New York Stage & Film’s 2026 Summer Season Brings New Works to Poughkeepsie

There’s a certain alchemy to New York Stage & Film’s summer season—the sense that what you’re watching isn’t finished, not yet fixed in amber, but alive in the moment. That ethos returns July 10 through August 2, as the longtime Hudson Valley incubator unveils its 2026 lineup across Marist University and the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, a slate that leans into risk, range, and the thrill of first drafts spoken aloud. For more than four decades, New York Stage & Film has functioned as a proving ground for new work, with projects often moving from these early workshops to Broadway, regional theaters, and beyond. The pedigree is real—Pulitzers, Tonys, Oscars—but the appeal lies in proximity: audiences sit close to the act of creation itself, catching stories like the Tony-award winning “Hadestown” before they calcify. This year’s season opens with a one-night-only benefit reading of “The Maltese Falcon,” adapted by Betty Shamieh from Dashiell Hammett’s noir classic. It’s a fitting curtain-raiser: a familiar title refracted through a contemporary lens, setting the tone for a program that toggles between reinvention and discovery. A band and cast run through a musical in development during New York Stage & Film’s 2025 summer season, where new scores are tested live and refined in the room before moving on to larger productions. Photo: Deborah Lopez From there, the lineup sprawls in compelling directions. Jesús I. Valles’s solo piece “bala.fruta./bullet.fruit.” traces the psychic and cultural aftershocks of violence with language that feels both poetic and incantatory. C.A. Johnson’s Lagniappe shifts to a New Orleans subdivision shaped by generational memory, blending humor and ache in a portrait of community life. Shamieh returns with “Unmoored,” a prequel to “Othello” that recasts Shakespeare’s tragic figure as a teenager navigating power and identity in a Moroccan royal court. Musical theater also claims a significant share of the season. “Paper Menagerie,” adapted from K