Southern Miss Theatre Announces 2026-27 Season

Wed, 09/23/2026 - 09:53am | By: Mike Lopinto

The University of Southern Mississippi’s Theatre program will explore the extremes of theatrical storytelling in its 2026-27 season, bringing together a groundbreaking work of theater, an ancient Greek tragedy, one of English comedy’s enduring masterpieces and a contemporary cult musical.

The season opens Oct. 15 with Alfred Jarry’s Ubu the King, a gleefully anarchic work that helped lay the groundwork for much of the experimental theater that followed. The season continues with Euripides’ Medea in November, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest in March and the darkly comic musical Ride the Cyclone in April and May.

Together, the four productions reflect the breadth of the Southern Miss Theatre program and its commitment to presenting both foundational works and adventurous contemporary theater.

“Great university theater should do more than entertain,” said Dr. Colin McKenzie, interim director of the School of Performing and Visual Arts. “It should introduce audiences to important voices, challenge expectations and give our students the opportunity to engage deeply with work that has shaped the art form. This season does exactly that. These are four very different theatrical experiences, but each gives our students and audiences an opportunity to think differently about the world, about the art form and perhaps even about themselves.”

Ubu the King is Alfred Jarry’s notorious 1896 play and one of the foundational works of modern avant-garde theater. Long before the arrival of Monty Python, The Simpsons or The Book of Mormon, Jarry was gleefully dismantling the conventions of polite theater.

The play follows Père Ubu, an absurdly ambitious and spectacularly ill-equipped would-be monarch who schemes his way to power and then abuses it with breathtaking enthusiasm. Part political satire, part comic nightmare and entirely unpredictable, Ubu the King takes aim at greed, vanity, authoritarianism and the human appetite for power.

Its influence on modern theater is difficult to overstate. Jarry’s deliberately crude language, exaggerated characters and rejection of theatrical convention helped open the door to later movements, including Dadaism, surrealism and the theater of the absurd.

“There’s never been anything like Ubu Roi before or since its release,” said Dr. David Coley, producer for the Southern Miss Theatre season. “It’s a singular, preposterous work, and though its influence looms large, Jarry’s formula of purposeful childishness and outright stupidity has never been replicated. And yet, through all of that, it aims straight at so many of the issues of power and political personality that we continue to struggle with to this day.”

The production runs at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15, 16, 22 and 23 and at 2 p.m. Oct. 18 and 25 in Hartwig Theatre in the Theatre and Dance Building.

Euripides’ Medea follows in November, bringing audiences one of the most enduring tragedies of the Western canon. Written more than 2,400 years ago, the play centers on Medea after her husband, Jason, abandons her for another woman. What begins as a story of betrayal becomes a devastating examination of love, power, revenge, gender and the consequences of denying someone agency. Medea remains remarkably immediate because its central questions have never disappeared.

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12-14 and 19-20, with a 2 p.m. performance Nov. 22 in Tatum Theatre.

Spring brings Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, a sparkling comedy built on mistaken identities, elaborate deceptions and Wilde’s famously incisive wit. Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff create fictional identities to escape the obligations of respectable society, only to find their carefully constructed lies colliding with romance and social expectations. The result is one of the most frequently performed comedies in the English-language theater repertoire.

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. March 18-20, with 2 p.m. performances March 20 and 21 in Hartwig Theatre.

The 2026-27 season concludes with Ride the Cyclone by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell, a contemporary musical that blends dark comedy, rock, carnival spectacle and unexpectedly tender storytelling. The story follows six teenagers who find themselves in the afterlife after a freak accident. When a mysterious mechanical fortune teller offers one of them a chance to return to life, each must make the case for why they deserve a second chance. The production explores memory, identity, mortality and the meaning of a life while delivering a wildly theatrical score and a cast of eccentric characters.

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. April 22-24 and 30 and May 1, with a 2 p.m. performance May 2 in Tatum Theatre.

“This season has a breadth of stylistic diversity, yet it’s united by explorations of the impact of our choices as human beings, the power we have over the people we love and hate or people we’ve never met,” Coley said. “Small choices have enormous ripple effects, and I’m proud that our students have so many opportunities this season to explore that in a large range of theatrical experiences.”

The 2026-27 Southern Miss Theatre season offers audiences four very different invitations: laugh at the absurdity of power, confront the devastation of betrayal, revel in the precision of Wilde’s wit and consider what makes a life worth remembering.

In other words, there is something here for almost anyone, and probably something that will surprise everyone.

For tickets and additional information, call 601.266.5418 or visit southernmiss.com/tickets.

School of Performing and Visual Arts
The School of Performing and Visual Arts at The University of Southern Mississippi brings together Art and Design, Dance and Theatre in a vibrant community of artists, performers, designers, scholars and educators. Part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the school is home to nationally recognized programs. Its distinguished faculty are professionals whose work extends across the country and around the world, bringing that expertise into the classroom and giving students opportunities to grow creatively. Through productions, performances, exhibitions, studio practice and collaborative projects, students develop their artistic voices and prepare for careers in the arts. The school’s theatres, studios, galleries and Museum of Art provide spaces for students and faculty to perform, exhibit and share their work with the Southern Miss community and beyond.