The Broadway series at Overture Center this coming season is all about spectacle.
Shows on the 2025-26 slate incorporate a flying DeLorean car-turned-time machine (“Back to the Future”), a life-size elephant puppet (“Water for Elephants”), glitzy Jazz Age dance numbers (“Some Like It Hot,” “The Great Gatsby”) and high-kicking feather dusters (“Disney’s Beauty and the Beast”).
“We’ve got a spectacular season,” said Tim Sauers, Overture’s co-CEO and chief artistic experiences officer. Broadway tours draw roughly 10,000 to 17,500 people each time they play the city.
Sauers has had a hand in booking this season in Madison for 17 years. He and Karra Beach, director of Broadway engagement programs, announced the slate of programming on Thursday night in Overture Hall, the center’s 2,200-seat theater.
Don Stephenson, left, and Caden Brauch appear in the national tour of "Back to the Future: The Musical," touring to Madison in March 2026.
Subscriptions to the Broadway series are on sale now, starting at $210.54. They include six touring musicals — all of those mentioned above, plus “Kimberly Akimbo,” an original show by the creators of “Shrek” — plus a few add-on productions.
The biggest name among those add-ons is Lin Manuel-Miranda’s megahit “Hamilton,” which returns for the third time. (Previous casts came in 2019 and 2022.) “Hamilton” will sit down for two weeks in January 2026.
A. D. Weaver, center, plays George Washington in the national tour of "Hamilton." The show comes to Madison for the third time in January 2026.
“Those kind of mega-musical returns are usually add-ons for us, because people have seen it,” Sauers said. Overture “gives them the option of whether they want to see it or not. The majority of them, I think, pick it up and do it anyway.”
One of the two additional add-ons is a short, non-Equity run of “The Book of Mormon” in October. The Trey Parker/Matt Stone comedy sold out single tickets in just one day when it first toured to Madison in 2015. (It came back in 2017 and 2019.)
And “Riverdance,” the Irish step dancing show born out of a musical interlude at Eurovision in 1994, celebrates 30 years of ethereal a cappella and reeling around the sun with an anniversary tour. That show came through last in 2020.
"Riverdance 30 - The New Generation" plays Overture Hall on April 14-16, 2026.
Overture fits in these eight-show Broadway touring runs, produced by Broadway Across America, with other uses of the stages by local resident companies and its own Overture Presents series. “Beauty and the Beast,” “Water for Elephants” and “Great Gatsby” will all be in their first year of touring.
With Broadway tours, “people subscribe and maybe don’t really care what all the shows are,” Sauers said, “because that genre of Broadway is so diverse.
“You could have a dance series, and there’s so many different styles of dance … or a family series, but the kids are all different ages,” Sauers added. “That’s why I like the mix-and-match of Broadway. People want to see diverse kinds of shows.”
Carolee Carmello, left, plays Kimberly and Miguel Gil plays Seth on the national tour of "Kimberly Akimbo."
Fringe Fest, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Sedaris return
The Overture Presents season for 2025-26 will play some of the hits. Humorist David Sedaris is coming back (Oct. 22) as are two of the guys from “Whose Live Anyway?” (Oct. 24). The Madison Symphony Orchestra joins a guest conductor to play the score of the final “Harry Potter” film (Jan. 31). Jazz at Lincoln Center and Wynton Marsalis play Madison on Jan. 27.
The dance troupe Step Afrika! intends to be in town for five days around its Feb. 4 show, “The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence.”
“We’re going to do community work around this piece,” Sauers said, which “looks at the African American migration in the United States. … They’ll do school shows, public shows, a show in Overture Hall. We never really did a big residency with a touring show before.”
Earlier this season, Sauers and his team brought acts to Overture from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, calling it a weekend-long “mini fringe.” Next winter brings back the long-form improv troupe Baby Wants Candy, this time in the Playhouse.
Chris Grace, center, performs with improv troupe Baby Wants Candy.
And there are some new Fringe acts — Dinosaur World Live and Monkeys Everywhere (both kid-friendly shows), The Naked Magicians (obviously for adults) and Caitlin Cook, whose graffiti-inspired musical was a New York Times critics pick and ran off-Broadway. That last one is called “The Writing on the Stall” (Feb. 28).
There are always a few tribute shows, this time for Queen (March 21) and Simon and Garfunkel (Feb. 7). “Glee” star Matthew Morrison brings his show, “Rhythms & Revelations,” in the fall (Oct. 16) while the iconic a cappella group Take 6 is touring again next spring (April 25, 2026).
The National Geographic Live series, featuring photographers from around the world, will include programs about pirates, wild cats and sharks. Duck Soup Cinema — silent films, accompanied by live music — the Cabaret series and the Up Close series featuring emerging artists will all return.
Particularly after COVID closures, arts organizations have noticed more ticket buyers waiting later to purchase tickets, rather than subscribing up front.
“We have a solid subscription base,” Sauers said. “When we came out of COVID, it was so last-minute. The first year we did Jazz at Lincoln Center, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, we’re not going to sell any tickets,’ and then 700 went in the last two weeks.
“I think people are looking a little further out now. We just put ‘Wicked’ single tickets on sale, and it was off the charts. It depends on what the property is.”
The national tour of the musical "Some Like It Hot" comes to Overture Center in Madison from Nov. 11-16.
More transparency in ticketing
New subscriptions to Overture’s 2025-26 Broadway series range from $210.54 to $1,035.14 for six shows. Single tickets should start to go on sale this summer. Theatergoers can do a “make your own” package with any three or more Overture Presents shows for a 15% discount (or five or more for 20% off).
One change ticket buyers will see is a greater transparency around where ticket prices go. That means a detailed price breakdown of the base ticket cost, sales tax, facility fees and other “artist- or promoter-requested charges.”
When a theatergoer hovers over a seat in the online map of the stage, they’ll see the entire ticket price, fees included. Ticketmaster was already doing this.
According to Overture, “this isn’t a price hike.” This all-in pricing is intended to clarify that “most of what you pay goes directly to the artist or show.”
Sauers and his team do surveys and examine ticket sales to inform programming. He said he’s getting to know the audience better every year, and that affects what his team brings in.
“Like, ‘Oh, they like this show, here’s another show in that realm that they may really get into,’” he said. “There’s a couple shows I put on every year that I’m like, ‘Will anybody come?’ I hope. But this is a show that you need to see, because it’s so good.
“You’ve got to try to stretch people to see different stuff.”
Shubshri Kandiah, left, plays Belle opposite Brendan Xavier as the Beast in "Disney's Beauty and the Beast," touring to Madison May 12-27, 2026.
