Peninsula Players’ The Play’s the Thing includes two premieres while Third Avenue PlayWorks’ WinterWorks includes a play by a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Jan. 19, 2026, 5:02 a.m. CT
By Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette
Theater buffs in Door County have plenty of options to keep themselves in a show-going frame of mind, even as the Peninsula enters the midst of its 2025-26 offseason, thanks in large part to a couple of annual winter play reading series presented by two of the county’s theater companies.
Peninsula Players Theatre and Third Avenue PlayWorks each open their series in February, with Players’ The Play’s the Thing readings taking place once a month through April while TAP’s WinterWorks readings happen every Saturday in February.
The play readings often give theaters the chance to test newer works, premieres in some cases, that might make their way onto the company’s stages in the near future, such as when TAP produced the world premiere of Alec Silberblatt’s “Ryan’s Pub, Trivia Night” this past fall after it was given a WinterWorks reading. Two of Pen Players’ readings are part of the 2026 World Premiere Wisconsin festival, one of TAP’s readings had its world premiere in California in 2025 and another is a newer work by a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Also, two other Door County theater companies are holding play readings this winter, both as part of the Door County Reads monthlong exploration of the Kate Quinn historical fiction novel “The Briar Club,” and there is no charge to attend either reading. The opening readings of the Pen Players and TAP series are part of the Door County Reads calendar as well.
Door Shakespeare gives a reading of “Crimes of the Heart,” the 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Beth Henley that explores how three sisters in Mississippi navigate their family history and personal struggles, at 7 p.m. Jan. 19 at Vail Hall at Bjorklunden in Baileys Harbor. Community theater troupe Rogue Theater holds a dramatic reading of a work that uses excerpts from Quinn’s book at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 in its DC Arts Center in Sturgeon Bay.
Here’s a quick roundup of the play readings this offseason at Players and TAP.
The Play’s the Thing at Peninsula Players
Peninsula Players’ 2026 season for The Play’s the Thing, its 18th annual winter outreach series, opens Feb. 2 with “Rosenberg.”
The David Meyers play looks at the success and notoriety achieved by the attorney who prosecuted alleged Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 and the new questions after the trial that force him and his wife to confront the moral cost of their ambition, exploring aspects of power, compromise, political courage and what has and hasn’t changed since then. This reading is held in coordination with Door County Reads and its exploration of “The Briar Club” by Kate Quinn.
Following are the two works Players presents in conjunction with World Premiere Wisconsin.
The March 2 reading features the new work of a playwright quite familiar to Players patrons, Sean Grennan. His “In the Doorway” finds a man stuck between this world and the next after a sudden heart attack, visited by dead relatives with urgent messages and zero boundaries, raising questions about if he should just cash in or truly start living. Grennan has had four of his plays make their world premieres at Players: “Making God Laugh,” “The Tin Woman,” “Now and Then” and “A Rock Sails By.”
Closing the season April 6 is the premiere of “the after wife” by Sophie McIntosh. Set in 1963, it has Nora, the most advanced humanoid robot ever created, placed in the home of inventor Martin and his teenage children and acting as the perfect housewife. But when Martin’s daughter Ruth realizes Nora looks exactly like her missing mother, she begins to suspect a darker truth.
All readings in The Play’s the Thing start at 7 p.m. in Vail Hall at Björklunden at 7590 Boynton Lane, Baileys Harbor. Admission is free, although donations are accepted, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. For more on Peninsula Players, America’s longest-running professional resident summer theater, including its 2026 summer/fall season, call 920-868-3287 or visit peninsulaplayers.com.
WinterWorks at Third Avenue PlayWorks
The 2026 WinterWorks play reading series at Third Avenue PlayWorks, like Peninsula Players’ The Play’s the Thing, opens with the theater’s participation in Door County Reads via its Feb. 7 presentation of Topher Payne’s sitcom-style comedy-drama “Perfect Arrangement.”
Set during the Cold War of 1950, the play has U.S. State Department employees Bob and Norma tasked with identifying “sexual deviants” within their ranks – but both Bob and Norma are gay and have married each other’s partners as a cover. It was the winner of the 2014 M Elizabeth Osborn Prize and a 2017 Lambda Literary Awards nominee for LGBTQ Drama.
Next up on Feb. 14 is “Dog Mom,” a Tate Hanyok work that won an award in the 2024 New Comedies Festival and made its world premiere last fall. The play follows Liz, a tough-as-nails New Yorker with a life falling apart until she reluctantly agrees to foster a scruffy stray dog that showed up on her stoop, helping start her on a journey of self-discovery.
A comedy based on the making of the blockbuster movie “Jaws” gets a reading Feb. 21. Written by Ian Shaw (son of “Jaws” co-star Robert Shaw) and Joseph Nixon, “The Shark is Broken” has movie stars Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider feud, argue, drink, gamble and bond as they deal with unpredictable weather and a giant shark prop whose constant breakdowns are holding up the shooting for days and leaving the three stars stuck with each other.
Closing the WinterWorks season Feb. 28 is “Lunar Eclipse” by longtime playwright Donald Margulies, whose many awards include the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Dinner with Friends.” This tender, hopeful work, which premiered in 2023, has George joined by his wife, Em, to view a lunar eclipse from their farm as they consider the companionship that has made their lives full while the world has given them great chasms of emptiness.
WinterWorks play readings start at 7:30 p.m. in the Kane Theater at TAP, 239 N. Third Ave., Sturgeon Bay. There is no charge to attend, although donations are welcome. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Concessions will be available before each reading. For more information, including on TAP’s 2026 season, call 920743-1760 or visit thirdavenueplayworks.org.