Broadway Across Texas

Texas is alive with the sound of Broadway musicals headed our way. And as the 2026-2027 theater season grows nearer, it’s again time for this Arts and Culture resident theater cartographer to get out her stage sextant and navigate us through the sea of big touring shows presented by Broadway Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio, Broadway at the Hobby Center in Houston and Broadway at the Bass in Fort Worth, as well as Broadway at the Center in Dallas and Houston’s Theatre Under The Stars. I’ll look for genre waves, thematic undercurrents, and those rare sightings that maybe worth heading out (of town) to see.

This year’s Big Five winner—a title I just made up—for hitting all the major Texas cities goes to the Tony winning Buena Vista Social Club. Each season usually brings at least one jukebox musical/musical biography of a musician, and Buena Vista offers a distinctive twist on this tradition. Buena Vista mixes fact and imagination in depicting the lives of the Cuban musicians who came together in the 1990s to record the landmark album of the same name. The month-long Texas leg of this tour begins in Dallas in early November before mamboing to Houston, San Antonio, and Austin; then it returns in Summer 2027 for a last dance in Fort Worth. Houston Ballet fans will definitely want to catch this good view, as it was choreographed by frequent Houston Ballet friend Justin Peck and his wife Patricia Delgado.

Another musical about making music, and this one with a semi-autobiographical plot, comes from pop and hip-hop star Alicia Keys. Hell’s Kitchen uses Keys’s music to tell her story of growing up in New York in the 90s, but it also explores the Hell’s Kitchen community that nurtured her songwriting. It earns a Big Four title, spending most of February 2027 in Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston.

There’s something of a 90s theme this season, continuing with the next Big Four show, which also fits the movie adaptation musical category. Death Becomes Her, the campy satire of two backstabbing rivals who take a magical elixir to stay eternally beautiful is still vamping it up on Broadway, but the tour hits Houston then Austin in April and San Antonio and Dallas in May.

Another musical inspired by a 90s hit movie is Mrs. Doubtfire, about a divorced dad who disguises himself as a British nanny to take care of his kids. The show cleans up in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. Doubtfire is also one of the tours presented in Houston by Theatre Under the Stars. Traditionally, TUTS brings in two or three shows, then self-produces the rest of their season, but for 2026-2027, the majority of their musicals will be touring, almost doubling the number of tours making Houston stops this season.

Musical revivals lead the rest of the three-for city stops this year, including a new vision of one of the most beloved classic musicals. The Sound of Music, with new direction from three-time Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien, will follow every highway to get to Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth. The revival of 80s extravaganza, Phantom of the Opera, brings the chandelier down in Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio from late December 2026 to early January. In 2027, The Who’s Tommy rocks out in Houston, presented by TUTS, and Broadway at the Center in Dallas.

The last of the three-city shows is actually a rarity, a play, which is both a new work but also based on one of the biggest global modern mythologies, Harry Potter. Making stops in Austin, Houston, and Dallas, in late May to June, 2027, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child follows the next generation of teen wizards. Harry’s son, Albus, heads to Hogwarts to find himself sorted as a Slytherin—the horror—and teleports into his own magical adventures.

Since musical biographies and movie adapted musicals are once again the biggest trend, I have to highlight some shows that truly buck those inspiration with very unique origin stories. Betty Boop, the animated flapper character first drawn to life in the early 30s journeys from her black and white world to a vibrant, colorful 21st century New York, in Boop! The Musical. Betty Charlestons into Houston in January 2027 and Fort Worth in May.

Moving to those rare and new one-city shows, TUTS presents the play that is still breaking Broadway box office records, Oh, Mary! The dark farce follows a few weeks in the life of Mary Todd Lincoln leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Some of the biggest stage and screen actors have put on Mary’s petticoats to star in this one. Meanwhile, Broadway at the Bass will be the first in Texas to present one of my favorite musicals in recent years, Operation Mincemeat, the cult hit comedy that depicts one of the most bizarre intelligence operations in World War II. It might be worth an operation road trip.

—TARRA GAINES