We reveal the hot Broadway tours coming next season — and how Charlotte got them
At first, Blumenthal Arts CEO Tom Gabbard insists there’s no overarching theme permeating the 17 Broadway shows headed to Charlotte as part of its newly announced 2025-26 season. The main goal, he says, “is making sure that people here are seeing the best of recent Broadway productions.”
Gabbard runs through the list of the 17 forthcoming productions, revealed Monday afternoon and including:
- Seven shows still actively being staged in New York City: PNC Broadway Lights Series selections like teens-coming-of-age musical “The Outsiders” (Feb. 3-8, 2026), Alicia Keys’s jukebox musical “Hell’s Kitchen” (Sept. 8-13, 2026), and a fresh adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” (Oct. 13-18, 2026); returning favorites “MJ the Musical” (Feb. 24-March 1, 2026), “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” (May 26-31, 2026), and Shakespeare-meets-pop-music romp “& Juliet” (Aug. 11–16, 2026); and off-Broadway cult hit “Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern” (March 17-22, 2026).
- In addition to “The Outsiders” and “The Great Gatsby,” a third musical that probably wouldn’t exist if the novel it is based upon had never been turned into a movie — “The Notebook” (May 19-24, 2026).
- More plays than ever: Joining the aforementioned “Dungeons & Dragons,” there’s one about a ’70s rock band about to implode (“Stereophonic,” April 15-26, 2026) and another that serves as a genre-bending spoof about a gender-bending vampire (“Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors,” July 7-Aug. 18, 2026); both of those are part of the Broadway Lights Series.
- And rounding out the Broadway Lights Series: historical fiction in the form of the musical “Suffs” (March 10-15, 2026) and historical hilarity in the revival of “Monty Python’s Spamalot” (Jan. 20-25, 2026).
But upon further reflection — after also touching on the return of uplifting musicals like “The Sound of Music” (Nov. 18-23, 2025) and “Kinky Boots” (May 1-3, 2026) — Gabbard finds his way to a theme after all. A simple one.
“These are really very human stories. These are about people and aspirations. This is not a season about high-tech. ... Over many years, there are people that are critical that sometimes shows (we’ve offered) are too technologically oriented and they lacked a heart,” he says.
“This season is full of heart.”
If you want to see the above shows organized by series and date, with fuller descriptions of each and added insight on many of the marquee titles, skip ahead to the subhead below that reads: “PNC Broadway Lights Series.”
Meanwhile, for those interested in how Charlotte lands all these buzzy hits, stick with us for an eye-opening Q&A with Gabbard.
How does Blumenthal build its Broadway schedule?
Gabbard is known locally as the guy who brings first-run Broadway tours to Charlotte. But for context, it’s worth noting that he’s a significant player in the industry nationally, too, having co-produced or invested in dozens of Broadway and off-Broadway shows.
With that out of the way, let’s get to it. (The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.)
Q. What goes into building Blumenthal’s Broadway season?
We work on this every day of the year, truly — and because we are involved with many of these shows as investors and strategic advisors, (the work actually) occurs over a number of years. We get involved with shows not knowing precisely what season they’ll land, or even, in fact, if they will land.
A good example for this last year was “Back to the Future.” Blumenthal was one of the first four partners on the show 10 years before it landed in Charlotte. Ten years! So when we see these shows that we get involved with at their very earliest stages, it’s with a hope and a prayer that they’ll get to Broadway, and particularly that they’ll get to Charlotte. But we don’t know exactly when.
We certainly pay very close attention to the Tony Award nominations and the winners of those categories. Because we want our fans to know that if a show wins Best Musical, Best Revival, Best Play — we don’t get as many plays out as we’d like, but ... — we’re gonna do our darndest to make sure that they get here.
Not every show does become a tour after playing on Broadway, but as soon as the conversation with the producers begins in earnest among those of us that are industry leaders, it’s usually the case that Charlotte will factor in, certainly in the first 12 months.
Q. I found a story from 2006 in which you talked about how it was proving to be a challenge to get “Wicked” here because the show’s producers were sticking to “major” markets. So when and how did Charlotte become a significant factor?
I would go back to probably “Spamalot” — the original “Spamalot” (which headlined the Blumenthal’s 2006-2007 season) — because we were one of the original partners. We put together an investment of the Independent Presenters Network (a consortium of 40 preeminent Broadway presenters, theaters and performing arts centers). So we proved ourselves to be a really good business partner in helping to shape the entire strategy for touring the show.
That was really a game-changer for our industry — but also, particularly, for Charlotte.
Q. What determines which shows go on tour?
Every show wants to tour, for a couple of reasons. First of all, when a show plays on Broadway, they are totally at risk for any losses. When they go out on a tour, the local presenter generally pays a guarantee. They’re not guaranteed to make money, but they’re guaranteed to at least break even. So that’s really attractive to them.
In New York, on Broadway, it’s really hard to break even, let alone make money. Most of these shows will close — no matter how successful they’ve been — at a loss. But then they go out on the road and they do really well, and they make some money. It’s like a mutual fund. It helps their investors to become whole.
Plus, when a show goes out on tour, it ultimately increases the licensing. Because there are a lot of community theaters, high schools, colleges that will plan their seasons based on the big shows that have been through a place like Blumenthal the last few years.
Q. How early do the conversations about tours start?
Sometimes these conversations begin well before the show even opens on Broadway. I guarantee you, when I’m at the opening-night party for “Smash” tomorrow night (Gabbard spoke with us for this story on April 8), there’ll be all this discussion among some of my colleagues about, “OK, what’s our strategy here? When do we get this out? Where does it fit? What’s the price point?”
But yeah, clearly a lot of us would love to see these shows move very quickly from Broadway to the road. If it’s a newer title and the IP (intellectual property) is not well-branded (like it would be with) a film or a book or something, then frankly, it needs to play on Broadway for a while to develop public awareness of it. But other things that are well-branded, it’s really attractive to try to get them out on the road while awareness is high and people’s appetite for it is high.
Most of our theater fans in America can’t make it to New York. And so it’s good — for everybody — to get these titles to people as quickly as we can, and feed the devotion of these theater fans that we are lucky to have all across the U.S.
Q. Are there any key differences between the experience of seeing a show on Broadway and seeing it here in Charlotte?
Well, the parking is certainly cheaper!
But actually, there is a very high priority to make sure that these shows, when they get on the road, are as equivalent to Broadway as possible. These are not stripped-down productions where they get a lot less.
By the nature of touring, they do have to be constructed differently. But we want people to have the same experience. What they don’t realize — and this is not hype — is that frequently the shows themselves are better when they get on the road, particularly the book, the songs, the staging of various things. The reason for that is that rarely do the creatives have enough time to put these things together (to their complete satisfaction on the front end).
We have a saying in this business: “New musicals are never done. They just open.” When they get to the tour, they’ve had some time to reflect on what they actually created, and they have a second chance at it. They’ve (gotten) out of the hothouse of, We’re gonna open next week! These shows really are improved in great ways. And we are the beneficiaries.
Q. So, shall we go through the list?
PNC Broadway Lights Series
What it is: The Blumenthal’s premier collection of eight shows enjoying their first engagements in Charlotte, with season tickets ranging from $349.64-$1,060.70.
“Monty Python’s Spamalot,” Jan. 20-25, 2026, at Belk Theater (130 N. Tryon St., Charlotte): This month actually marks the 50th (!) anniversary of the release of the legendarily ridiculous film comedy “Monty Python and The Holy Grail,” 30 years after the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” — which this musical’s original creators famously have said they “lovingly ripped off.” The 2023 revival debuted at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as part of its Broadway Center Stage series, then had a 24-week run on Broadway that ended just over a year ago. Watch out for flying cows and killer rabbits.
“The Outsiders,” Feb. 3-8, 2026, at Belk Theater: Along with “Othello” and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” this Tony Award-winning (for Best Musical in 2024) adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s seminal 1967 novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic 1983 film is currently one of the hottest-selling shows on Broadway. Perhaps as noteworthy for its violence as it is for its music and lyrics by acclaimed folk duo Jamestown Revival.
“Suffs,” March 10-15, 2026, at Belk Theater: The only offering of the season that has politics on its mind, this musical — which closed on Broadway just this past January — depicts the climax of American suffragists’ long campaign to win women’s right to vote. And speaking of breaking barriers, with “Suffs,” Shaina Taub (who also starred in the leading role of Alice Paul on Broadway) became the first woman to ever independently win Tonys for Best Book and Best Score in the same season.
“Stereophonic,” April 15-26, 2026, at Knight Theater (430 S. Tryon St., Charlotte): While it’s adorned with music, it is indeed a play, one that follows a fictional band’s yearlong struggle to record an album in the 1970s. Or, fictional-ish. “There are elements of it that people, through legends, will identify with a number of rock groups,” Gabbard says, “but I think particularly Fleetwood Mac fans will find plenty there.” This show, by the way, was the winningest at last year’s Tonys, nabbing trophies for Best Play and four others.
“The Notebook,” May 19-24, 2026, at Belk Theater: North Carolina’s own Nicholas Sparks provided the source material with his 1996 novel, but it’s the 2004 movie starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams that made the title a household name — and had boxes of Kleenex flying off the shelves. The Blumenthal got involved as a producer and supporter of the musical even before it was being workshopped in 2019, but Gabbard credits his staff, not himself: “I honestly had not seen the film. I wasn’t familiar with the book. And when I mentioned the name to our staff, they went crazy. Some of the millennials on our staff, women, said, ‘This is like ‘Dirty Dancing’ is to my mom’s generation. For my generation, this book and this film mean so much to me. Yes, you need to be involved.’” Bonus point: It’s a Carolina-rooted show, the story originally having been set in Seabrook, S.C.
“Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors,” July 7-Aug. 18, 2026, Booth Playhouse (130 N. Tryon St., Charlotte): All you need to do is read the tagline — “a Gen Z pansexual Count Dracula in the midst of an existential crisis” — to know this isn’t any old adaptation of Bram Stoker’s horror classic. “There’s nothing,” Gabbard says, “that fits in that category.” While the Blumenthal co-produced the off-Broadway version, and while it’s currently a huge hit in London, this particular show will truly be tailor-made for Charlotte, with Blumenthal itself mounting the production and hiring the cast of “six actors who portray a gazillion characters,” Gabbard adds. “I honestly don’t know how many characters. It’s a lot. And when you see these actors that morph between all these different characters, it is such a great time.”
“Hell’s Kitchen,” Sept. 8-13, 2026, Belk Theater: Songs by R&B star Alicia Keys that are both familiar (“Girl on Fire,” “Fallin’,” “No One”) and new populate this musical, which this week is celebrating its one-year anniversary at the Shubert Theatre in New York City. “Alicia Keys has been deeply involved with this,” Gabbard notes. “There are some of these shows where the composers are supportive, and they show up at opening night, and that’s about it. In this case, she has been involved with every element of the Broadway production, and we think she will as well on the tour.” The show’s story centers on a 17-year-old girl named Ali (loosely based on Keys), but “at its core, this is about a mom and a daughter. It’s just this beautiful story that has quintessential mom-daughter moments.”
“The Great Gatsby,” Oct. 13-18, 2026, Belk Theater: Another re-imagining of the classic American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Broadway version of this show is still going strong at the Broadway Theatre in New York City thanks to its ultra-luxe, Tony Award-winning costume design and what Gabbard calls “wonderful digital imagery that gives it a very elegant touch.” Fun fact: Eva Noblezada — who famously left Northwest School of the Arts before graduating, at 17, to star in “Miss Saigon” in London, and whose parents and siblings still live in the Charlotte area — originated the starring role of Daisy Buchanan. She handed off the character in January after 15 months of performances.
Equitable Bravo Series
What it is: A “secondary” package of five shows, collectively named “Bravo” because all have already been to Charlotte at least once, sometimes multiple times. Season tickets range from $233.74-$737.35.
“The Sound of Music,” Nov. 18-23, 2025, Belk Theater: Sister Maria and The Trapp Family Singers are welcome by classic-musical lovers anytime, but we’ve been particularly nostalgic for them lately, thanks to the recent celebration of the 60th anniversary of the movie. (Side note: We recently rewatched the movie with Concord resident Daniel Truhitte, who played Liesl crush/young villain Rolf in the film.)
“MJ the Musical,” Feb. 24-March 1, 2026, Belk Theater: This celebration of pop star Michael Jackson and his music was a hit when the tour bowed here in the fall of 2023 — and remains a hit on Broadway as well.
“Kinky Boots,” May 1-3, 2026, Belk Theater: A drag performer and a factory owner once again team up in this beloved musical dreamed up by Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper.
“Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” May 26-31, 2026, Belk Theater: Like “MJ,” this adaptation of the bold, colorful 2001 movie musical that starred Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman was a hit during its run in Charlotte last month and is still a hot ticket on Broadway proper.
“& Juliet,” Aug. 11-16, 2026, Belk Theater: What would happen if Juliet hadn’t ended it all over Romeo? Why, she’d celebrate songs by Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry and Britney Spears, of course.
Broadway Extras
What it is: The third tier of shows coming to Charlotte.
“Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical,” Dec. 23-28, 2025, Belk Theater.
“Riverdance 30: The New Generation,” Feb. 13-15, 2026, Ovens Auditorium (2700 E. Independence Blvd., Charlotte).
“Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern,” March 17-22, 2026, Knight Theater. Of these four shows, this one probably jumps out a bit as an eyebrow-raiser. Explains Gabbard: “It’s a fully staged production, but it has a lot of audience interaction. So unlike a lot of shows where everybody needs to zip their lips and be quiet, this one, there’ll be plenty of time to talk, get their cellphone out (to) vote on some things.”
“Mamma Mia!,” March 31-April 5, 2026, Belk Theater.
Odds and ends about the season, and tickets
- As has become the norm, subscribers to the Broadway Lights Series and Bravo Series can swap some of their season tickets for Broadway Extras or for any additional special attractions added during the year. Broadway Lights Series season ticket holders also can swap up to four shows for anything coming the following season; while Bravo season ticket holders can swap up to two shows for anything else coming to Blumenthal theaters, including Broadway Lights Series shows.
- There’s an option for a 10-month payment plan for the Broadway Lights Series, and for a six-month payment plan for the Bravo Series.
- Blumenthal now lists the total, final cost of ticket prices up front, so that there aren’t surprises about fees and service charges.
- Also new for this season: revised weekend performance times. Evening performances will start at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 6:30 p.m. on Sundays. Matinee performances will start at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 1 p.m. on Sundays.
- And finally, if you’ve noticed over time that the Blumenthal has shifted its season so that it starts toward the end of the year instead of in August or September, Gabbard can explain. “Frankly, that’s entirely in response to the fact that these political years, which now seem to be every year, are so dense with advertising, it made people tune out. So we’ve tried to shift a lot of shows that fall in that time period to be at the end of the season, so we can market and communicate with people while they’re still listening. So for instance, the first subscription show is not until January. ... This is really contrary to the theater business, but it’s all rooted in the fact that we’re just inundated with all of this negative political advertising in the fall. And it’s no longer once every four years. It seems to be every year.”
For more information or to make a purchase, visit blumenthalarts.org or call 704-372-1000.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2025 at 3:53 PM with the headline "We reveal the hot Broadway tours coming next season — and how Charlotte got them."
