Artistic director Anthony Hamilton and executive director Laura Zervic recently joined Cara Lieurance to walk through the full lineup of the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre’s 2026-27 season.
This season's tagline, "Pieces of the Past," ties every production to a bygone era. Hamilton opens with Anything Goes, which he also directs, calling it an "absolutely ridiculous comedy,” a 1930s classic by Cole Porter featuring many of his greatest songs. October brings Some Enchanted Evening, a Rodgers and Hammerstein revue at the Suzanne Parish Theatre, followed by Disney's The Little Mermaid Jr. on the main stage, directed by Teresa Williams-Johnson.
November's Silent Sky, by playwright Lauren Gunderson, dramatizes astronomer Henrietta Leavitt's career at the Harvard Observatory. "It's the meeting and melding of worlds," Hamilton says of the science-tinged love story, directed by Mike Artis. December's holiday offering is The Wizard of Oz, its first Civic staging in nearly 20 years, featuring live flying effects and a cast search that already includes several audition hopefuls for Toto.
The new year opens with Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie at the Carver Studio, directed by Kevin Dodd, followed by Honk Jr. through the Civic's Penguin Project, which partners young performers with developmental disabilities alongside teen mentors. February's She Loves Me is a musical with a storyline that compares toThe Shop Around the Corner, while March brings August Wilson's Fences, directed by Hamilton. The spring rounds out with the readers'-theater piece On Golden Pond, the youth production Robin Hood, and a season-closing run of Les Misérables — the Civic's first since 2013.
Season and FlexPass details are available at kazoocivic.com or by calling the box office at 269-343-1313.
The interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
