NEW ORLEANS: Southern Rep Theatre has announced its 2016–17 season, featuring four plays including three regional premieres.

“These plays are just the kinds of stories we like to tell at Southern Rep Theatre: complicated, emotional, challenging, and based first and foremost in great writing,” said artistic director Aimée Hayes in a statement.

The season will begin with the regional premiere of Airline Highway (Oct. 5–23), by Lisa D’Amour, a coproduction with the University of New Orleans, about an assortment of strippers, hustlers, and poets who come together in the parking lot of a dilapidated hotel to celebrate a living funeral of a beloved burlesque performer. Hayes will direct the production at the University of New Orleans’s Robert E. Nims Theatre.

Next up will be the regional premiere of George Brant’s Grounded (Nov. 2–20), a one-woman show about an air force pilot who becomes unexpectedly pregnant and has to pilot drones from a base. Kerry Cahill will star in the production at the Lower Depths Theatre at Loyola University New Orleans.

Following will be Sweet Bird of Youth (March 21—April 15, 2017), by Tennessee Williams, about a silver screen legend on the run from a humiliating comeback. Leslie Castay will star in the production at Loyola University’s Marquette Theatre.

The season will conclude with the regional premiere of Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1,2, & 3), by Suzan-Lori Parks, about a slave who is promised freedom for his service in the Civil War in 1863. Valerie Curtis-Newton will direct the production at Loyola University’s Marquette Theatre.

Southern Rep Theatre, now entering its 30th season, is committed to producing classic plays and new works.