The Explorers Club
by Nell Benjamin
August 7-16, 2026
The prestigious Explorers Club is in crisis: their acting president wants to admit a woman, their bartender is terrible, and a visiting colonial dignitary has slapped Queen Victoria. Grab your safety goggles for some very mad science involving deadly cobras, irate Irishmen, and the occasional airship.
Silly shenanigans abound when the stupidest scientists in Victorian England are forced to admit a brilliant woman to their – Gentlemen’s Only! – Explorers Club.
ICTRep ticket prices are inclusive of all taxes and fees! No hidden fees. Ever.
ICTRep Ticket Policies
Performance Times and Location
August 7 & 8 @ 7:30 p.m.
August 9 @ 2:00 p.m.
August 14 @ 7:30 p.m.
August 15 @ 2:00 p.m. (Saturday matinee)
August 16 @ 7:30 p.m. (Sunday evening)
Welsbacher Theatre
WSU Metropolitan Complex
Door F (northeast side of building)
5015 E. 29th Street North
Wichita, KS 67220
Running Time: 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a 10 minute intermission.
Seating for this show is general admission. We can, however, reserve seats for those with mobility issues. Just email us at tickets@ictrep.org or call 316-612-2543 and let us know the date of your tickets and what kind of accommodations you will need (wheelchair seating, zero-step seating, etc.) and we will take care of it.
What to Expect
“You don’t have to be British to lose your composure and howl with laughter at The Explorers Club, a witty spoof of all those bold Victorian adventurers who ravaged foreign lands and annihilated indigenous cultures in the name of science.”
Variety
“The jokes come barreling fast and furious… but, like most farces, the effect is cumulative. By the time all the various comic strands start weaving together in the second act, the silliness has gotten contagious.”
Entertainment Weekly
“The title location is where Victorian men of science ponder the mysteries of nature while genteelly getting blotto… But the most impressive act of mixology belongs to playwright Nell Benjamin, whose comedy recipe goes a little like this: two parts Blackadder, one part Monty Python, a dash of Shaw, shake wildly and garnish with fresh feminist ire.”
Time Out New York
“In her hijinks-happy cocktail The Explorers Club, Nell Benjamin follows this recipe: To a starchy bunch of science geeks bemoaning the worst barkeep in London, add a plucky adventurer and her discovery, a trouble-making tribesman. Then shake, stir and serve in an eye-catching vessel, and brace for laughter.”
New York Daily News
About Playwright Nell Benjamin
Nell Benjamin co-wrote the score to Legally Blonde, The Musical with composer Laurence O’Keefe, for which they received Tony Award nominations, Drama Desk nominations and the Olivier Award for Best Musical. Her play The Explorers Club was a commercial and critical hit for Manhattan Theatre Club and received an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, as well as an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant. Nell’s disturbingly free adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, called Pirates! (Or Gilbert and Sullivan Plunder’d) ran at the Goodspeed Opera House, the Paper Mill Playhouse, the Huntington Theater and the St. Louis MUNY. She is currently working on an adaptation of the movie Dave with Thomas Meehan and Tom Kitt, Gotta Dance with Bob Martin, Chad Beguelin and Matt Sklar, and Mean Girls with Jeff Richmond and Tina Fey. Nell’s work for television includes the last and weirdest season of Unhappily Ever After, Animal Planet’s Whoa! Sunday with Mo Rocca, and the new Electric Company. Nell received the 2003 Kleban Foundation Award for lyrics and a 2003 Jonathan Larson Foundation Grant.