We'll See

We'll See is a new play by Richard Nelson, who also directs it. The Public Theater is staging it as a world premiere in its Barbaralee Theater. The full title is We'll See: Conversations Among the Apple Family on the Night of the Midterm Elections, and the date in that title is real: the action takes place on November 3, 2026, election night.

It belongs to The Rhinebeck Panorama, Nelson's cycle of plays set in Rhinebeck, New York, among three families. The Public presents this one as the newest entry. One member of the five-person cast is new to the series, so for the other four the evening is a reunion as much as a premiere.

Everyone in the Apple family is on edge about how the night will go, so they gather for dinner at Barbara's. Conversation, food and singing fill the evening, with the family trading news and teasing one another. They also ask themselves whether what they oppose has come to define them.

The earlier Apple plays are anchored by the sisters Barbara, Marian and Jane, and all three are back, together with Richard. Yvonne, Richard's partner, is the new face at the table.

Nelson writes and directs his own work, and this play follows the habits of his cycle. The family talks about current events over a shared dinner, and each play is pinned to a particular date. The Apple plays of 2010 to 2013 were set on an election night or an anniversary, and the series began with a midterm election night in 2010, so We'll See circles back to where it started.

The Michaels, a later play in the cycle, is set in a kitchen, and the family plays are built around a meal that the characters prepare and eat. Expect conversation to carry the evening.

As of October 2026, Sally Murphy plays Jane, Maryann Plunkett plays Barbara, Laila Robins plays Marian and Jay O. Sanders plays Richard. Yvonne Woods joins the series as Yvonne. The Public announced the first four actors in April 2026 and added Woods later.

The Rhinebeck Panorama began at The Public with four Apple Family plays that all premiered there. Each is tied to a date. That Hopey Changey Thing arrived in 2010 and opened on November 2, 2010, a midterm election night. Sweet and Sad (2011) marks ten years since the September 11 attacks, and Sorry (2012) plays out during that year's presidential race. Regular Singing (2013) reaches the half-century point of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The theater later put the four plays on in repertory.

After the Apples, Nelson turned to other families. The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family came in 2016 as three plays about a single election year, and The Michaels ran at The Public from October 19 to December 1, 2019. During 2020 the Apple family showed up in three live-streamed pieces made under pandemic conditions, and the Hunter Theatre Project presented What Happened? The Michaels Abroad in September 2022. Nelson has described the project as 16 years in the making.

The New York Drama Critics' Circle gave the Apple Family plays a special award in 2014, and Nelson received an Obie Award in 2023 for The Rhinebeck Cycle.