Three Bone Theatre opens its 15th season in Charlotte on Friday with a production of “Liberation,” Bess Wohl's Tony Award-winning play about a 1970s women's consciousness-raising group and the daughter who later tries to make sense of what came after. The show runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. throughout November at the Arts Factory, with performances scheduled from Friday through Nov. 22.
The play opens in 1970, when six women in Ohio meet on a basketball court to form a women's liberation group, according to Three Bone Theatre. Fifty years later, one of their daughters tries to understand where things fell apart, per the same listing. As reported by WFAE, the production examines women's fight for equality from the 1970s to the present day.
Director Donna Bradby told the station that the play addresses abortion rights, equal pay and domestic responsibilities, and said many of the issues explored in the production remain relevant today. Actor Valerie Thames echoed that sentiment, saying the play's themes of equality and advocacy resonate today. “It's very bold and challenging and beautiful and emotional,” Thames said, according to the station's report.
A Tony-Winning Script Makes Its Way to the Arts Factory
“Liberation” won the 2026 Tony Award for Best Play, a win that marked the fourth time a female playwright has taken that prize, according to Playbill. The play also won the 2025 Outer Critics Circle award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play, per Three Bone Theatre's event page. The Charlotte production runs about two hours, plus a 15-minute intermission, and is listed at the Arts Factory address of 1545 W Trade St., according to WDAV.
Three Bone Theatre recommends the show for audiences 18 and older, noting discussions of reproductive rights and other mature subject matter, as well as non-sexual nudity. The 2026-2027 season marks the nonprofit theater's 15th, following a 14th season that Three Bone announced in August 2025 and kicked off that November with “Eureka Day,” according to the Charlotte Observer.
Charlotte Follows a Philadelphia Run
Charlotte's staging arrives weeks after Philadelphia Theatre Company closed its own run of “Liberation” at the Suzanne Roberts Theater on Oct. 25, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. That production, directed by Taibi Magar and presented in association with Baltimore Center Stage, was the play's first regional staging since its 2025-26 Broadway run, the paper reported.
Three Bone Theatre, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in Charlotte, was founded in August 2012 by Carmen Bartlett and Robin Tynes-Miller, according to the Charlotte Observer. More than a decade later, the company's latest season opener brings that same Tony-winning script to a North Carolina stage, with Bradby directing and Thames among the cast bringing the 1970s consciousness-raising circle, and the daughter left to untangle its legacy, to Charlotte audiences this month.
