Ghostlight Ensemble announces its Season 9 lineup, which includes the fall production of Angry Fags by Topher Payne, in a season that will focus on celebrating otherness and uplifting Queer characters and voices.
“The climate we find ourselves in right now demands action. We cannot be passive in our support or love for communities that find themselves at risk. We, as a theatre company, are in the unique position with our art to center community building,” Co-Artistic Director Justin Broom said.
“From the people we work with, to the stories we tell and the audiences we build, we can be hubs of resource sharing, networking and education that not only brings people together but keeps our community safe.”
The 2025-2026 season will feature two mainstage productions, a play for young audiences, staged readings, a three-part cabaret experience and ongoing collaborations with Chicago area museums. All productions center around love and relationships with an emphasis on queer characters and themes.
“As a queer theatre artist, I think it would be irresponsible of me to not do everything in my power to meet this moment in a way that uplifts, not just our ensemble and audiences, but the community as a whole,” Broom said. “While we need to raise funds for our company to create quality entertainment, there are so many LGBTQ+ organizations that also need our attention and funds right now – particularly those serving our Trans siblings who are especially at risk.”
To meet that need, Ghostlight is also announcing its Love As A Verb fundraising campaign to support our most ambitious season to date and also raise money for two Chicago area LGBTQ+ organizations.
The fundraiser is live with a base goal to raise $5,000 by November. Donations from the fundraiser will go toward artist stipends and production costs with a portion of the proceeds going to local Chicago charities Brave Space Alliance and Gerber Hart Library & Archives.
Brave Space Alliance is a Black, trans-led center on Chicago’s South Side that creates and provides dignified essential services, develops programs and initiatives for individuals and families, co-creates community spaces of care and connection and conducts advocacy on issues that directly impact LGBTQ+ and Black communities.
Gerber Hart Library & Archives collects, preserves and provides access to the history and culture of LGBTQ+ communities in Chicago and the Midwest in order to advance the larger goal of achieving justice and equality.
Those interested in supporting the campaign can make a tax deductible donation to Ghostlight Ensemble here. Upon conclusion of the fundraiser, Ghostlight will publish the receipts of donations to other organizations.
Love As A Verb is inspired by a passage from All About Love by bell hooks: “The word ‘love’ is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.”
“This is a thrilling season from Ghostlight, with bold and compelling artistic programming that includes full-length productions, theatre for young audiences, immersive performance and cabaret,” Co-Artistic Director Holly Robison said. “Now, more than ever, art is essential, and I hope our season will challenge, inspire, move and comfort our audiences. Art at its best can do all these things and more. I hope our audiences will feel that way too, that our work truly echoes our season’s theme ‘Love is a Verb’.”
Ghostlight will present its first full production, Angry Fags written by Topher Payne and directed by Jack Bowes, in November at Lifeline Theatre in Rogers Park.
An out lesbian state senator is up for re-election. Her female opponent is a moderate conservative who has aligned herself with right-wing extremists. They’re locked in a tight race in which each side caters to its base and any event can become instantaneously politicized. When a gay man is bashed with a baseball bat and left to die, his ex-boyfriend, a campaign aide for the incumbent senator, is enraged. But his boss’s unwillingness to label it a hate crime tips him over the edge. Frustration and fear eventually turn to rage and he teams up with his best friend to embark on a vendetta of sabotage and more, reasoning that if gays aren’t respected enough to win justice, fear will achieve what good intentions and politics cannot.
Angry Fags asks how far is too far to protect your community? Where is the line between helping and making things worse?
The production runs November 6-23, 2025, at Lifeline Theatre (6912 N Glenwood Ave, Chicago, IL, 60626).
In mid-December, Ghostlight and the Driehaus Museum are excited to announce the return of Holiday Spirits: A Collection of Victorian Yuletide Ghost Stories, a multi-story and multi-storied immersive, site-specific adaptation of classic Victorian ghost stories at the museum. In its second year, the production will expand from one night to three – one for Driehaus museum members and two for the general public. Be prepared to move through the mansion with the actors as they uncover these otherworldly visitors.
In February, our Nightlight young audience series returns with The 8th Dwarf. The new work by Olivia Sieck tells the story of Binky, an outsider dwarf who, inspired by the kindness and motherly affection of Snow White, longs to find the courage to join the most special of their kind – the dwarves that get to work in the mines. The play shows that courage, kindness and wit matter more than anything and actions mean more than material goods.
Ghostlight will close out its season in the spring of 2026 with The Dover Road by A.A. Milne (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame), directed by Co-Artistic Director Holly Robison. The Dover Road is set in the home of the eccentric Latimer, who waylays couples who are running away together and gives them a taste of what their lives together might be like by forcing them into sustained exposure to each other's habits and idiosyncrasies. The 1921 comedy is a not-so-subtle dissection of romantic love, but buried beneath is a less obvious commentary on the homosexuality, bisexuality and gender nonconformity that has always existed in society if you knew where to look.
In addition, Ghostlight will produce Ensemble Member Khnemu Menu-Ra’s, 3 Stages of Love, this season. The semi-autobiographical three-part cabaret experience features a blend of Shakespeare and song – along with original pieces. The company also plans a staged reading of Lady Lazarus, a new play in development by Ghostlight collaborator Haley Basil, and Ghostlight will continue its popular Live Movie Reading Series periodically throughout the season, as well as the For Your (Re)Consideration staged reading series, which explores the works of historically overlooked female writers.