August 1, 2026
Charlottesville, VA – This September, Live Arts brings this bold retelling of the tale of King Solomon and a child claimed by two mothers to Charlottesville! THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE was written by Bertolt Brecht and translated by Eric Bentley and opens in the Gibson Theater September 4, 2026.
The 2026/27 Season Sponsor is Ronald Bailey & Pamela Friedman. THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE is sponsored by Barbara & Jay Kessler and Cameron Mowat & George Worthington. THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals.
Contact: Andrew Bryce, Marketing Coordinator/Media Contact
[email protected] or (860) 942-0575
THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE
This production performs in the Gibson Theater, September 4, 2026 through September 20, 2026, at Live Arts Theater, 123 E. Water Street, in Charlottesville, VA. Individual tickets will be $30 for Adults, $25 for Senior 65+, and $20 for Students. With our 434 initiative to provide access to theater, we offer introductory $4.34 tickets for anyone 25 or younger or new to Live Arts. Pay-What-You-Can Wednesday performances are sponsored by Ting and available to all. Tickets will be available through the Box Office at [email protected], by phone at 434-977-4177 x123, or online at livearts.org. Tickets for CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE go on sale August 4, 2026.
About the Show: THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE
On a quiet Sunday morning, a brutal coup topples the country of Grusinia into chaos. The ruling classes scrap and claw for power as the peasants simply try to survive. In this world on fire, a young servant girl named Grusha finds a baby — the child of the rich governor, abandoned when his mother fled. She makes a choice, and an adventure begins.
Available for interview: Director Sara Holdren.
Members of the cast and crew by special request.
THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE’s creative team includes:
Sara Holdren (Director), Debbie Owen (Production Stage Manager), Mix Rudolph (Lighting Designer), Will Slusher (Scenic Designer), Theo Teichmann (Sound Designer), Tricia Emley and Sara Holdren (Costume Designers), Talya Vardimon (Properties Designer), Caroline Brown (Assistant Stage Manager), Colin Killalea (Composer/Music Director), Ivy Jean (Assistant Lighting Designer).
THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE features on stage:
Haydn Haring, John Holdren, Stephanie Rinaldi, Alex Griffith, Bella Hersman, Grace Trapnell, C. Glen Williams, Ella Caplin, Mathias Glick, Ariel Tatum, Andrew Akre, Nick Heiderstat, Kyra Gibson, Gabrielle Laskey, Jayda Everett, Taylor Ballard, Ben Brantley
Performance History
Written in 1945, this translation premiered at Carleton College in 1948, and had its first professional production in 1954 at the Hedgerow Theatre in Philadelphia.
About the Author
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), playwright, poet and director, was born in Augsburg, Germany in February 1898. He established himself as a playwright during the 1920s and early 1930s with plays such as Baal, Man is Man, The Threepenny Opera and The Mother. In 1933, as Hitler came to power in Germany, Mr. Brecht fled to Scandinavia before eventually settling in the USA, where he remained until 1947. During the war years, he wrote many of his best-known plays, including The Life of Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mother Courage and Her Children and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. He returned to Europe in 1947 and shortly after his arrival formed the Berliner Ensemble. He died in Berlin on August 14, 1956, but remains a hugely influential theatre practitioner.
About the Translator
Eric Bentley was born in England in 1916, became an American citizen in 1948, in 1998 was inducted into the (American) Theatre Hall of Fame, and in 2011 won a gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Scholar, critic, teacher, performer, translator and, finally, playwright, he has had many books published and many plays and adaptations performed, the latter feature making him a star of the Samuel French catalogue. Several of his critical works have become classics, notably The Playwright as Thinker, Thinking about the Playwright, and The Life of the Drama. Today, nine of his plays are published by Northwestern University Press in three volumes entitled Rallying Cries, Monstrous Martyrdoms, and The Kleist Variations. Four more Bentley titles have recently been published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc: Round One, Round Two, A Time to Die and A Time to Live, and The Sternheim Trilogy.
About the Director – Sara Holdren
Sara Holdren is a director, writer, and teacher who was born in Charlottesville, Virginia and raised in the Blue Ridge foothills and, artistically, at Live Arts. She is the Pulitzer-nominated theater critic of New York Magazine and Vulture as well as the winner of the 2016-2017 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. She currently teaches in the directing department at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, and her recent directing work includes Faust (Heartbeat Opera), Oresteia and Cymbeline (NYU Grad Acting), As You Like It (Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival), Three Sisters and Twelfth Night (Two River Theater), and, with her own theater collective Tiltyard, MIDSUMMER, an original Shakespearean adaptation last performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She has been seeing and making shows at Live Arts since she was very small and has, at various times, acted, designed, directed, season programmed, graphic designed, built sets, hung lights, made lifelong friends, eaten pizza, and performed as an aerialist at the corner of 2nd and Water Street. She is thrilled to return to the Gibson Theater and to build something new with this community that she deeply loves.
About Live Arts
Live Arts forges theater and community. Founded in 1990 and now celebrating 36 years, Live Arts is a nationally recognized model for volunteer-powered community theater. More than 1,000 volunteers annually create bold, high-caliber productions, support new works, and engage audiences in thought-provoking storytelling. Guided by Artistic Integrity, Educational Excellence, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and Volunteer & Community Engagement, Live Arts makes theater accessible to all. As the anchor tenant in a four-story downtown Charlottesville facility, we offer two state-of-the-art stages, rehearsal studios, a theater library, and a rooftop event space, serving as a vital cultural and creative hub for the region.
The Live Arts 2026/27 Season is made possible by:
The generous support of our season sponsors Ronald Bailey & Pamela Friedman, C-VILLE Weekly, PJ Networks Computer Services, the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, The Madwoman Project, The REA Charitable Trust, and hundreds of theater lovers. Live Arts is grateful for the support of Ting, our Pay-What-You-Can Sponsor, for making theater more accessible in our community. Live Arts is supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
For more information:
Please contact Marketing Coordinator Andrew Bryce by email at [email protected] or (860) 942-0575; or 434-977-4177 x103, or visit livearts.org.
Promotional Photos for THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE are below (by Beau Gambold bgambold.com / @gamboldphotos)
