Oct. 8, 2026
Grand Rapids Community College’s GRCC Players will take audiences from the 1848 Oregon Trail to a tech-driven future and an utterly disastrous murder mystery opening night with three productions that explore the theme “Under Pressure.”
“This season, we explore what it means to survive, to persevere and to perform under pressure,” said Jonathan Wheeler, manager of Spectrum Theater. “Eveyone knows what it feels like to be under pressure and the plays we chose approach that experience in different ways. There’s humor, grief, and the determination to keep going. This gives our students and our audiences plenty to connect with.”
“The Oregon Trail” explores moving forward while living with depression. “Anthropology” considers grief in a digital age and what we would do to hold on to someone we love. “The Play That Goes Wrong” brings the pressure directly to the stage as a theater group tries to hold it all together while it all falls apart.
Fall 2026 Main Stage: “The Oregon Trail”
Nov. 5-7, 2026 • 7:30 p.m. • Spectrum Theater
By Bekah Brunsetter
Jane’s trapped in her middle school computer lab playing “The Oregon Trail” for what feels like hours. The game becomes life and rips us back to the trail, 1848, where we travel in a covered wagon with Jane’s great-great-grandmother. As Game moves us, back, forward, and back again, Now-Jane and Then-Jane’s sadnesses are delicately juxtaposed in this play-meets-video-game about depression, Then and Now.
Winter 2026 Lab Theater: “anthropology”
Jan. 21–23, 2027 • 7:30 p.m. • Spectrum Theater, Lab Theater (Room 201)
By Lauren Gunderson
Merril has been spending more time with her sister, Angie, but she isn't ready for anyone to know about it. At least, not until Merril has decided that Angie is ready to see other people – but it is going to take a little more finessing, and definitely less fighting. After Angie, without permission, arranges for Merril’s ex Raquel to come over, the truth comes out: Angie is an A.I. creation that Merril has developed to cope with her sister's death. But as the virtual Angie begins to demand more presence in Merril and her mother’s lives, reality and consciousness blur, and new moral questions arise about the right, safe, and acceptable ways to grieve. Limited seating available each performance.
Winter/Spring 2027 Main Stage: “The Play That Goes Wrong”
April 8-10, 2027 • 7:30 p.m. • Spectrum Theater
By Jonathan Sayer, Henry Lewis and Henry Shields
From Mischief, Broadway masters of comedy, comes this smash-hit farce. Welcome to opening night of the Cornley University Drama Society’s newest production, The Murder at Haversham Manor, where things are quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. This 1920s whodunit has everything you never wanted in a show: an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines). Nevertheless, the accident-prone thespians battle against all odds to make it through to their final curtain call, with hilarious consequences! Part Monty Python, part Sherlock Holmes, this Olivier Award-winning comedy is a global phenomenon that’s guaranteed to leave you aching with laughter!
The Play That Goes Wrong is a farcical, murder mystery, play-within-a-play, conceived and originally performed by award-winning company Mischief.
Tickets and Info
Tickets are available online or check the Spectrum Theater website for details. For more information, email jonathanwheeler@grcc.edu or call (616) 234-3946.