THE PROM, BEAUTIFUL, and More Set For ZACH Theatre's 2023-24 Season

ZACH Theatre, Central Texas' premier professional theatre, has announced the 2023-24 Season including regional premieres, a Tony Award-winning play and musicals, new works and family fun.

Opening the 2023-24 Season is the Austin premiere of Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone. In this limited engagement of the masterful play that has swept the world celebrating the musical genius of Gershwin, actor and concert pianist Hershey Felder brings the famous composer to life in a tour de force performance.

The fall will bring us the regional premiere of prolific playwright Lucas Hnath's The Thin Place. Using an illusionist to create an astonishing conclusion, this eerie and gripping new play looks at the fragile boundary between our world and the other side.

Kicking off 2024 with an ultimate ZACH360 experience will be the Tony Award-winning musical Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 by Dave Malloy. Based on the epic novel War and Peace from Leo Tolstoy, this fresh new modern musical was nominated for Twelve Tony Awards including Best Musical sweeping the world off its feet. The Topfer Theatre will transform into a 19th century Russian nightclub with cabaret tables for a captivating surround experience of this electric pop-opera. ZACH360's initiative creates dynamic immersive theatre experiences that are intimate, revelatory, and fun with actors in close proximity creating opportunities of active participation for patrons during the performance with engaged storytelling.

The Broadway hit named a New York Times Critic Pick for 2018, The Prom heads into the Topfer at ZACH in Spring 2024. Recently made into a hit film by Ryan Murphy in 2020, this uplifting musical captures the humor and heart of a classical musical comedy with a message resonating with audiences now more than ever with glitter, heart and a valentine to acceptance.

One of the six titles on the Mainstage Season, the acclaimed play The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini, will make its regional premiere on the Topfer stage in the summer of 2024. Winner of five Tony Awards and with five Olivier Awards nominations in London, ZACH will be one of the first regional theatres to produce Broadway's powerful and award-winning play. This play with music tells the epic story of three immigrant brothers from when they arrive in America to the collapse of their empire spanning several generations with live music using only three actors.

Connecting to Austin's music rich culture, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical will end the summer and close the 2023-2024 season at ZACH. Before she was Carole King the hit-maker - she was Carole Klein, a spunky young songwriter from Brooklyn with a unique voice. Beautiful is the inspiring tale about the girl who became King with a stirring book by the late Oscar and Tony-nominated Douglas McGrath and the music and lyrics of icons Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil.

"Among the multitude of entertainment options vying for people's attention, it is very important that ZACH creates plays and musicals during this resurgence, which can only really be experienced in a theatre with live actors making thrilling stories spark for a live audience. The Great Comet is a sensory feast, endlessly inventive, and built for Austin, with its dependence on great singer/musician/actors to make War and Peace electric. The Lehman Trilogy employs a trio of superb actors to portray multiple characters in a multigenerational American story spanning centuries. Beautiful celebrates one of the greatest singer-songwriters of our lifetime, who broke barriers while uniting our hearts. The Prom is a joyous celebration of love, where once there was hate, and imagines a world in which we respect and celebrate that which makes each of us unique. We will celebrate LIFE in all of it's audacious, inspiring, mystifying, and rewarding pleasures," said Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley on the 2023-24 Season.

The ZACH Family Series includes the return of The Girl Who Became Legend, last seen as a reading this time as a full-scale production before moving to the Kennedy Center in 2024; the return of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, adapted by Nat Miller, in a modern look at the old tale using puppetry, fabric, and light projections bringing this classic tale to life; and the three-time Tony-nominated musical, A Year With Frog and Toad; as well as a holiday add-on Una Noche Buena, a new bilingual holiday production to delight all ages.

Also returning for the holidays as a season add-on is Dave Steakley's modern hit musical and family-friendly adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens with new songs for the season.

A second holiday offering, POP!, brings an immersive musical sing-along experience to Austin. This pop-up seasonal fun ZACH360 concert experience brings Broadway tunes, pop favorites and show stopping performances in a dazzling all-encompassing holiday wonderland.