Western Reserve Playhouse’s BY THE PEOPLE Festival Presents Nine American Plays Across Three Weekends
BATH, OH — Western Reserve Playhouse (WRP) will present By the People, a three-week contemporary American play festival featuring three MainStage productions and six locally produced ShortCuts, September 11–27, 2026.
Presented as part of WRP’s “Built By Us” season recognizing 250 years of American history, By the People brings nine plays into conversation across three weekends. The program moves among questions of community, race, artistic ownership, violence, forgiveness, family, identity, and the stories Americans tell about themselves.
The festival’s ShortCuts function much like the animated short shown before a Disney or Pixar feature film: audiences receive a complete, self-contained short play before the MainStage production begins. Each performance of The Amish Project and American Moor opens with a different ShortCut, giving audiences a distinct pairing at every performance. Italian American Reconciliation is presented without an opening ShortCut because of its longer running time.
All six ShortCuts return for one standalone ShortCuts Festival on Sunday, September 27 at 8:00 PM. Audiences can attend the MainStage pairings individually, attend the all-ShortCuts finale, or build their own festival experience across multiple weekends.
WEEKEND ONE: THE AMISH PROJECT + THREE SHORTCUTS
The Amish Project
By Jessica Dickey
Directed by Molly Cornwell
September 11–13: Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM; Sunday at 2:00 PM
Cast: Mallory Balmert, Rosie Horvath, Matt Mortensen, and Z. Sofsky
Jessica Dickey’s The Amish Project is a fictional exploration of the 2006 Nickel Mines schoolhouse shooting and the path of forgiveness and compassion forged in its aftermath. Moving among members of the Amish community, the gunman, his widow, and others connected to the tragedy, the play asks what forgiveness means when an act cannot be undone—and what a community must carry after public attention has moved elsewhere.
The performance pairings are:
Friday, September 11: Waiting on Mom Who Already Left
By John Busser
Directed by Tiffany Bird
A brother and sister at their mother’s funeral home confront grief in sharply different ways.
Saturday, September 12: The Clean Plate Club
By Arianna Rose
Directed by Miah Montesano
A woman’s lifelong struggle with food brings competing personifications of wellness, obsession, and weight-loss culture into her kitchen.
Sunday, September 13: Checkerboard Chicks
By Allison Fradkin
Directed by Samaria Murry
In 1965, two young women in an interracial girl group confront what their industry—and their society—will allow them to say about identity and love.
WEEKEND TWO: AMERICAN MOOR + THREE SHORTCUTS
American Moor
By Keith Hamilton Cobb
Directed by Tamara French
September 18–20: Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM; Sunday at 2:00 PM
Cast: CJ Cobb and Keenan Carosielli
Keith Hamilton Cobb’s American Moor confronts race, power, Shakespeare, and artistic ownership through an encounter between a Black actor auditioning to play Othello and the white director evaluating his performance. As the audition unfolds, the actor’s internal responses reveal the distance between living an experience and being directed through someone else’s interpretation of it.
The performance pairings are:
Friday, September 18: The Execution of a Midlife Crisis
Written and performed by Timothy Ritley
Directed by Keenan Carosielli
A comedian and substitute teacher wrestles with fear, anxiety, creative ambition, and the distance between the life he is living and the artist he wants to become.
Saturday, September 19: Veteran
By James W. Perry
A new short play presented as part of WRP’s commitment to creating a production pathway for contemporary playwrights.
Sunday, September 20: Sorting Through M&Ms
By Rishi Chowdhary
Directed by Kelly Pilkenroth
Two siblings reunite on a hiking trip after years apart, confronting old wounds and searching for a way forward together.
WEEKEND THREE: ITALIAN AMERICAN RECONCILIATION
Italian American Reconciliation
By John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Mia Radabaugh
September 25–27: Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM; Sunday at 2:00 PM
Cast: Kim Simbeck, Lauren Stepanski, Mackenzie Barry, August Scarpelli, and Santino Montanez
John Patrick Shanley’s Italian American Reconciliation closes the MainStage festival with an offbeat romantic comedy about love lost, reclaimed, and pursued with questionable judgment. Still haunted by the collapse of his first marriage, Huey Bonfigliano decides he cannot move forward until he wins back his ex-wife. With the reluctant assistance of his best friend, Huey launches a romantic campaign that disrupts several lives and forces everyone involved to reconsider what—or whom—they actually want.
Italian American Reconciliation is presented without an opening ShortCut because of its longer running time.
THE SHORTCUTS FESTIVAL: ALL SIX PLAYS
Sunday, September 27 at 8:00 PM
The standalone ShortCuts Festival brings all six locally produced short plays together in one program:
Waiting on Mom Who Already Left by John Busser
The Clean Plate Club by Arianna Rose
Checkerboard Chicks by Allison Fradkin
The Execution of a Midlife Crisis by Timothy Ritley
Veteran by James W. Perry
Sorting Through M&Ms by Rishi Chowdhary
By the People runs September 11–27, 2026, at Western Reserve Playhouse, 3326 Everett Road, Bath, Ohio 44286. Performance information, festival updates, and tickets are available at https://www.thewrp.org/mainstageseason/bythepeople.
About Western Reserve Playhouse
Western Reserve Playhouse is a historic barn theatre serving Northeast Ohio from its home at 3326 Everett Road in Bath, Ohio. The Playhouse engages, inspires, entertains, and challenges audiences through theatrical productions, new works, special events, and education programs that support the next generation of theatre artists. Western Reserve Playhouse’s official website is thewrp.org.
Media Contact:
Braelin Andrzejewski
Marketing/Communication Director
Western Reserve Playhouse
(330) 620-7314
