Gavin Mayer was sitting in a Chili’s Grill & Bar when he first thought to set “Spring Awakening” in Texas. It was May 2025, soon after Mayer, associate professor and chair in the Department of Theatre and Dance Performance and associate dean of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance at Ithaca College, learned he would be directing the musical at IC in Spring 2026.

The second proper mainstage show for the Ithaca College Center of Theatre and Dance Fall 2025 season kicked off with a vibrant production of “Little Women.”

Ithaca College’s stage productions have worked with other external performance spaces in the past, but never before has the college joined forces with the Hangar Theatre, nor have two large-scale student productions shared a performance space over two weeks as they did with the productions of “Stupid F##king Bird” and “Fever/Dream.” From Oct. 24 through Nov. 3, these two comedic drama adaptations were in rotating repertory at the Hangar Theatre.  

Ithaca College’s Center for Theatre and Dance has been preparing for the quartet of shows being performed in the Spring 2023 season for the past eleven months.