‘Picnic’ serves up 2026-27 TNT season
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Trumbull New Theatre will start its 2026-27 season with a "Picnic."
William Inge's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama will open Friday at the Niles community theater for a three-weekend run.
Director Josh Crank first heard of the play when Entertainment Weekly included it on a list of the top 50 American plays of the 20th century.
"I checked it out and found out that Paul Newman actually was in the (Broadway) cast before he got famous," Crank said. "I thought that was pretty interesting. The more I read, I just felt the writing was good, there were good character moments. It was something we really could bring to stage. It’s such an Americana play, and it's a very strong script."
The original Broadway production ran for more than a year, and it had Broadway revivals in 1994 and 2013. A 1955 film version received five Academy Award nominations and won for editing and art direction.
"Picnic" is set in the 1950s in a small Kansas town, where two widows are next door neighbors. When a handsome stranger arrives in town and becomes interested in one of the widow's daughters, it creates turmoil and unexpected consequences in the quiet neighborhood.
Even though the play is nearly 75 years old, Crank said he believes it's still relevant to today.
"I feel like the central core of the show to me is the traumas of the past colliding with the anxieties of the future," he said. "I think that’s something we all struggle with, whether it be in our personal lives or the divide between the older generation and the younger generation, which is really something at the heart of this play."
The cast features Janice Budd-Fentress, Marc Bye, Genie Engstrom, Aaron Holden, Brenton Lamp, Jenny Long, Casey Murphy, Jacqui Petrick, B. David Sloan, Sydney Stalnecker and Jennifer P. Taylor.
In recent years, TNT has focused on shows with smaller casts due to audition turnout, Crank said. He pitched "Picnic" after seeing the theater do "Emma," with a cast of 14 performers, last season.
"We felt confident that we reached a point that we can start casting shows that have a size like this," he said. "We really do love casting shows like this because more people in the community get involved. It brings in larger audiences. It’s community theater, so we try to really focus on the community part of it ... We've got a lot of returning faces from 'Emma,' so we were happy to see them come back for another show. We got some new timers. We got some long timers. It’s a really good mix of people."
Crank brought in a couple of books to help his cast understand the time period and their characters. One was James Kenyon's "A Cow for College," an autobiography of a Kansas farm boy in the mid 20th century, and the other was Evan S. Connell's "Mrs. Bridge," a social satire of affluent Kansas City life published in the late 1950s.
He discouraged the cast from watching the film version of "Picnic," starring William Holden and Kim Novak, because he didn't want any of the actors to mimic what they saw on screen. But he did turn to an unexpected cinematic source to offer guidance.
"The movie that I did recommend, especially for the younger couple, was Richard Linklater’s 'Before Sunrise' with Ethan Hawke (and Julie Delpy)," Crank said. "That was from the mid ’90s, and we're taking a lot of beats from the tone and the relationships in that movie."
The director made some tweaks to the set to make it work on the TNT stage, and costuming necessary for its mid-century setting drew upon the theater's costume collection, items brought in by cast members and the work of costume designer Emily Goldner.
"She made a lot of the skirts that the ladies are wearing from scratch," Crank said. "She has a fashion merchandise degree from Kent State, and we love having her be a part of the shows. She did a fantastic job."
If you go …
WHAT: The drama "Picnic"
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday through Sept. 26 and 3 p.m. Sept. 20 and 27
WHERE: Trumbull New Theatre, 5883 Youngstown Warren Road, Niles
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $17 adults and $15 students and are available online at trumbullnewtheatre.tix.com and by calling 330-652-1103.