Jennifer Nettles, Tiffany Haddish, Danai Gurira, more featured in PAC NYC 2025-26 Off-Broadway season

The downtown Manhattan venue's programming includes theatre productions, moderated talks, art installations, and more visual and performing art experiences.

The Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) has set a diverse slate of 2025-26 programming at its Off-Broadway home in the Financial District of downtown Manhattan.

From October 29 to November 1, PAC NYC will host the Icons of Culture Festival, a series of conversations with trailblazing artists. Conversations with set designer Es Devlin and model Christy Turlington Burns will separately take place on October 29; with actresses Danai Gurira and Tiffany Haddish separately on October 30; and jointly with media executives Kristina O'Neill and Laura Brown on November 1.

Additionally, Diane von Furstenberg will be honored as the 2025 PAC NYC Icon of Culture on October 28.

Also taking place from October 29 to November 1 is Es Devlin's interactive multimedia experience Congregation. In partnership with UK for UNHCR and the United Nations Refugee Agency, Devlin created large-scale chalk and charcoal portraits of 50 Londoners who were forcibly displaced from their homelands.

Each subject is a co-author of the work, their portraits shared in Congregation alongside their voices as part of an accompanying sound installation composed by Polyphonia and incorporating poetry by the Kinshasa-born poet JJ Bola, excerpts from Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and Anton Bruckner’s sacred motet Locus Iste (This Place), with the voices of The London Bulgarian Choir, The South African Cultural Gospel Choir UK, Genesis Sixteen, and The Choir of King’s College London.

The projected film sequence was created with filmmaker Ruth Hogben and choreographer Botis Seva, and it features dancer Joshua Shanny Wynter. Congregation admission is pay-what-you-wish.

As previously announced, a holiday production of Matthew Warchus and Jack Thorne’s Tony Award-winning A Christmas Carol play will run from November 23 to December 28, 2025.

Three theatrical productions will take place at PAC NYC in 2026, beginning with the U.S. premiere of Jane Harrison's The Visitors from January 21 to February 1. Directed by Wesley Enoch, the play takes place in 1788 Sydney, where seven Aboriginal leaders see a mysterious fleet of ships arrive in the bay and must decide whether to shun or welcome the strangers. The show won the 2023 Sydney Theatre Awards for Best Mainstage Production and Best Ensemble for its Australian premiere.

From March 7-28 is the new comedy play Trash by James Caverly and Andrew Morrill, from Out of the Box Theatrics. The show follows two deaf roommates with very different experiences of navigating the hearing world, and the act of taking out the trash sparks a conversation about their perceptions of each other.

Finally, new dates have been set for the previously announced musical Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo, written by and featuring Grammy Award winner Jennifer Nettles. Tony winner Mary Zimmerman directs the show, inspired by a true story, about an act of self-defense that gives way to multiple casualties, a secret sisterhood, and a dark quest for Giulia Tofana to save others without losing herself.

Additional productions and events include the New York premiere of Benjamin Millepied's contemporary ballet trio Reflections: A Triptych (formerly named Gems) from February 21-22, Motion/Matter: All Styles Dance Battle on March 21, and Family Day on May 30.

Photo credit: Jennifer Nettles, Tiffany Haddish, and Danai Gurira. (Photos courtesy of PAC NYC; Nettles photo by Shervin Lainez; Haddish photo by Dalvin Adams)