Broadway – Memphis Flyer

The Orpheum Theatre Group has announced its 2025-2026 Broadway season, kicking off this October with A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical. In total, the season includes eight shows.

“I really am excited about this season because — everybody always says there’s something for everyone — but this season really does have something for everybody. Each show is different,” says Brett Batterson, president and CEO of the Orpheum.

A Beautiful Noise, a jukebox musical, is based on the rock icon Neil Diamond’s life. “[The Orpheum] invested in the Broadway production of a Beautiful Noise, and then we also invested in the tour,” Batterson adds. “So, we have a little piece of ownership.”

In addition to A Beautiful Noise, four other shows will make their Memphis premieres this season: The Notebook: The Musical (October 28th-November 2nd), adapted from the Nicholas Sparks’ novel that inspired the romantic film; & Juliet (November 25th-30th), which flips the script on Shakespeare’s classic; The Outsiders (January 20th-25th), based on the S.E. Hinton novel; and Back to the Future: The Musical, adapted from the beloved cinematic classic.

Returning this year to the Orpheum’s stage are The Sound of Music (February 17th-22nd) and Six (April 21st-26th) about the six wives of Henry VIII. Disney’s 30th anniversary production of Beauty and the Beast will conclude the season on June 2nd to 7th. “Beauty and the Beast has been here five times, but this is a new production that Disney has produced, new staging, new costumes, new scenery, that kind of thing,” Batterson says.

“I’m just really glad to bring this season and have people come and enjoy themselves with the Orpheum because I think they’ll enjoy every single show on the lineup this year.”

Current season ticket holders can renew now. Ticket packages for new season ticket holders will be available starting Friday, May 2nd. Those interested in becoming a season ticket holder can join a special priority list starting now until April 25th to secure access to a 48-hour presale ahead of the public on sale. More information can be found at orpheum-memphis.com/season. The public sale for individual shows and group tickets will be announced later.

The Orpheum’s current season continues with Some Like It Hot on April 8th to 13th and Kimberly Akimbo on June 24th to 29th.

According to various reports, Cybill Shepherd may be headed to Broadway this spring in a role described by novelist and occasional playwright Gore Vidal as an alcoholic nymphomaniacal billionairess.

All mean-spirited jokes about typecasting aside, last month The New York Post reported that Vidal had completed Masks Outrageous and Austere, the unfinished play Tennessee Williams was working on in 1983 when he choked on the cap of an eye drop bottle and died. Although no theatre has been booked, Peter Bogdanovitch, who directed Shepherd in The Last Picture Show, has been tapped to helm the project.

Williams’ early, minor, and unfinished works have received quite a bit of attention in recent years. Not About Nightingales, a “lost” work from 1938 was nominated for six Tony Awards after its Broadway debut in 1999, and has since been revived all around the country. Also, writer, actress, and former Memphian Jodie Markell finished shooting the previously unproduced Williams screenplay The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond in September 2007.

Vidal, who abandoned playwriting in the 1960s, says that Williams had only completed 10 pages of the script before he died but it was clear where things were headed.