As we celebrate season announcement season at Arts and Culture, it’s time once again for this resident theater cartographer to unroll her maps and season schedule to chart the ebb and flow of big Broadway musicals as they tour the Lone Star State.
The Broadway at the Hobby and Broadway San Antonio seasons open with the 2023 best musical winner Kimberly Akimbo, which later travels to Dallas in January. With so many shows based on novels, films and even board games this season, Kimberly Akimbo has a unique story beginning as a play by David Lindsay-Abaire twenty-five years ago, before finding Broadway success when turned into a musical with book and lyrics also by Lindsay-Abaire and music by Jeanine Tesori. A coming of age story with a remarkable twist, Kimberly has to navigate a new high school while living with a disease that causes her to age rapidly.
While musicals based on films remain popular, The Outsiders is one of several shows also based on beloved books. Many of these musicals also take us back in time to reveal those seemingly simpler eras were not so easy and glamour can hide a dark depth. Set a century ago, The Great Gatsby based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald American classic, roars into Dallas, Houston, and Austin in early spring of 26. With its jazz-and pop influenced music, prohibition era set, and Tony winning costume design this looks like one of the glitziest shows of the season.
A book club favorite across the country, Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, the historical novel about a Depression era circus, which also became a film, won accolades when it made its musical debut in 2023. It swings into San Antonio and Houston in January.
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The cast of The Outsiders. Photo by Matthew Murphy.
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The national touring company of Kimberly Akimbo. Photo by Joan Marcus.
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The First National Touring Company of Some Like It Hot. Photo by Matthew Murphy.
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The Broadway cast of The Great Gatsby. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.
Texas fans of Nicholas Sparks’s novels might want to hit the road because the bestseller turned blockbuster film turned musical, The Notebook, romances exclusively in Fort Worth, July, 2026.
For the hottest films turned into musicals–without an original novel—we go time-tripping back to the 80s and 90s. In March, Broadway Fort Worth and Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars will take the DeLorean for a spin Back to the Future. We hear this musical wows for its special effects. Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite Scottish nanny/divorced dad Mrs. Doubtfire cleans up Dallas as part of the Broadway at the Center season in December.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Broadway season without at least one jukebox, musical biography, and this year it’s A Beautiful Noise, about the life and songs of Neil Diamond. Making its Texas debut in Fort Worth and Houston in the fall, it returns in spring 2026 for a “Song Sung Blue” in San Antonio and Dallas.
Not a musical bio, but a play with music, inspired by some real rock history, Stereophonic will make only one Texas stop, as part of the Broadway at the Center season. For those who don’t live in Dallas, it might be worth a visit to see this multiple Tony Award winner about a ’70s rock band at the height of their creativity as their personal relationships crumble.
While revivals aren’t quite as numerous as they were last year, one in particular will reign big and beastly in multiple Texas cities. Yes, the musical that made Disney a major Broadway player, Beauty and the Beast, magically transforms on stage with new set and costume design. Just in time for a Beauty(ful) holiday, the show waltzes into San Antonio in November, Austin and Dallas in December, 2025 and Houston in early January, 2026.
Another revival we’ll definitely say “Ni” to, Spamalot, or its full title, Monty Python’s Spamalot: A Musical (Lovingly) Ripped Off from the Motion Picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail) arrives via clopping coconut to Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars and Fort Worth in April, 2026.
Finally, we need to solve the curious case of Clue, the play that conquered Texas. I first charted this comedy, based on the 80s film based on the mid-20th century board game, when it killed (in a funny way) as part of the Broadway San Antonio lineup two years ago. Then it mysteriously popped out of the conservatory into the 24-25 Austin and Fort Worth seasons. Now the mayhem continues as it lives to murder again in Dallas and Houston. Seldom does a nonmusical, non-Broadway show keep laugh-slaughtering its way into bigger and bigger venues like this little comedy that could. So Clue, whether it’s with a wrench at the Hobby Center or a candlestick at Winspear Opera House, we await our comic death with glee.
—TARRA GAINES
