Robots in love, women who use plastic surgery to live forever, a glamorous wizard and characters from Greek myth are set for Overture Center’s touring Broadway season in 2026-27, announced Monday night.
Overture, Madison’s 20-year-old arts center, works with presenter Broadway Across America to bring in tours like “Maybe Happy Ending,” the Alicia Keys bio-musical “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Death Becomes Her,” all of which are part of the coming season.
Both “Happy Ending” and “Death Becomes Her” will be Wisconsin premieres.
Megan Hilty and Jennifer Smiard in the original Broadway cast of “Death Becomes Her.”
Also in the lineup: revivals of “The Wiz” and “Jersey Boys,” the return of “SIX the Musical,” a single weekend of “Hadestown” and the Tony Award-winning show “The Outsiders.”
Overture subscriptions for the current Broadway season are at 9,295, a three-year high (compared with 9,164 and 9,090 in the past two seasons, according to the box office).
Tim Sauers, co-CEO and chief artistic experiences officer, has noticed a robust appetite for entertainment among Madison audiences so far this season.
“Girls just want to have fun!” he said. “When we had ‘Back to the Future’ in, the night I saw the show, that audience was ready to have a good time. And that’s what that show was. I think people just want to be entertained.
“The Oscars movies this year, so many of them were (dark),” Sauers added. “I’m not in the mood for this, right? I think you see that this next season, our next season is very fun.”
Claire Kwon and Steven Huynh play helperbots in the national tour of “Maybe Happy Ending,” which opens Overture Center’s 2026-27 Broadway season.
From Broadway to Madison
The 2026-27 Broadway touring season in Madison opens in October with “The Wiz,” a revival that started as a tour in 2023, sat down in New York for awhile, and is back on tour again. Originally on Broadway in the 1970s, this Black retelling of “The Wizard of Oz” has an energizing score infused with gospel and R&B, including a beautiful ballad, “Home.”
The North American tour of “The Wiz” features, from left, Dana Cimone as Dorothy, Cal Mitchell as The Lion, Elijah Ahmad Lewis as The Scarecrow, and D. Jerome as The Tinman.
In November, “Maybe Happy Ending” centers two humanoid “helperbots” facing obsolescence. The show began its life in 2016 in Seoul, South Korea, and follows Oliver and Claire as they explore what’s next when no one needs you anymore.
“Death Becomes Her,” inspired by the 1992 film starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, is a splashy, over-the-top comedy about two women who become obsessed with maintaining their good looks. A temptress offers them an elixir “to stay forever young” with the caution to disappear after 10 years. Will they take it?
That runs in March, followed by “Hell’s Kitchen” in May 2027, loosely based on composer Alicia Keys’ own life and including some of Keys’ biggest hits, like “Girl on Fire,” “Fallin’” and “Empire State of Mind.”
Running in July 2027, “The Outsiders” is based on a 1960s coming-of-age novel by S.E. Hinton and a Rat Pack film in 1983, about teenage “greasers” and “socs” (pronounced “soshes”) engaged in a class war in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Madison-area native Caleb Mathura is currentlyperforming in this show on Broadway.)
“It’s bringing in a younger crowd,” Sauers said. “Kids are reading the book. … When I saw it in New York, it was a lot of junior high, high school kids in the audience, many of them seeing a show for the first time.”
Corbin Drew Ross and Nolan White play Sodapop Curtis and Ponyboy Curtis in the national tour of “The Outsiders.”
“Hadestown,” a non-Equity tour, will come back to Overture for just one weekend in June 2027 as that company winds down its time on the road. That and “SIX the Musical,” a concert-style British pop musical about the ex-wives of Henry VIII, running in January, are add-ons to the Broadway subscription package.
The season closes with the return of “Jersey Boys.” The bio-musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, last in Madison in 2017, is celebrating its 20-year anniversary. Sauers called it one of the best musicals of this style ever made.
Overture presents: tribute acts, acrobats and cabaret
Overture will bring back several series that have run for years. National Geographic Live, a series of photographers and scientists, has developed a following after 10 years in the Capitol Theater, and this year will feature deep dives into the Earth’s core, urban ecology and frogs.
Albert Lin poses for a portrait seated on a rock in the desert as he leads an expedition deep into Oman.
Albert Lin, a previous presenter in the series, has his own night in the Capitol Theater on March 11 — he’s known for “using advanced technology to discover ancient secrets.” Think of him as a modern day, less extractive Indiana Jones.
The cabaret series puts attendees right on the stage for dinner and a show in Capitol Theater with performers like crooner Chris Mann and former Elsa in “Frozen” Caroline Bowman. The Up Close series is designed to introduce Madison to emerging artists, among them El David Aguilar (“influenced by Mexican folklore, Latin and Brazilian traditions”) and New Jazz Underground.
Overture’s miniature Fringe Festival, launched in January 2025, returns for a third year with different acts, including the percussive, family-friendly musical “STOMP,” an ABBA tribute group, and a comedy show called “Too Fat for China” by Phoebe Potts and Doktor Kaboom, whom Sauers described as “a children’s performer, a scientist who blows things up.”
The North American tour of “STOMP,” a show that ran for nearly 30 years in New York, is set to stop in Madison in January 2027.
“We’ll be adding a couple other things to Fringe that aren’t announced yet,” Sauers said. “We’re not done in the deal making.”
Returning favorites include the Red Hot Chili Pipers — that’s not a typo; they’re a bagpipe rock ‘n’ roll group — as well as live movie score nights, this time featuring “Twilight” on a stage full of candles.
There will be lots of opportunities to see acrobats, including Gravity & Other Myths performing with a giant countdown clock onstage.
“They have to go through all this stuff before time runs out,” Sauers said. “They always give themselves some kind of challenge to overcome in their work.”
Cirque Alice, an acrobatic performance inspired by “Alice in Wonderland,” premiered in Australia and features VIP seating, where attendees can sit onstage during the show.
“Cirque Alice” was created by the producers of “The Illusionists.” The tour is set to visit Madison on Feb. 5, 2027.
Patrice Rushen performs contemporary jazz and iconic hits with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra in September, followed by a Carpenters tribute act from the folks who brought Madison “The Simon & Garfunkel Story.”
Two singers perform the Carpenters’ songs, Sauers said, “but there’s videos that are real of their life, and they just tell some stories. It’s a good way to tell a biopic story about the music.”
“Twilight” in concert, set for Feb. 23, 2027, is already selling well at other arts centers, Overture co-CEO Tim Sauers said. It features a live band and over a thousand candles onstage.
Subscriptions on sale
Overture juggles space with eight presenting arts organizations in residence, including the Madison Symphony Orchestra, Madison Ballet and Madison Opera (the ninth is the James Watrous Gallery on the third floor). These performances are hosted rather than presented by Overture.
Overture also gets rentals, and more acts are often added to the Overture Presents lineup before the start of the new season. A co-productions have already been announced: Lyle Lovett and his Small Large Band in July; Bonne Raitt in August; and “Bluey’s Big Play” in April 2027.
“Bluey’s Big Play” is set to return to Overture Center in April 2027.
Subscriptions are on sale now for Broadway and the various series, with renewals due May 15 and single tickets going on sale starting later this summer. Those who plan to renew can get the same seats by May 15.
Sauers said subscriptions are often the lowest prices available, though Overture does not do as much with dynamic pricing (raising or lowering prices in response to demand) as some presenters do.
The shows “are really based on what the audience is interested in now, what’s relevant to them now, their buying history,” Sauers said. “We look at all that stuff in terms of programming.”
Find Overture’s full season and subscription details at overturecenter.org.
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