Knoxville’s Arts and Culture scene is one of my favorite things about the city. The arts and theater do so much to open minds and allow us to experience new things from the comfort of a padded theater seat or a community stage. Our world expands, and our hearts, too, as we live vicariously through the performances on stage.
The Tennessee Theatre and the Clarence Brown Theatre have announced upcoming shows for the 2023-2024 season, and there are some exciting things coming! Let’s start with The Clarence Brown Theatre. You can find all of this information and more on their website. Season subscriptions are available hereavailable here.
Agatha Christie’s MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
Adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig
September 6 – 24 • Clarence Brown Theatre
Wax your mustache and hop on board the Orient Express for a ride you won’t soon forget! A snowdrift has halted the train in its tracks…with a killer on board. Over the next 48 hours, Hercule Poirot must find the villain before he or she strikes again.
THE MOORS
by Jen Silverman
October 18 – November 5 • The Lab Theatre
An anthropomorphic Mastiff. A catfished governess. Two forlorn sisters on bleak English Moors yearning for love in a manor where every room looks the same. This is a new play the likes of which you have not seen before. It’s a dark, funny, genre-bending trip the New York Times calls “the reason we go to the theater.”
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
Adapted by Edward Morgan and Joseph Hanreddy; Music by John Tanner
November 22 – December 21 • Clarence Brown Theatre
Knoxville’s longest-running holiday tradition! For more than three decades, Knoxvillians have returned year after year to experience this timeless story of hope and redemption. This season, make A Christmas Carol part of your holiday tradition. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll create a wonderful memory… and you will leave the theater with a warm heart and renewed spirit!
THE GIVER
Adapted by Eric Coble; From the Newbery Award-winning book by Lois Lowry
February 14 – March 3 • Clarence Brown Theatre
Jonas’ world is perfect. It’s safe. Controlled. Without war or pain. Without color. Where every person is assigned a role in the community. At age 12, he’s chosen to be keeper of the community’s memories from The Giver, the only person with memories of real pain and joy. As Jonas begins to experience these memories, he is faced with a decision: conform to society’s expectations or control his own destiny.
ANON(YMOUS)
by Naomi Iizuka
March 21 – 30 • The Lab Theatre
How do you create a home when your homeland no longer exists? Separated from his mother while fleeing their war-torn country, a young refugee called Anon journeys throughout the United States. On his quest to find home and family, he dodges those who would entrap him, finds unexpected friendship, and experiences supernatural help from a goddess. A modern retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey.
KINKY BOOTS
Book by Harvey Fierstein; Music and Lyrics by Cyndi Lauper
April 17 – May 5 • Clarence Brown Theatre
A Tony-winning Broadway sensation packed with fun and a kick of pure joy! Looking to save the family shoe business, Charlie turns to his new friend Lola ― a cabaret performer and drag queen ― who gives him an outrageous idea that could change both of their destinies. Soon, this unlikely duo creates the most sensational footwear that’s ever rocked the runways of Milan… giving the factory and its hard-working family a sparkling new future.
CBT offers subscriptions that include 3 shows at CBT and the option to add on those held at The Lab Theatre. Click HERE for subscription information!
Last year, the Tennessee Theatre Broadway program brought us an amazing line up with Hamilton as the highlight of the season. This year promises to be as exciting. They hosted a “reveal” to announce the new shows and the attendees were not disappointed. Dr. Broadway gave a brief history of each show and we were treated to performances from Jagged Little Pill and Hadestown by some of the cast members who traveled in to be part of the evening’s festivities.
From their website, here is the line up.
SIX – Oct 31 – Nov 5, 2023 (8 performances)
From Tudor Queens to Pop Icons, the SIX wives of Henry VIII take the microphone to remix five hundred years of historical heartbreak into a Euphoric Celebration of 21st century girl power! This new original musical is the global sensation that everyone is losing their head over! The New York Times says SIX “TOTALLY RULES!” (Critic’s Pick). The SIX: LIVE ON OPENING NIGHT Broadway album debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard cast album charts and surpassed 6 Million streams in its first month.
JAGGED LITTLE PILL – DEC 5 – 10, 2023 (8 performances)
SOME SHOWS YOU SEE. THIS SHOW YOU FEEL.
Joy, love, heartache, strength, wisdom, catharsis, LIFE—everything we’ve been waiting to see in a Broadway show— is here in the exhilarating, fearless new musical based on Alanis Morissette’s world-changing music.
Directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus (Waitress, Pippin, 1776) with a Tony-winning book by Diablo Cody (Juno) and Grammy-winning score, this electrifying production about a perfectly imperfect American family “vaults the audience to its collective feet” (The Guardian). “Redemptive, rousing and real, JAGGED LITTLE PILL stands alongside the original musicals that have sustained the best hopes of Broadway.” (The New York Times)
You live, you learn, you remember what it’s like to feel truly human… at JAGGED LITTLE PILL.
WICKED – Jan 10 – 21, 2024 (16 performances)
WICKED, the Broadway sensation, looks at what happened in the Land of Oz…but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy arrives, there is another young woman, born with emerald-green skin—smart, fiery, misunderstood, and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships… until the world decides to call one “good,” and the other one “wicked.”
From the first electrifying note to the final breathtaking moment, WICKED—the untold true story of the Witches of Oz—transfixes audiences with its wildly inventive story that USA Today cheers is “a complete triumph! An original musical that will make you laugh, cry, and think.”
HADESTOWN – March 5 – 10, 2024 (8 performances)
COME SEE HOW THE WORLD COULD BE.
Welcome to HADESTOWN, where a song can change your fate. Winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards® including Best Musical and the 2020 Grammy® Award for Best Musical Theater Album, this acclaimed new show from celebrated singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell and innovative director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) is a love story for today… and always.
Intertwining two mythic tales — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone — HADESTOWN is a haunting and hopeful theatrical experience that grabs you and never lets go.
To Kill A Mockingbird – April 2 – 7, 2024 (8 performances)
All rise for Academy Award® winner Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork. The New York Times Critic’s Pick TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is “the most successful American play in Broadway history” (60 Minutes). Rolling Stone gives it 5 stars, calling it “an emotionally shattering landmark production of an American classic,” and New York Magazine calls it “a real phenomenon. Majestic and incandescent, it’s filled with breath and nuance and soul.” With direction by Tony Award® winner Bartlett Sher, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD — “the greatest novel of all time” (Chicago Tribune) — has quickly become “one of the greatest plays in history” (NPR).
BEETLEJUICE – June 11 – 16, 2024 (8 performances)
He earned his stripes on Broadway… now the ghost-with-the-most is coming to Knoxville.
It’s showtime! Based on Tim Burton’s dearly beloved film, this hilarious musical tells the story of Lydia Deetz, a strange and unusual teenager whose whole life changes when she meets a recently deceased couple and a demon with a thing for stripes. With an irreverent book, an astonishing set, and a score that’s out of this Netherworld, BEETLEJUICE is “SCREAMINGLY GOOD FUN!” (Variety). And under its uproarious surface (six feet under, to be exact), it’s a remarkably touching show about family, love, and making the most of every Day-O!
New subscriber options open HERE on June 19th. Several packages are available. Individual tickets will open in the fall. Sign up for the email newsletter at the Tennessee Theatre to get your tickets when they open. These shows sell out fast!
My family is especially excited about Wicked, Beetlejuice, and Kinky Boots!
What show is a “must-see” for you?