Goodspeed mounts both new and newly revived musicals each year on our main stage at the Opera House and on our second stage in Chester – a total of more than 400 performances during the April to December season attracting 130,000 patrons to the Connecticut River Valley. We stand at the forefront of producing and preserving the American musical, simultaneously reinventing the classics and inventing new ones. We attract well-known icons of the theatre world and foster emerging talent among composers, lyricists, and librettists. Each year, thousands of actors, directors, choreographers, and technicians aspire to come to Goodspeed to practice their craft. Among millions who know and love this art form – and those who appreciate its history and enduring appeal – Goodspeed is widely recognized as “The Home of the American Musical.”
Throughout the year, and intensively during the winter months, Goodspeed addresses issues unique to the field by offering innovative and highly-sought after programs through our Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre, including the celebrated Musical Theatre Institute providing programs for aspiring musical theatre professionals. The Arts Education Collaboration provides art-education programs for underserved Connecticut youth. The Festival of New Musicals features students from the Hartt School and the Boston Conservatory performing staged readings of three brand new musicals, industry-related seminars, a symposium and cabaret performances. Each winter, Goodspeed also hosts the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony that invites musical theatre writing teams to retreat from daily life for a four week residency and concentrate solely on writing new musicals. In addition, Goodspeed serves as a resource for the preservation of the art form through our Scherer Library of Musical Theatre, the second most extensive musical theatre research library in the United States.
A Red Orchid Theatre is an ensemble of artists dedicated to the proliferation of live theatre in the modern world. We believe that theatre is the greatest sustenance for the human spirit and…
Shadow Lawn Stage is the professional Equity theater of Monmouth University, whose goal is to present the best of past and present plays and musicals for the Jersey Shore. As a professional…
Engage audiences with frequent and outstanding professional productions of a wide variety of classic, modern, and contemporary plays performed in a wide variety of…
The mission of Shakespeare & Company is to deliver a sustainable, integrated, and vital program of Performance, Training, and Education for the audience, the artist, the Company, and the…
In 1978, two young New York actors, Howard Shalwitz and Roger Brady, had an idea for a new kind of theater that would shake up the nation. They selected Washington, DC as the place to launch…
The Kingsmen Shakespeare Company is dedicated to presenting professional programs and performances of the works of William Shakespeare for the education and entertainment of people of all ages.
Long before he founded Theatricum Botanicum, Indiana native Will Geer was well-known for his work on the New York stage, in film, and on radio. By the mid-1950’s, he had relocated…
Point Park University's Pittsburgh Playhouse is the performing arts center of Point Park University and the Conservatory of Performing Arts.
The three-theater performing arts center in the…
Goodspeed Opera House
Equity Theater