The beloved Gilbert Theater has announced its lineup for next season and it has a few heavy hitters sure to pack the house and sell out fast.
The Gilbert Theater is known for putting on lesser-known productions and productions that explore humanity at its best, worst and everything in between. But next season will look a little different, while still keeping the weird and wonderful that is Gilbert Theater.
Artist Director Larry Carlisle is looking forward to the upcoming season and put great thought into what the season, with some financial backing, would look like.
“This new season we were lucky enough to be awarded a rather large sum of money from our friend Rep. Diane Wheatley,” he said. “One of the reasons I love doing stuff here is because we do weird stuff, we do shows that while recognizable, we also do our fair share of fairly mainstream stuff. When we did Sound of Music, you don’t get any more mainstream than that. Most of the time, those more recognizable shows end up being our most successful, obviously. We did Rocky Horror Show for our 30th season and it blew the doors off the place, almost. So we kind of decided while we have the ability and while the iron is hot, so to speak, we would kind of go BIG. We decided to go with a season that really has a lot of name recognition… shows we have always wanted to do here but couldn’t for any of number of reasons… We are opening the season with Heather’s the Musical.”
Theatergoers can look forward to a great season full of familiar favorites.

Heathers the Musical
September 13- September 29
Based on the 1989 cult classic, Heather’s, starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, this show is sure to be a nostalgic comedic journey down the “cool kids” rabbit hole. Written by Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy, Heather’s the Musical follows main characters Veronica Sawyer and Jason “J.D.” Dean through the parallels of ‘fitting in’ with the high school elite.

A Christmas Story
November 22- December 8
Keeping its 80’s theme, the holiday season will see A Christmas Story on the stage. Another adaptation of a 1980s cult classic, A Christmas Story tells the tale of a boy (Ralphie), and his family and his epic Christmas gift, not to mention his dad's leggy lamp.

Misery
January 31- February 16
Adapted from Stephan King’s 1983 novel of the same name, Misery looks to start 2025 off strong for the theater. A cautionary tale of fact vs fiction, reality vs fantasy, this twisted tale of fandom gone seriously wrong is surely going to hit the audience in the…gut.

The Prince
March 21- April 6
A season at the Gilbert wouldn’t be complete without uplifting and performing the work of an LGBTQ writer. This season will see trans writer Abigail Thorn’s The Prince highlighted on the stage. The story of actors in a play who newly discover they are indeed actors in a play. The new realization for the actors brings up bigger questions of identity. Do they want to be the characters they are playing?

Little Shop of Horrors
May 16-June 1
Ending the season with a jump to the 60s, The Gilbert looks to undertake its most sophisticated and technically complicated show yet. This show calls for the use of puppets, one of which will be almost the size of the stage. Audience members can look forward to singing and laughing along with this classic hit by Howard Ashman.

(Photo: Graphic courtesy of the Gilbert Theater Facebook Page)