For its 40th season, Undermain Theatre is continuing the tradition of bringing cutting-edge performance to Deep Ellum.

The season runs from fall 2023 to summer 2024 and brings back long-time collaborators as well as introduces new-to-Undermain artists and voices.

It begins with Bondage by Star Finch, a Southern gothic drama which takes place pre-Emancipation on a small island.

With the onset of puberty, Zuri must use her wits to outsmart the twisted desires of a drunken master and a sadistic mistress on a haunted plantation. Hierarchies of race and gender collide in this AfroSurreal tale of an enslaved girl who dares to follow her own instincts toward liberation by any means. Directed by Jiles King and featuring Rhonda Boutté, the regional premiere runs September 28-October 15, 2023.

Harold Pinter's No Man's Land is — surprisingly — also enjoying its regional premiere, here featuring Tyrees Allen and Bruce DuBose.

Set against the decayed elegance of a house in London’s Hampstead Heath, two men face each other over a drink. Do they know each other, or is each performing an elaborate character of recognition? Their ambiguity — and the comedy — intensify with the arrival of two younger men, one ostensibly a manservant, the other a male secretary. All four inhabit a no man’s land between time present and time remembered, between reality and imagination — a territory which Pinter explores with his characteristic mixture of biting wit, aggression, and anarchic sexuality. It runs November 9-December 3, 2023.

This Time is a workshop production by Brian Dang, the 2022 recipient of the Katherine Owens/Undermain Fund for New Work.

Jane holds a knife. It's bloody. Hester lies on a table. She's bloodied. Peregrine blows out a candle. Go back in time. Jane, Hester, and Peregrine work as maids in a 1900s manor, unable to say what they want to say, stealing moments away from work to hold time with each other. Their love bubbles under their words. We hear the thoughts they aren't yet brave enough to tell each other. They can't stop thinking of death. Directed by Gabrielle Kurlander, it runs February 29-March 17, 2024.

Considered the oldest surviving play in theater history, The Persians by Aeschylus is unique among extant ancient Greek tragedies in that it dramatizes recent history rather than events from the distant age of mythical heroes.

This version is adapted by Ellen McLaughlin and is making its regional premiere. It concentrates on the demise of the Persian Empire, lamented by the Persian queen Atossa, by the folly of her son Xerxes, which caused the empire's downfall. The play also includes the appearance of the ghost of Xerxes' father, Darius, who declaims the ruin of his once-great empire. The Persians is the only surviving play in a trilogy that would otherwise be entirely lost. It runs In May 2-26, 2024.

Ticket prices range from $15-$35, with discounts available for seniors, students, KERA members, and groups. You must call 214-747-5515 for the discount, otherwise subscriptions are available at www.undermain.org.

Undermain is located at 3200 Main Street at the corner of Murray Street in Deep Ellum.