The Wiz. & Juliet. Shucked. The Great Gatsby. A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.

All five shows on Broadway in Toledo’s 2025 musical lineup are brand-new to the Stranahan Theater.

“We were listening to our season members and to our single ticket buyers in Toledo, and they wanted more new Broadway, and they wanted a larger, more glamorous season at the Stranahan,” said American Theatre Guild senior director of booking operations Craig Aikman.

American Theatre Guild, the largest not-for-profit touring Broadway presenter in the nation, has also added Tuesday and Wednesday to this season’s show dates for a season-wide expansion to eight performances instead of six.

“Because of the overwhelming support that we’ve gotten in Toledo, we’re able to bring full week titles into the city that we’ve not been able to do before, on a more consistent basis,” Aikman said.

Season memberships for the 2025-26 season are on sale now at BroadwayinToledo.com.

To give input on each season’s lineup, season members and single ticket buyers should fill out the programming survey the theatre guild sends out every year. Interested Toledoans who haven’t previously purchased show tickets can sign up to receive it through the American Theatre Guild’s email list.

‘& Juliet’, Dec. 16-21

& Juliet opens the 2025-26 season on Dec. 16-21. Currently running on Broadway, & Juliet imagines a world where Juliet didn’t give it all up at the end of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

This high-energy jukebox musical embraces Britney Spears, *NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, and other beloved pop songs of the Y2K era for a bombastic theatrical experience.

“& Juliet is just fun on a plate. It’s fun on a plate with whipped cream on top of it. It’s crazy how good that show is,” Aikman said.

‘Shucked,’ Jan. 20-25, 2026

Next up is Shucked. Arriving Jan. 20-25, this corn-fed musical will be here just in time to remind Toledoans trapped in the Midwest’s snowy depths what summer looks like.

The Music Man by way of Broadway-style country music, this playful comedy is likely to delight anyone who sees it. When the corn crop begins to die, a small-town girl leaves home to find answers, picking up a wannabe conman.

“Shucked is hysterically funny and just took New York by storm when it was playing there,” Aikman said.

‘The Great Gatsby,’ April 7-12, 2026

While The Great Gatsby’s musical adaptation was criticized for its handling of major themes and story elements of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal American novel, the 2023 show has also been praised for its bombastic approach to 1920s music and style.

“Probably the one that pulls my heart a little bit more than anything else is The Great Gatsby, because it literally is my favorite novel of all time,” Aikman said. “When they announced that they were creating this show, I was extremely excited about it.”

April 7-12, 2026, Toledo audiences can decide where they land for themselves with this currently-on-Broadway musical that brings the Roaring Twenties to the big stage.

‘The Wiz,’ May 26-31, 2026

Audiences may be disappointed not to see cultural juggernaut Wicked on this lineup — but before Wicked, there was The Wiz.

Unlike Wicked, which came to Toledo in 2018, The Wiz has never graced Toledo stages. That all changes on May 26-31, 2026, when area audiences will finally get the chance to see its vibrant music and powerful message.

The Wiz premiered on Broadway in 1975 as a radical reimagining of The Wizard of Oz through contemporary African American culture.

It “changed the world and changed Broadway forever when it when it premiered originally,” Aikman said. 

“If people love Wicked and they love the Wizard of Oz, then they’re gonna love The Wiz, because it’s just another version of that story that’s just incredibly put together. And the music is so good. It is so good.”

‘A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical,’ June 16-21, 2026

Closing out the season on June 16-21, 2026, A Beautiful Noise brings the American singer-songwriter Neil Diamond’s life to the Broadway stage with “a really good backstage glimpse at him and his career,” Aikman said.

Filled with Neil Diamond classics like “Sweet Caroline,” “I Am...I Said,” and “Forever in Blue Jeans,” A Beautiful Noise is a musical memoir that fans Diamond fans will love.

“In much the same way that Beautiful did with Carole King and Jersey Boys did with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, you kind of see how Neil Diamond became the icon that he is,” Aikman said.

For anyone pining for the return of certain old chestnuts, those shows will always been there, Aikman said. Future seasons will see the usual mix, but with a greater focus on new, exciting Broadway releases.

“This is one of the high point seasons, one of my top 10 seasons in Toledo that we’ve been able to bring, and I think it’s going to speak volumes to what’s possible out there right now,” Aikman said.

‘Beetlejuice’ opens Tuesday

The fun doesn’t wait.

On Tuesday, the Stranahan opened its second show of the 2024-25 season with Beetlejuice.

Through Sunday, Toledo audiences can enjoy the raucous musical adaptation of the 1988 dark comedy cult classic film of the same name.

In Beetlejuice, the young Lydia Deetz becomes the nexus of a spectral real estate battle as she deals with the grief of losing her mother. When bio-exorcist ghost Beetlejuice enters the scene, all bets are off.

“Lydia has been my dream role the past couple of years,” said Madison Mosley, who plays Lydia in the Beetlejuice national tour.

Not only was Beetlejuice the best of the movie musical adaptations released around its 2019 Broadway premiere, but Lydia’s songs had a rock sound unique to other popular shows.

“I just so badly wanted to be playing a role like Lydia that was just a little bit more dramatic, and I just get to have a little bit more fun with. I just was totally wanting to play this moody teen,” Mosley said with a laugh.

The Beetlejuice musical alters elements from the film, adapting it for the stage rather than reproducing a beat-for-beat remake. Changes include expanding Beetlejuice’s character into a narrator-type figure and fleshing out the relationship between Lydia and her recently widowed father.

“It’s a completely different experience. It’s a different show,” Aikman said. “The changes that they make for the stage production are really cool, and it’s nothing that’s going to shock people or make people miss the movie. It just expands it even further and makes it even more enjoyable.”

Audiences should look forward to a great night, Mosley said.

“There are a lot of things that people will unexpectedly connect with in the story, and there are certainly moments where, you know, you could be crying, and moments where you can be laughing, and I think that that’s really what the show is all about."

Contact Lillian King at lking@theblade.com.

First Published February 25, 2025, 7:22 p.m.