for a cigarette. Against the background of the Argentine “dirty war” of the 1970–80s, Christina Pumariega’s ¡Vos! focuses on women showing up on behalf of “the disappeared,” often their children, who were kidnapped by the regime and never seen again.
Playwright Yussef El Guindi spoke to the Shepherdstown gathering by video about his play Refugee Rhapsody, exploring the interaction of two young Arab-Americans with experience of being refugees and a person of great wealth. He will be participating in the rehearsals for the CATF production, which he described as “an opportunity to learn about the play I just wrote.”
In My Favorite Sociopath, by Aurin Squire, three journalism students in the 1990s try to figure out themselves and how they tell stories. In Best Line Wins, Beth Kander traces the personal and creative ups and downs of the great comic and theatrical duo of Mike Nichols and Elaine May over their long association.
CATF will be offering similar sneak-peek looks at its upcoming season in Washington, DC, on March 16, 2026, at the District Winery, 385 Water St. SE; in Baltimore on April 20, at the Pikesville Armory, 640 Reisterstown Road in Reisterstown; and in Frederick on May 4 (venue TBA). Each event begins at 6:30 p.m.
CATF has been performing high-quality professional productions for over three decades in Shepherdstown, a culturally lively college town about a 90-minute drive from Washington, DC. More information and tickets for the summer’s productions are available online at catf.org or by phone at 681-240-2283. A fuller description of the 2026 plays is available at catf.org/2026-season.
