Carla Woods as Sebastian and Delphi Borich as Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid from ‘Theatre Under The Stars’.
Melissa Taylor
Logan Keslar as Flotsam, Christina Wells as Ursula and Blair Medina as Jetsam in Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’.
Melissa Taylor
When Theatre Under the Stars announced its new season, it featured the usual suspects: American classics, screen-to-stage adaptations and a splashy holiday centerpiece.
What it didn’t include was its signature roster of locally produced musicals.
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The only homegrown show this season is “The Little Mermaid,” which takes the all-important Christmas slot later this year. The rest of the lineup — “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “The Who’s Tommy,” “Kinky Boots” — is national tours. Season opener “The Music Man” runs through Sunday at Hobby Center. Oh, Mary!” the Tony-winning play by Cole Escola, closes the season next year.
Dan Knechtges, TUTS artistic director, says the decision to include so many national tours wasn’t an easy one. But it made sense as a “reset” for staff and as a chance to get major touring titles that were suddenly available.
“We punch way above our weight class for the amount of staff we have. They’re superstars. Doing tours is still a lot of work, but it’s less work than if we self-produce. And it really helps as we’re launching into a next season that we’ll have more locally produced shows, and then the 60th, which hopefully is going to have a lot,” Knechtges says.
“All these shows lined up, and I kind of say, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. When a door opens, you gotta step through it, or you’re going to miss.”
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‘Oh, Mary!’ on Broadway starring Cole Escola.
Emilio Madrid
Knechtges, a Tony nominee for his choreography for the musical “Xanadu,” became TUTS artistic director in 2017. Before that, national tours were the norm on the TUTS stage. Knechtges deliberately steered the organization back to locally produced shows, including a reimagined “Oklahoma!” with the Houston Ballet and one of the first regional productions of Disney’s “Frozen.” He directed and choreographed the regional premiere of “The Secret of My Success,” based on the 1987 Michael J. Fox film. TUTS also put on ambitious productions of “Sweeney Todd” and “In the Heights.”
Recent seasons have featured two or three national tours, including “Back to the Future” and “Spamalot” earlier this year. Knechtges says TUTS employs “anywhere from 10 to 110” local musicians and stagehands for touring shows. Actors are also employed year-round for fundraising and promotional efforts, along with teaching artists through the TUTS Musical Theatre Academy.
“I’m 100% aware of the impact it is to those artists,” Knechtges says. “The decision was not made lightly. And for all of us on staff, it’s not only that they’re cohorts in what we do, but they’re our friends and, in some cases, family members.”
This year’s locally produced show, “The Little Mermaid,” gets an extended 17-day holiday engagement, the longest run of the season. The five visiting shows each get standard two-week stops. TUTS last put on the splashy show in 2021 but had to cancel several days due to a COVID-19/Omicron outbreak among the cast and crew.
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“We have got to put this to bed,” Knechtges jokes of the truncated show.
TUTS enters the 2026–27 season on strong footing. The company has 3,644 subscriber households, accounting for 8,779 subscription packages and 43,293 seats, a 16% jump in subscription seats compared to last year. Renewal rates for full-season subscribers are 77.4%. Overall subscription revenue has already hit 97% of its seasonal target with partial packages available through the end of the year.