For its 2023/2024 season, Center Theatre Group will once again bring the mythology-inspired Hadestown to the Ahmanson Theatre, as well as the festive A Christmas Story, The Musical, a bit of dance with Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet, the Tony Award-winning A Strange Loop, an adaptation of ’80s board game comedy Clue and the much-talked-about Funny Girl. (For those wondering if there’ll be any casting as splashy as the New York version, newcomer Katerina McCrimmon has stepped into the role of Fanny Brice for the touring production.)
Across town at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, holiday time will see Dog Man: The Musical, an adaptation of the children’s book series from the same creator as Captain Underpants, heading to the Culver City theater.
Season tickets will go on sale August 9. Tickets to individual shows will go on sale at a later time.
Notably absent from this year’s lineup: any smaller-scale dramas at the Music Center’s Mark Taper Forum. In June, Center Theatre Group announced that it would pause programming at the Taper (and decrease it at the Kirk Douglas Theatre) starting in July as the organization faces “a crisis unlike any other” due to a post-pandemic increase in production costs and decrease in ticket revenue. That said, CTG plans to announce one-off events at both venues “at a later date.”
Back to the major musical programming, as is often the case, the Ahmanson’s lineup is largely full of stellar, lauded productions (in contrast to Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre, which leans more on blockbuster revivals and a sometimes mixed bag of more contemporary shows). Time Out New York’s theater critic Adam Feldman awarded A Strange Loop five stars during its initial Broadway run and called the show about a Black queer man who’s writing a musical “screamingly funny, howlingly hurt and unmissable.” The transporting, four-star Hadestown was hailed as “fizzy, moody and thrilling,” and though Funny Girl’s initial staging only received two stars, when Lea Michele assumed the main role in place of Beanie Feldstein that bumped up to four stars.
You can check out the full schedule of the Ahmanson’s upcoming season below.
Hadestown
Oct 3–15, 2023
A Christmas Story, The Musical
Dec 5–31, 2023
Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet
Jan 28–Feb 25, 2024
Funny Girl
Apr 2–28, 2024
A Strange Loop
June 5–30, 2024
Clue
July 20–Aug 25, 2024