The Public Theater has announced additional casting for three of its highly anticipated 2025-26 season productions—The Seat of Our Pants, Initiative, and Ulysses—bringing 20 artists making their Public Theater debuts to the stage.
Opening the fall lineup is the world premiere musical The Seat of Our Pants, adapted, written, and composed by Ethan Lipton and directed by Tony Award nominee Leigh Silverman. Inspired by Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Skin of Our Teeth, the production offers a comedic yet poignant look at the Antrobus family, who have survived for 5,000 years yet still grapple with familiar human anxieties. The cast includes newcomers Ben Beckley, Kelly Belarmino, Cole Burden, Micaela Diamond, Shuler Hensley, Michael Lepore, León Ramos Tak, Ruth Sternberg, and Angela Travino, joining previously announced performers such as Ruthie Ann Miles, Damon Daunno, and Geena Quintos. The musical runs October 24–November 30, opening November 13.
Following is Initiative, a world premiere play by Else Went, a graduate of The Public’s Emerging Writers Group. Directed by Emma Rosa Went, the work reflects on adolescence during the early 2000s in a small California town. It follows seven teenagers navigating friendship, love, potential, and loss from 2000 to 2004. The ensemble features Olivia Rose Barresi, Greg Cuellar, Harrison Densmore, Carson Higgins, Andrea Lopez Alvarez, Jamie Sanders, and Christopher Dylan White, alongside understudies Marisa Brau-Reyes, Brandon Burk, and Jose Useche. Initiative runs November 4–30, opening November 20.
In January 2026, Elevator Repair Service (ERS) will present Ulysses, their New York City premiere adaptation of James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece. Directed by John Collins with co-direction and dramaturgy by Scott Shepherd, the piece brings Joyce’s sprawling, stylistically diverse novel to life in a two-and-a-half-hour theatrical event blending humor, pathos, and an inventive design. The cast includes Dee Beasnael, Kate Benson, Maggie Hoffman, Vin Knight, Scott Shepherd, Christopher-Rashee Stevenson, and Stephanie Weeks.
Tickets for The Seat of Our Pants and Initiative are currently on sale at publictheater.org, with Ulysses tickets available starting in October. The Public’s 2025-26 season also features high-profile projects including John Leguizamo’s The Other Americans, Jordan E. Cooper and Stevie Walker-Webb’s Oh Happy Day!, and a major revival of Twelfth Night at the newly revitalized Delacorte Theater.
With a mix of world premieres, innovative adaptations, and celebrated returning artists, The Public continues its tradition of bringing bold, original theater to New York audiences.