THE ROADS TO LOCH LOMAND Opens New Season at The Phoenix Theatre Company

The Phoenix Theatre Company will open its 2025/26 Season with the regional premiere of The Roads to Loch Lomond, running October 8 - November 2, 2025, in the Hormel Theatre.

The musical reunites Maggie Herskowitz (book & lyrics) and Neil Douglas Reilly (composer), under the direction and choreography of Jeff Whiting for an emotional story rooted in Scottish folk tradition that explores love, loyalty, and the cost of freedom.

Developed partly with Phoenix audiences during the theatre's Richard P. Stahl Festival of New American Theatre earlier this year, the work now returns fully staged, inviting audiences to experience the journey from workshop room to opening night.

"When Maggie and I began writing musicals together in Boston more than fifteen years ago, it was only natural that I sang her my family's history, starting with 'The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond,'" Reilly said.

"We have traveled many roads since 2010, and they have led us here, sharing my family's fables with you in The Roads to Loch Lomond."

Inspired by Reilly's MacKenzie ancestry and the reverberations of the 1745 Jacobite rising, the piece imagines the story behind the haunting Scottish ballad the world knows by heart.

Set in the aftermath of the 1745 uprising, The Roads to Loch Lomond follows two intertwined families navigating loyalty, love, and survival as their community is reshaped by war and exile.

"Our history has been handed down in stories and songs," said Reilly. "This musical is one way of singing that history forward."