MY FAIR LADY And More Set for Theater Latté Da 2025-26 Season

Theater Latté Da has announced the productions and key creative team members for its 2025-2026 season. Latté Da will launch a slate of productions reflecting the organization's commitment to producing new and boldly re-imagined music theater and creating exceptional arts experiences for Minnesota audiences. 

The year will open with the organization's 100th production, bring the 100th anniversary of the opening of the historic Ritz Theater in Spring 2026, and mark the conclusion of the ambitious NEXT 25x25 initiative to support the development of 25 new musicals over a period of five years. 

The 2025-2026 season begins with the original concert JOURNEY ON: A 100TH SHOW CABARET CELEBRATION, a joyful musical retrospective highlighting favorite Latté Da works and emceed by Tod Petersen, followed by a holiday staging of the Lerner and Loewe classic MY FAIR LADY and a bold new wintertime production of Tennessee Williams' THE GLASS MENAGERIE, both led by Artistic Director Justin Lucero. Following will be the local premiere of the hilariously irreverent Broadway hit GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!; the Latté Da-commissioned World Premiere of MY ÁNTONIA, adapted from the beloved Willa Cather novel; and the return of the annual NEXT Festival, dedicated to the development of new musicals and plays with music.  

“We look forward to sharing this celebratory season with our artists and audiences--one that promises to honor our past, revel in our present, and boldly imagine our future,” says Artistic Director Justin Lucero. “In a time when our art and our stages face unprecedented challenges, Latté Da remains unwaveringly committed to using music theater to speak to this moment.”

Theater Latté Da opens the season with the celebratory limited-run concert JOURNEY ON: A 100TH SHOW CABARET CELEBRATION (October 8-19, 2025), jointly curated by Latté Da co-founder Denise Prosek and Artistic Director Justin Lucero. Lucero also directs the work, and Prosek will serve as music director. 

Featuring eight exceptional actors drawn from productions past, JOURNEY ON will be led by emcee Tod Petersen (A Christmas Carole Petersen, Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella, Merrily We Roll Along), a beloved mainstay from the company's earliest days to its most recent season.

Cue the confetti and put on your Sunday clothes! It's Theater Latté Da's 100th production—a milestone worthy of a celebration like no other. We invite audiences to join us for a cabaret-style bash packed with powerhouse performances by Latté Da luminaries, emceed by Twin Cities favorite Tod Petersen. In honor of achieving this “impossible dream,” Journey On is a musical trip down memory lane, with unforgettable numbers drawn from almost three decades of beloved shows. This strictly limited engagement kicks off our season with style, soul, Sondheim, and “all that jazz” you've come to expect from Minnesota's home for adventurous music theater.

During the holiday season, Theater Latté Da will delight audience members of all ages with Lerner and Loewe's beloved MY FAIR LADY (November 12 - December 29, 2025), the first Lerner and Loewe musical to be presented in the company's 28-year history. Artistic Director Justin Lucero will direct the classic work, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, lyrics by Frederick Loewe, adapted from George Bernard Shaw's play and Gabriel Pascal's motion picture Pygmalion. Abby Magalee (Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella) will choreograph the production, with music direction by Denise Prosek. 

When Professor Henry Higgins takes on the ambitious task of molding flower seller Eliza Doolittle into his vision of refinement, she is swept into a world brimming with possibility and unexpected discoveries. Widely considered one of the greatest musicals of all time, MY FAIR LADY is guaranteed to capture hearts with its wit and charm, even as it reveals that asking someone to change the way they speak is asking them to surrender a piece of who they are. At the heart of Lerner and Loewe's sparkling satire lies a powerful exploration of transformation: what it means to change, and what is lost when one's voice is reshaped to fit someone else's ideal. This thought-provoking, endlessly entertaining classic is a perfect theatrical gift for all ages, carried along on a timeless score featuring such songs as “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “On the Street Where You Live.” 

The new year will bring Tennessee Williams' iconic THE GLASS MENAGERIE (February 4 - March 1, 2026) to Twin Cities audiences in a new production directed by Justin Lucero that delves into the musicality and cinematic sweep infused into Williams' original script. 

THE GLASS MENAGERIE is a luminous memory play that captures the fragile ache of longing, illusion, and family ties strained to their breaking point. Filtered through Tom's introspective narration, the story unfolds like a faded home movie—its details soft, its emotions piercing. Tennessee Williams' iconic work scripts music not merely as background, but as an emotional undercurrent: distant, echoing tunes that linger just beyond the moment, weaving through thought, feeling, and the quiet pull of nostalgia. One of the most renowned American dramas of the 20th century, this semi-autobiographical masterwork is not just a play–it's a reverie. 

In the spring, humor takes center stage when Tyler Michaels King (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Cabaret) directs the local premiere of GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! (April 1 - May 3, 2026), the riotous two-man comedy by Anthony King and Scott Brown. Jason Hansen serves as musical director. 

Fresh off its hit Broadway premiere, GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! is a clever, offbeat, frequently absurd comedy that affectionately spoofs the world of musical theater. This love letter to new works is told through the lens of two aspiring writers earnestly pitching their wildly inaccurate musical about the invention of the printing press, blending infectious enthusiasm, witty songs, and irreverent historical twists. Twin Cities theater luminary Tyler Michaels King returns to Latté Da, this time wearing the (trucker) hat of Director. Equal parts satire and celebration, GUTENBERG! is a fast-paced theatrical romp that revels in the art of making something out of nothing—one song and One Dream at a time. 

Furthering a tradition of developing bold new work, a highly anticipated World Premiere concludes the season: the new musical MY ÁNTONIA (June 3 - July 12, 2026) conceived by Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody, Kate Kilbane and Dan Moses, with music and lyrics by The Kilbanes (Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award nominees for Weightless) and book by Noah Brody, adapted from the novel by Willa Cather. Jessie Austrian will direct the production, with music direction by Jason Hansen. 

In this Latté Da-commissioned World Premiere, Willa Cather's beloved novel is envisioned as an intimate celebration of resilience and the enduring strength of women. Featuring a sweeping indie folk score by The Kilbanes and an imaginative libretto by Noah Brody, this poignant adaptation traces the immigrant experience on the Great Plains at the turn of the 20th century through the eyes of the lifelong friendship between orphan boy Jim Burden and Ántonia Shimerda, daughter of a Bohemian immigrant family. MY ÁNTONIA offers a timely celebration of the contributions of immigrants to the nation's identity and spirit as America marks its 250th anniversary. Rooted in the land and shaped by memory, this powerful work invites us to consider how we remember our past, and whose stories we choose to tell. 

The four-member creative team of The Kilbanes, Brody and Austrian was the first to be selected for Latté Da's NEXT Generation commission in 2019, and the work was further developed through several Latté Da-hosted workshops and two well received presentations as part of the Summer 2024 NEXT Festival of New Musicals. It will mark the company's eighteenth world premiere production. 

Theater Latté Da continues its robust commitment to new work and with its NEXT Festival in Summer 2025. The festival showcases three new works that stretch the boundaries of musical storytelling, where audience members are invited into the ground floor of the creative process. In addition to its public offerings, the development of new musical theater through commissions, workshops and residencies will continue throughout the year as part of NEXT 25x25, Theater Latté Da's ambitious initiative to support the creation of 25 new musicals over a five year period between 2021 and 2025. Many works first seen in past NEXT Festivals have gone on to become some of the company's most acclaimed productions,  among them Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical, Christmas at the Local, Five Points, Underneath the Lintel, Johnny Skeeky; or, The Remedy for Everything, Scotland, PA, and next season's My Ántonia. 

Subscriptions will be available to renewing subscribers beginning on Saturday, May 17 at 5 PM, following a celebratory Season Reveal event for subscribers and patrons at MetroNOME Brewery in St. Paul. Subscriptions open to the general public at 12:00 PM on Tuesday, May 27. 5-show subscription packages start at $175. 3-show packages featuring a curated selection of productions start at $102. First introduced last season, the Ritz Club subscription for patrons aged 39 and under will again offer next generation audience members the opportunity to see all five titles at a special price, plus gatherings for young professionals for every production. FLEXPacks of 6 tickets for $396 may be used in any combination, for any available seat, to see shows throughout the 2025-2026 season. Subscriptions may be purchased online at www.latteda.org, by calling the box office at 612-339-3003, or in person at the Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis. Box office hours are from 12 - 5 PM Tuesday to Friday, and from 12 - 5 PM on Saturdays during performance runs only. First access to tickets is given to subscribers, with single tickets going on sale at a later date to be announced.

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