The Newport Playhouse & Cabaret Restaurant at 102 Connell Highway will close on Dec. 31, 2026, after 43 years. President Jonathan Perry announced the decision in August in a letter to patrons. What'sUpNewp reported that the decision was personal and came from his wish for more time with family. The theater plans to keep performing until the last night of the year.
Three months sounds like plenty of time. The calendar tells a shorter story. As of today, Sept. 30, the theater has two full plays left. The first ends on Nov. 11. The second is the one that closes the building. Anyone who wants to see the Playhouse in its normal rhythm, a regular fall comedy on a regular weeknight, has about six weeks.
Where the calendar stands today
The most recent production, I Need That, closed on Sept. 27. The Playhouse homepage lists what remains in this order:
- Oct. 3. Mind Magic: A Night of Laughter & Astonishment is a one-night show of comedy and mentalism by Dr. Steve Taubman. Proceeds benefit NAMI Rhode Island. Tickets are sold through Eventbrite, not the theater's usual box office.
- Oct. 13 to Nov. 11. Beau Jest is a comedy by James Sherman.
- Nov. 15 to Dec. 31. Social Security is a Broadway comedy by Andrew Bergman.
- Dec. 6. The Jimmy Mazz Holiday Legends Variety Show is a single date in the middle of the Social Security run.
- Dec. 31. The Final Act is the closing-night performance of Social Security, followed by a New Year's Eve cabaret.
The homepage lists nothing between Oct. 3 and Oct. 13, or between Nov. 11 and Nov. 15. Those gaps change the math. Fall at the Playhouse is now four bookings around two plays, and once Social Security opens it runs until the doors close for good.
Some third-party event calendars list other titles for these dates, including Keep on Laughing and On the Farce Day of Christmas. Neither appears on the theater's own current schedule. The theater's page is the one to trust.
Why Beau Jest is the one to plan around
Beau Jest is a romantic comedy. A young woman's parents insist on meeting the boyfriend she has invented to please them, so she hires an aspiring actor named Bob Schroeder to play him at a dinner party. He is so convincing that the parents are won over, and then so is she.
What matters here is the timing. Beau Jest is the last play the Playhouse will stage with no farewell attached. The holiday crowd and the closing-night countdown haven't started yet. It's a dinner-theater comedy in October, the way the building has run for four decades.
The run is also short on Friday and Saturday nights. On the theater's standard schedule, evening shows are on Fridays and Saturdays and matinees run Sunday through Thursday. Beau Jest opens on a Tuesday and closes on a Wednesday, so the run includes four weekends, Oct. 16–17, 23–24 and 30–31 and Nov. 6–7. That works out to eight possible evening shows, before counting any changes the box office makes to specific dates.
Social Security has more weekends: six Friday–Saturday pairs between Nov. 15 and Dec. 31. One of them is Christmas Day and the day after, and the run ends on a Thursday, which is normally a matinee day. So the last play's calendar comes with holiday exceptions that Beau Jest doesn't have. The box office says not every listed weekday has a matinee and asks patrons to call about specific dates and seating. That advice matters more in November and December than at any point this fall.
How an evening there actually runs
If you've driven past the building at the foot of the Newport Bridge for years without going in, here's how a night works. It isn't a theater with a restaurant attached. It's a single event in three parts, and the times are fixed:
| Doors | Buffet | Play | Cabaret | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matinee, Sunday–Thursday | 11:00 a.m. | 11:30 a.m. | 1:00 p.m. | After the play |
| Evening, Friday–Saturday | 5:45 p.m. | 6:15 p.m. | 7:30 p.m. | After the play |
The buffet comes first, in the dining room. Then guests walk a short way to what the theater calls its intimate theatre, which has reserved seating. After the play, everyone goes back to their original tables or to the bar. By then the dining room has been turned into a cabaret, and company members keep the evening going with songs and comedy. The building has accessible seating, air conditioning and plenty of parking.
Dinner, play and cabaret together cost $80 per person. The play alone is $32. Gratuity isn't included, and groups of 15 or more can ask about discounts. The full package costs $48 more than the play alone. That $48 covers the buffet and the cabaret, the two parts of the evening no other theater in town offers.
The box office is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at (401) 848-7529.
Dec. 6 and Dec. 31 are different kinds of nights
Two dates in the final stretch aren't regular Social Security performances.
On Dec. 6, Jimmy Mazz brings his Holiday Legends Variety Show in from Las Vegas. He has spent the past 16 years as a full-time touring singer in Las Vegas and Atlantic City showrooms. His set covers Neil Diamond, the Righteous Brothers, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and, the theater's listing promises, Elvis Presley. Tickets are sold on their own page, separate from the play.
Dec. 31 is the Final Act. The menu is bigger than the usual buffet, with lobster Newburg, hand-carved prime rib, baked stuffed shrimp, ziti with meat sauce, homemade meatballs, roasted chicken, and sausage and peppers. A dessert trio is served during the cabaret. Then comes Social Security one last time. The cabaret afterward adds noisemakers, a midnight countdown and champagne.
The Final Act page doesn't list a separate price or start time for New Year's Eve. The theater's older New Year's Eve page still shows details from 2025, including a different play and a different price, so don't rely on it for this year. For the last night, the reliable source is the box office phone.
What the building has been for 43 years
The schedule is short because the story behind it is long. Perry was 18 when the theater opened in August 1983. He wrote that he thought a small theater "might be a fun hobby until I figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up." It ended up being nearly his whole adult life. He worked alongside his father, Matt Siravo, for 32 years. Siravo performed, directed and produced at the Playhouse and mentored the people who worked there.
Perry's letter counts the work in round numbers: hundreds of sets, thousands of performances, thousands of cabaret skits and, in his words, "probably rolled millions of meatballs." The theater got through floods, equipment failures, renovations and the pandemic.
"For more than four decades, people walked through our doors, shared a meal, laughed together and left feeling a little better than when they arrived. Very few small theaters get to tell a story that lasts more than four decades. We did."
The Final Act page sums up what the theater is asking for in three short lines: "Come see a show. Bring an old friend. Laugh with us again." It signs off by thanking patrons for believing in "The Little Theater That Could." Perry's letter also asks past guests to share their Playhouse stories. The Playhouse hasn't announced a separate reunion or tribute event. As the calendar stands, the farewell is the remaining shows themselves.
In practice, that means calling the box office this week to book a Beau Jest evening, Oct. 16 at the earliest, and then calling again about Dec. 31 once the theater posts the New Year's Eve details. The play and buffet stay the same for every Social Security performance through the last one. Only Beau Jest runs before the farewell crowd arrives.
Gathering family or an old group of friends for one last night at the Playhouse is the kind of local occasion that Eric Kirton values, as an Aquidneck Island native who knows what these places mean to the people who grew up with them. If you're thinking about what the island's next chapter means for your own plans, request a private consultation.
