Pretend It's Pretend

Pretend It's Pretend is a new play by Emma Watkins, directed by Annie Tippe. It is produced by Lincoln Center Theater through LCT3, the company's program for producing new artists and growing its audience. LCT3 is giving the play its premiere in 2027 at the Claire Tow Theater, and the run is a limited engagement of six weeks.

LCT describes the play as funny and tender at once. It centers on three people: a man who designs playgrounds, his teenage daughter and a third-grade teacher. The company has released only that outline, and this page stays within it.

Lincoln Center Theater is a nonprofit founded in 1985. It is one of the 11 organizations that make up Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, each operating independently, and it runs three theaters on the campus, the Claire Tow among them. As of October 2026, Lear deBessonet is its artistic director, and Maria Manuela Goyanes is artistic director and producer of LCT3.

Arthur designs playgrounds for a living. He also carries a grief from long ago that he has never moved past.

His daughter, Clara, is a teenager who writes songs but keeps them to herself, because she is not yet ready to sing them for anyone.

The third main character is Jen, who teaches third grade and gets through her days on coffee and too little sleep. The material released so far does not say how her path crosses with Arthur's and Clara's.

The themes LCT points to are about care and where it goes wrong. One is the teacher who makes a point of knowing every child in the room by name. Another is the father who treats keeping a child safe as the same thing as loving that child. A third is students who are handed burdens too heavy for them.

Those ideas sit inside a play that LCT presents as a comedy with feeling.

Pretend It's Pretend is the second of two new plays in LCT3's 2026-27 season at the Claire Tow. The first, creation stories and all the important importants, has performances from September 15, 2026. The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust is credited with support.

The Claire Tow Theater opened in June 2012. It sits above the Vivian Beaumont Theater in a two-story rooftop addition designed by Hugh Hardy. It has 112 seats, and the seating chart changes slightly from one production to the next.

Lincoln Center Theater announced the play on June 23, 2026, as part of its 2026-27 season. LCT's show and season pages give January 26, 2027 for the first preview.

The February 11, 2027 opening date comes from the June announcement, which was made before the first preview date moved. Confirm the current opening date on the official site before you plan around it.