Ethan Slater-Led Marcel on the Train, The Baker's Wife Musical in CSC Season Off-Broadway

Ethan Slater, who plays Boq in the two-part Wicked films, will star as the famed mime Marcel Marceau in Classic Stage Company's world premiere of Marcel on the Train, part of the Off-Broadway company's newly announced 2025-2026 season.

Co-written by Slater and Marshall Pailet (Who’s Your Baghdaddy, Private Jones), performances will begin in February 2026. Pailet will also direct the play, which follows Marceau as a young man in Nazi-occupied France, guiding Jewish children to safety with nothing but courage and imagination. Slater, who was a Tony nominee for creating the title role in SpongeBob SquarePants, is returning to CSC after starring as the Balladeer and John Wilkes Booth in the 2021 run of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins.

CSC’s new season will begin in October 2025 with the Stephen Schwartz-Joseph Stein musical The Baker’s Wife, which famously closed before it officially opened on Broadway. Gordon Greenberg will direct the production, presented by special arrangement with the Menier Chocolate Factory and Creative Partners Productions. Greenberg also helmed a 2024 London revival at the Menier. The transfer continues a long relationship between the similarly situated companies, both of whom have been previously led by John Doyle as artistic director.

Based on the film La Femme du Boulanger by Marcel Pagnol and Jean Gionoand, the musical follows the arrival of a new Baker and his younger wife, who turn a provincial French village upside down. The Baker's Wife achieved cult status thanks to a cast recording that features cast members Patti LuPone and Paul Sorvino, and a score that includes "Meadowlark," "Gifts of Love," "Chanson," and "Proud Lady."

CSC’s season will conclude in May 2026 with the New York premiere of Thornton Wilder’s final play, The Emporium, adapted and completed by Kirk Lynn (Lipstick Traces) and directed by Rob Melrose (Born with Teeth). Wilder's play follows a young man's journey through the city and beyond, as he encounters a world of wonder, meaning, and the elusive truths of life itself.

Tappan Wilder, nephew to Thornton Wilder, says in a statement, “The Wilder family can’t be too grateful to Kirk Lynn for exploring the known published and little-known vast unpublished archival record of this work, grounded in Wilder’s passionate post-WWII encounter with existentialism, and then agreeing to complete a play exploring the loneliness of the American experience in all its humor, sadness, hope—and freedom. With a deep bow of thanks to Classic Stage Company, it is no small benefit of this unusual artistic collaboration across the decades that it celebrates the life, times and creativity of two distinguished artists, then and now.”

“This season at CSC is about looking deeper rather than looking back,” states CSC Producing Artistic Director Jill Rafson. “I love that all of our shows are about filling in the missing pieces of great classic stories: a long-awaited major New York production for a gorgeous, underappreciated musical; a highly theatrical look at the origins of a legendary figure; and a play that completes the unmatched body of work of one of the most celebrated American writers of all time. There’s a fresh urgency to all of these pieces today, and I know that they will thrive in CSC’s incredibly special space.”

CSC will also continue its Rediscovery Readings series throughout the season, this year celebrating the art of suspense.

Performance schedules, casting, and full creative teams will be announced at a later date. Visit ClassicStage.org.