Staff Reporter
Katie Holmes is stepping back onto the stage in a major way, taking on the title role in a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. The production will open the Old Globe Theatre’s 2026 season in San Diego, reuniting the actress with the Globe’s artistic director Barry Edelstein. The two previously collaborated in 2023 on the Off-Broadway play The Wanderers.
READ: STORY HIGHLIGHTS
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Play: Hedda Gabler
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Venue: Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage, Old Globe Theatre, San Diego
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Season: 2026
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Run Dates: Feb. 7 – March 8, 2026
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Opening Night: Feb. 12, 2026
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Director: Barry Edelstein
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Adaptation by: Erin Cressida Wilson
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Lead Role: Katie Holmes as Hedda Gabler
The upcoming staging will take place on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center in Balboa Park. Performances begin February 7 and will run through March 8, with the official opening night scheduled for February 12.
The fresh adaptation is penned by Erin Cressida Wilson, the veteran playwright and screenwriter behind films such as Secretary, The Girl on the Train, Chloe, and Snow White. Wilson’s stage credits include Hands, Wilder, Stop All the Clocks, The Erotica Project, Hurricane, and My Girl is in Front.
In this interpretation of Ibsen’s classic, Holmes will portray Hedda, a newlywed who returns from her honeymoon already restless and dissatisfied with her marriage to George Tesman. Bored and craving control, she begins to manipulate those around her — a web of schemes that ultimately threatens her own stability.
“Hedda Gabler is one of the landmark works of world drama,” Edelstein said. “I’m truly thrilled to bring a bracing new take on it to the Globe.” He added that, like all of Ibsen’s plays, the story is “obsessed by how the choices we make in our pasts come back around to shape our present.”
For Edelstein, the project is also a personal reunion. “It’s so fun that it reunites me with two artists I’ve had significant collaborations with over the years,” he noted. “One is playwright and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson, who renews this classic through her frank and dynamic voice, with incendiary results. The other is a major figure in American film, TV, and theatre — the wonderful Katie Holmes.”
The director also emphasized the demands of the role: “Hedda, like Hamlet, rises or falls with the actor in the title role. She’s everything: victim, tyrant, femme fatale, funny, scathing, tragic. Only an actor with immense imagination and charisma can take on Hedda Gabler, and in Katie’s radiant and powerful performance, Globe audiences are going to witness something rare and special. She’s an artist at the height of her powers and we’re lucky to have her in San Diego.”
First staged in 1891, Hedda Gabler has been adapted and performed globally, with numerous renowned actors stepping into the role — including Ingrid Bergman, Diana Rigg, Glenda Jackson, Cate Blanchett, Rosamund Pike, and Annette Bening.
Additional casting and creative team details for the Globe production will be announced in the coming months. The show is supported by the Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Fund, along with contributions from the City of San Diego and the Theodor and Audrey Geisel Fund.
Away from the stage, Holmes is directing her own feature film Happy Hours, from a script she wrote. She also stars in the project, alongside Joshua Jackson, Mary-Louise Parker, Constance Wu, and Jack Martin. Holmes is represented by UTA, Untitled Entertainment, and Vision PR.
With Hedda Gabler, the Old Globe Theatre is set to open its 2026 season with a bold artistic statement — blending a classic of world drama with a fresh adaptation and a star-led performance. For Katie Holmes, it marks not only a return to the stage but also an opportunity to tackle one of theatre’s most challenging and layered roles. For San Diego audiences, it promises an interpretation that bridges Ibsen’s timeless themes with a contemporary creative vision, making this production one of the most anticipated events in the city’s upcoming cultural calendar.
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