In a last-ditch attempt to save her declining church from financial ruin, a desperate president fights to uncover her father's long-lost, tainted fortune.

The Virginia African American Cultural Center and The Z present a concert performance of Cross That River, featuring an extraordinary score that mixes jazz, blues, country, and R&B. Award Winning Jazz artist Alan Harris's new musical tells the untold story of the Black West and aims to empower Americans with an inspiring story of freedom. The unsettled West of the 1860s provides a new life and new dreams for Blue, a run-away slave, who escapes from slavery to Texas to become one of America’s first Black Cowboys. This compelling tale of freedom integrates fiction with historical fact, and each song presents a different page in this complicated chapter of American History.

No Holds Bard is a community-driven Shakespeare festival. From a newly-imagined Macbeth set in post-earthquake Haiti circa 2010 through our centerpiece bootleg-style presentation of Romeo and Juliet, we are calling on the support and participation of not only our local artists, but of anyone who has ever felt the glow of the limelight and the call of the boards. There is a little something for everyone in The Z’s Shakespeare festival. In addition to the afore-mentioned plays, we are presenting a concert of some of Shakespeare’s dozens of lyrics set to original music by local composers and songwriters and an evening of re-contextualized and newly-paraphrased classic scenes. Imagine Tybalt and Mercutio dueling it out in high-stakes poker, or young Henry exhorting his band of brothers to make one final pizza delivery.

A new musical about Edgar Cayce from the writing team of Anton Dudley and Michael Cooper, the creators of Second to Nun.

Next to Normal, with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt, explores how one suburban household copes with crisis and mental illness.

Our resident playwrights are teaming with local actors and directors in presenting complete scenes from new pieces.