FORT PIERCE — The Sunrise Theatre’s new management just announced the 2026-27 season.
It includes comedies, legends of classic rock, high-flying circus acts, and talented tribute acts.
After a years-long search, VenuWorks, a national leader in venue management for more than 30 years, was selected to take over operations of the city-owned historic theater in June. The employee-owned company manages more than 65 venues in 28 communities across the country.
At its helm is Executive Director Numa Saisselin. The venue executive has decades of experience leading historic theaters to success.
Booking a 1,200-seat performing arts venue like the Sunrise can take years of planning, logistics and negotiations. Most of the 26-27 season was already booked when Saisselin took over in July.
The entertainment veteran is hard at work adding more shows and is already working on the 27-28 season.
“People love the tribute bands, so they are not going away,” Saisselin said. “But we hope to flesh out the calendar with some original artists and diverse entertainment. Many more shows will be coming along.”
The new team also plans to expand the lineup at the Sunrise’s smaller black box theater with a wider range of offerings, such as educational speaker series or social events.
“I’d like to make a closer connection to the local cultural community to work on filling out the black box calendar,” said Saisselin.
Currently, the black box is booked every 2nd and 4th Saturday with the popular Casey N’ Spaz Comedy shows.
As far as ticket prices go, Saisselin, who has booked acts such as Lynard Skynard, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi at other venues, reminds fans that the artist sets the price — and bigger names mean higher prices.
“My experience is people are gonna pay for the performer they want to see.”
The first major change theater goers might notice is a new third-party ticketing vendor. Once on the Sunrise Theatre web site, buyers will be redirected to TicketMaster for purchases.
VenuWorks has a nationwide agreement with the ticketing giant.
“The City of Fort Pierce decided to engage VenuWorks to manage this building and that included TicketMaster coming along. It’s just a piece of software we use to process sales,” Saisselin said.
Season memberships, which offer pre-sale access to tickets, and other perks are on sale now. Fans can sign up for the Sunrise newsletter and receive early access to the full show line-up and weekly updates.
Ticket sales open to the public Sept. 8, and to members on Aug. 11.
Saisselin’s goal is to serve everyone by offering a diverse lineup of shows.
“Whether your Black, white, Latino, Asian, pink, purple, young, old, male, female, Boomer or Gen Z-er, my goal is to have at least one show that everyone wants to see. I want people to look at our calendar and say ‘Oh, I want to see that!’,” said Saisselin. “Check back in 12 months and you’ll see.”
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit sunrisetheatre.com.