Ten of the wildest, most thrilling, and most loved musicals in recent history, including some unexpected revivals, have been announced for Texas Performing Arts’ 2025-26 Broadway in Austin season at the Bass Concert Hall.
The lineup for the season was announced last night at a special VIP gala event at the UT-Austin venue, where all the shows will be performed. The night featured not only teleprompter speeches, but some unexpected performances by cast members who made the trip to Austin ahead of the traveling roadshow of lights, scenery, and music.
While heavy-hitter dramas like Othello, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Good Night, and Good Luck are all hot tickets in the Big Apple, the acts revealed to be coming to Austin remain from the realm of song and dance.
It all kicks off with back-to-back Tony Award winners for Best Musical, starting with 2023 winner Kimberly Akimbo – which runs from Sept. 30 through Oct. 5 – and continuing with last year’s victor, the stage adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s genre-defining novel of alienated youth, The Outsiders (Oct. 21-26). Attendees last night were given a taste of the show when Broadway cast member Josh Strobl (Ponyboy) gave them a rendition of “Great Expectations,” only to be then joined by John Patrick Collins (Johnny Cade) for the heartrending “Stay Gold.”
The Tony winners don’t stop there. The nihilistic glamour of the Roaring Twenties comes crashing into the Bass with The Great Gatsby (March 10-15, 2026), while the tongue-in-cheek historical humor of Six (Jan. 20-25, 2026) returns after a sell-out run in the 2023-24 season. That’s not the only returning show, as the gates to the underworld open again for another trip to Hadestown (Feb. 20-22, 2026), which brought its modern twist on Greek mythology to Austin in 2022.
Of course, jukebox musicals remain a mainstay of the scene, and so audiences will get to hear some of their favorite familiar songs in a new context with Shakespeare spoof & Juliet (July 14-19, 2026) and the ABBA-tastic Mamma Mia! (April 14-19, 2026).
However, what’s musical theatre without some true classics? Broadway in Austin isn’t just hosting three of the all-time best because of the songs, but because of their essential place in the genre. Kathy Voytko was present to announce that she has been cast as Mrs. Potts in the new touring production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (Dec. 2-14), and to fill the Bass with the instantly recognizable theme song. Already a movie smash, the musical revolutionized Broadway when it opened in 1994, bringing in new generations to the theatre, and now returns with its first new Disney Theatrical Productions show in 25 years.
Equally seismic in its impact on the industry and on the art form is The Wiz (May 12-17, 2026), the all-Black rewriting of The Wizard of Oz that brought funk and soul to the Great White Way. Plus, The Sound of Music (Feb. 3-8, 2026) remains beloved not simply because of wonderful tunes like “Do-Re-Mi” and “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” but because it’s a powerful story of finding yourself and resisting Nazis.
TPA also announced last night that there will yet again be season subscriber passes (available now at austin.broadway.com) that include tickets for Kimberly Akimbo, The Outsiders, Beauty and the Beast, & Juliet, The Sound of Music, The Great Gatsby, and The Wiz, with the ability to add Mamma Mia! on as an eighth show, and Six and Hadestown as season options. For those of you looking for specific shows, or maybe just thinking about a quick trip into the reflected limelight, watch for individual tickets to go on sale.
This article appears in February 28 • 2025.