The 2025-26 theater season has begun in Connecticut, and it already doesn’t know when to end.
The season-opening shows at TheaterWorks Hartford and West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park had their runs extended due to strong ticket sales, while Yale Repertory Theatre sold out many performances of “Spunk.”
The successes aren’t limited to theaters that just started their seasons in September or October. The Legacy Theatre in Branford, founded just five years ago, announced that its 2026 season would have three shows instead of four. This was not because audiences weren’t coming, but because they were and the runs of all shows were being lengthened. The Legacy’s production of the classic comedy “Noises Off” sold out its entire run almost before it opened and also sold out its previous show, the dark Stephen Sondheim musical “Sweeney Todd.”
Small theaters around the state are experiencing similar triumphs. So are college-based theaters. The Yale Repertory Theatre has a hit on its hands with the noteworthy world premiere of a 90-year-old play by the esteemed Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston, “Spunk.”
Theater review: Long-lost Zora Neale Hurston play brings the ‘Spunk’ to Yale Rep
This is a significant moment for regional theaters in the state, which took years to bounce back from the ravages of the COVID-19 shutdown as well as other factors like diminishing government support for the arts and the usual competition from streaming media and other arts events. It’s doubly satisfying to see such a resurgence in popularity since some of these shows are rather risky programming choices, not surefire crowdpleasers.
The Goodspeed Opera House is perhaps the grandest example of how theaters have carefully come back from forced closures and shortened seasons to fresh success. The theater, which follows a spring-to-winter season plan rather than the autumn-to-summer one observed by most regional theaters, is in the midst of its 2025 season. The run of “A Chorus Line,” the third show in the opera house’s four-show season, was extended through Nov. 2, following successful runs by the season’s earlier shows “All Shook Up” and “Ragtime.” Sales are already strong for the final show, “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas,” scheduled for Nov. 14 through Dec. 28.
Things aren’t just looking up for the Goodspeed. From some angles, they look better than they ever have.
“Based on projections right now, it looks like 2025 will be the highest-grossing season in Goodspeed history,” said Donna Lynn Hilton, artistic director of Goodspeed Musicals since 2021 and a staff member there for decades before. She adds that this year, the Goodspeed Opera House had its highest attendance since 2007, and that record has only been hit twice before in the past 30 years.
The Goodspeed production of “A Chorus Line,” is runs through Nov. 2. (Diane Sobolewski)
Hilton said the turnaround began with observations and planning made while the Goodspeed was in very different circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of 2021. Unable to present shows indoors, Goodspeed Musicals staged concerts or readings of new musicals in a tent on the lawn outside the opera house.
The theater leadership noticed that many people attending those outdoor shows had not been to the Goodspeed before and that many did not fit the established Goodspeed demographic as they knew it. Surveys suggested that younger theatergoers were part of the mix and that there was an interest in more diverse and more contemporary programming at a venue largely known for presenting musical theater classics from the early 20th century. The Goodspeed also does a considerable amount of development of new works, and the lawn shows reflected some of that.
Hilton said 45% of audiences for that outdoor some season were “new to file,” meaning they hadn’t purchased Goodspeed tickets before. “We asked ourselves ‘How do we embrace those people?’ I was meeting young people but also people 70 to 85 years old who were interested in newer musicals,” she said. “We starting asking ‘Is this audience less risk averse than we thought?’ We found that they are.”
With the reasoning that the musicals that are 50 years old today were the hot ticket when many of these people were first going to the theater, Hilton eased into this new awareness by programming distinctive, groundbreaking musicals from the 1970s such as “Dreamgirls” for the 2023 season and “A Chorus Line,” which is currently playing through Nov. 2. The 2026 season will start with the 1969 rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar,” one of the hip young shows that was revolutionizing Broadway while the still-new Goodspeed was producing revivals of “The Boy Friend” and “Peter Pan.” The 2026 season will end with “Annie,” which was developed at the Goodspeed in 1976 and became a Broadway sensation.
Theater review: Goodspeed restores grit and emotional power of ‘A Chorus Line’
Shows that are half a century old may not seem like particularly bold choices, but the Goodspeed Opera House has never presented a bonafide rock opera before this (though electric guitars have graced the pit orchestra many times) and a show like “Dreamgirls,” inspired by the story of 1960s pop acts like The Supremes, or even” A Chorus Line” sound profoundly different than traditional showtune-based musicals of earlier eras.
“I’m really proud of it,” Hilton said of the broader programming. “Subscriptions are up.” The opera house is on track to exceed 93% capacity this season, a number not hit since 1997.
The artistic director tempered the enthusiasm, however, by saying it’s never easy to run a non-profit regional theater. One way Goodspeed has already been broadening its audience is by staging four shows each season at the Goodspeed Opera House instead of the three that was the rule from 1971 through 2019.
Since the theater has determined that its audiences tend not to come out in large members before April, and tend to come more willingly in December if the show has a holiday theme, extending the length of the season isn’t really an option. Doing four shows in an eight-month period means an eight or nine week run for each show. If a show is a big hit, as “A Chorus Line” appears to be, its run can only be extended a week at most.
Besides the scheduling restrictions, Hilton said “we’re still playing with budgets.” It has been the case for decades that ticket sales alone do not cover the cost of a production, especially musicals on the scale of what the Goodspeed does. Grants need to be applied for and fundraising needs to be done.
Theater review: Goodspeed restores grit and emotional power of ‘A Chorus Line’
A successful season, such as the Goodspeed is having this year, will impact future seasons. Premieres of new musicals, which tend to not draw audiences as large as more established shows can but have been part of the theater’s mission since it was founded in the 1960s, are easier to commit to when the season as a whole is doing well. Hilton noted that this year the two shows at the Goodspeed’s Terris Theater space in Chester did not set records but held their own and were not a drag on the Goodspeed season as a whole, adding to its overall success.
One of the shows announced for the Goodspeed Opera House in 2026 is the premiere of a new musical which the theater has helped develop through workshops and readings. “The Snow Goose,” with book, music and lyrics by Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie, is based on the well-known story by Paul Gallico about an isolated man and a young girl who nurse a bird back to health. This year, the holiday show was originally also meant to be a premiere, a new stage adaptation of the TV movie” Mrs Santa Claus,” but when that project had to be postponed, the established stage version of the movie “White Christmas,” with songs by Irving Berlin, was substituted.
Hilton said the 2026 season was carefully devised to give Goodspeed Musicals’ new managing director Vanessa Logan, who was hired in June after a year-long search,” a runway to do her work” without any huge variables.
“Jesus Christ Superstar will speak right to our core subscribers,” Hilton said. “Crazy for You” will give us the classic 1930s musical. That show is a popular 1990s revision of the Gershwin brothers’ “Girl Crazy.” The Godspeed’s production of “Annie” will mark the 50th anniversary of the first time the show was done there. These three popular choices, which are also inspiring for creative directors and designers, will provide “balanced support” for “The Snow Goose,” Hilton said.
Goodspeed Musicals’ 2026 season features a rock opera, a comic strip icon and a world premiere
The 2026 season at the Terris Theater in Chester has not yet been announced.
To cap off a special year of growth at the Goodspeed, the opera house, its grounds and its parking areas underwent a massive renovation project in the spring just before the current season opened. Among the many improvements were stronger outdoor lighting and better access for wheelchairs. The entranceway was also given a bright facelift that reflects the optimism the Goodspeed now feels.
Theaters throughout Connecticut worked hard to lure audiences back after a series of difficult years of rebuilding. That rebuilding might be transitioning into the happier problem of keeping those buildings full.