Actors are rehearsing, costumers are sewing, lights are being hung, and the phones are ringing for tickets as the 2025-26 arts seasons have begun, and arts organizations are ready to thrill area audiences with thrilling performances on stages all over town.
With something for everyone from ballet to opera, from music concerts to every style of theater, plan your calendars now for an upcoming year of entertainment.
At Destination Duluth, we offer ongoing profiles of talented people involved in our rich entertainment scene and reviews of many performances throughout the year.
Visit destinationduluth.co/ArtsAndEntertainment to keep up with insights on what’s up and coming now and how to get tickets for individual productions or for the season.
Support Duluth’s arts organizations by buying tickets and making donations to keep the arts alive by becoming faithful audience members and sponsors!
Boat Club Productions
Offering a unique and intimate theatre experience, with fewer than 150 seats, allows Boat Club Productions audiences to feel fully immersed in an evening of theatre. With their seasons of exciting musicals, timeless classics, dramas, or comedies, the Boat Club offers a diverse mix of shows to fit every taste.
Current:
Tick, Tick… Boom – Remaining Run October 2-6
Spirit of the North Theatre at Fitger’s 600 E. Superior St – 3rd Floor.
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/TickTickBoomBoatClubProductions
Up Next, The final show in the Boat Club 2025 Season:
A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol – December 4-14, 2025
It’s Christmas Eve, 1943, and the Feddington Players are set to present their contemporary “take” on Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Whether it’s the noisy plumbing, missed cues, or electrical blackouts, this radio show is an entertaining excursion into the mayhem and madness of a live radio show.
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/A1940sRadioChristmasCarol
Watch for The Boat Club’s 2026 new season lineup coming soon.
“Broadway at the DECC”
Last season brought back the razzle dazzle of Broadway national tours to the DECC with sold-out performances of Chicago, Pretty Woman, Mean Girls, and Riverdance. This year’s lineup features four musicals and a bonus holiday show.
Up First:
The Book of Mormon – October 28-29, 2025
A 9-time Tony Award®-winning musical that follows a mismatched pair of Mormons sent on a mission to a place that is about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get. Entertainment Weekly calls “The Book of Mormon” “the funniest show ever.” The New York Times simply calls it “the best musical of this century.” The Book of Mormon contains explicit language, situations, and content. Parental discretion strongly advised.
Remaining Broadway at the DECC 2025-26 Season:
A Magical Cirque Christmas – December 16, 2025
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical – February 15, 2026
Hadestown – March 16, 2026
The Music Man – April 29, 2026
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/BroadwayAtTheDECC
In addition to the Broadway series, the DECC’s other upcoming productions:
Mania: Abba – October 16, 2025
World Ballet Company: The Great Gatsby Ballet – October 19, 2025
Masters of Illusion – November 2, 2025
Wheel of Fortune Live – November 23, 2025
MN Ballet: Nutcracker, a Duluth Tale – December 12-14, 2025
Mannheim Steamroller Christmas – December 17, 2025
The Duluth Playhouse
Duluth Playhouse offers entertainment, training, and performance opportunities in theatre arts. Founded in 1914, the Playhouse is one of the nation’s oldest non-profit theaters, producing year-round seasons of plays and musicals. The Playhouse opened its season with Million Dollar Quartet. Their season includes beloved musicals, reimagined classics, and groundbreaking contemporary work.
Up Next:
Disney’s Frozen – November 22-December 21, 2025
Based on the Academy Award-winning Disney animated feature film, which became a hit Broadway musical. It is full of humor, thrilling surprises, and a stunning musical score. Frozen is a powerful tale of sisterhood, acceptance, and finding the real meaning of true love.
Remaining Duluth Playhouse Mainstage 2025-26 Season:
Dial M for Murder – January 30-February 8, 2026
Little Shop of Horrors – March 13-29, 2026
The Comedy of Errors – May 29-June 7, 2026
Legally Blonde: the Musical – July 10-26, 2026
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/DuluthPlayhouse
Duluth Superior Orchestra (DSSO)
The DSSO is a fully professional regional orchestra serving the Twin Ports and the Northland. The DSSO’s 2025/2026 season is filled with exciting milestones and unforgettable music. The DSSO began its season with its celebration of Erin Aldridge’s 20th season as concertmaster—an incredible achievement for a truly gifted musician. Later in the season, she will be performing one of her favorite pieces, Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1.
Remaining DSSO 2025-26 Season:
Masterworks 2 Lord Nelson Mass with DSSO Chorus – November 8, 2025
Pops 1 Holiday Spectacular with the DSSO Chorus – December 6, 2025
Masterworks 3 Sibelius and Shostakovich – January 31, 2026
Masterworks 4 French Voyage with DSSO Chorus – February 28, 2026
Masterworks 5 Beethoven and Bizet – March 21, 2026
Pops 2 Indiana Jones / Film Live with Orchestra – April 11, 2026
Masterworks 6 Rhine Journey – May 16, 2026
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/DSSO
Lyric Opera of the North (LOON)
Loon is a first-class professional opera company bringing both fully staged classic operas and new works, along with special concerts, Little LOON (their touring operas for school children), and special fundraising events each season. Their company includes many talented opera artists, as well as featuring guest artists. After celebrating their 20th anniversary last season, LOON is back with two major operas.
Up Next :
Amahl and the Night Visitors – January 24-25, 2026
The beloved holiday classic Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer. It tells the touching story of a poor shepherd boy and his mother, whose lives are forever changed by a visit from the Three Kings on their way to Bethlehem.
A Little Night Music – Friday, June 12- 14, 2026
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/LOONOpera
Matinee Musicale
Matinee Musicale celebrates 125 years of bringing world-class chamber music to Duluth. From rising stars to international virtuosos, they are proud to continue their tradition of offering the Northland the opportunity to experience incredibly talented artists. Their 2025-26 concert season consists of four performances of young, rising artists.
Up First:
Reed Tetzloff (piano) – October 12, 2025
Tetzloff has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, and the Tbilisi Symphony, among others. He gives annual recital tours in Belgium.
Remaining Matinee Musicale 2025-26 Season:
Sasha Cooke (mezzo soprano) – Tuesday, November 18, 2025
ArcoStrum (violin and guitar duo) – Sunday, February 1, 2026
Isidore Quartet (strings) – Sunday, April 21, 2026
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/MatineeMusicale
Student tickets are free, courtesy of Christian Eggert Violins.
Minnesota Ballet
Minnesota Ballet is the premier classical ballet company in the Northland. They have provided high-quality performances, pre-professional ballet training, and lively outreach programs. This year, they celebrate their 60th Anniversary, offering audiences vibrant new versions of classic works, faithful interpretations of masterpieces by legendary artists, and new commissions from established and emerging choreographers in a variety of dance styles. Before their season series, they will host the Celebrity Dance Challenge, pairing local celebrities with a Minnesota Ballet professional dancer on October 9.
Up First:
Giselle – October 23-26, 2025
A captivating ballet that weaves together ethereal beauty and haunting emotion. Set in a mystical world where love, betrayal, and the supernatural collide, the story follows a young woman whose tragic fate leads her into a ghostly realm of vengeful spirits. With its stunning choreography and evocative music, Giselle remains one of the most beloved and enduring works in the classical ballet repertoire.
Remaining Minnesota Ballet 2025-26 Season:
The Nutcracker – December 12-14, 2025
Sleeping Beauty – March 13-15, 2025
60th Anniversary Retrospective – April 17-18, 2025
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/MNBallet
Rubber Chicken Theater
Rubber Chicken Theater has been writing and performing sketch comedy revues since the group’s inception in 2008. They create funny, original, local theater, created by local theater artists. From scripted plays and original sketch comedy revues to live read shows and holiday revues, they offer a different slant on area theater and comedy.
Remaining Rubber Chicken Theater 2025-26 Season:
Holiday Comedy Revue – December 19-20, 26-27, 2025
New Year’s Cluckin’ Eve – December 31, 2025
Lust & Lutefisk: A Duluth Parka-Ripping Romance – February 13-14, 2026
An Act of God – May 22-24 and 29-31, 2026
The Chicken Hat Plays – June 13, 2026
Heathers: The Musical – August 14-15, 21-22, 2026
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/RubberChickenTheater
UMD Theatre
The UMD Department of Theatre is a community for storytellers, scholars, and creative artists. They bring people together to explore essential human questions through the performing arts. They nurture students and prepare them for professional opportunities in the arts and beyond while entertaining area audiences with their productions.
Up First:
Anne of Green Gables – October 10-12, 15-18, 2025
When brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert are sent to an orphanage in Nova Scotia for a boy to help them on the farm, they get more than they bargained for: hot-headed, 11-year-old Anne Shirley. Over the course of six years, this imaginative, brilliant, and energetic girl wins their hearts and turns a stodgy, rural Canadian community into a bright world of kindred spirits. This swift yet theatrical adaptation of the classic novel is an all-ages crowd-pleaser.
Remaining UMD Theatre 2025-26 Season:
The Gales of November – November 6, 2025
Women of Lockerbie – November 14-16, 19-22, 2025
Dancing Tales – February 13-15, 2026
Baltimore Waltz – March 6-7, 17-22, 2025
The SpongeBob Musical – April 17-19, 22-25, 2025
Tickets: destinationduluth.co/UMDTheatre
Zeitgeist Theater
Each season, Zeitgeist Theatre features bold, timely, and fearless plays—some familiar, some new. They aim to create a genuine connection between their audiences and the writers, creators, actors, and builders. Whether with comedies, dramas, or musicals, their strong storytelling is front and center.
Current:
LaRonde – Remaining Run October 1-4, 2025
A provocative and fully contemporary re-imagining of Schnitzler’s notorious play Reigen, known as its French translation, La Ronde. The show is sexy, literate, emotional, and highly theatrical.
Up Next:
God of Carnage – November 13-22, 2025
A playground altercation between eleven-year-old boys brings together two sets of Brooklyn parents for a meeting to resolve the matter. At first, diplomatic niceties are observed, but as the meeting progresses, and the rum flows, tensions emerge and the gloves come off, leaving the couples with more than just their liberal principles in tatters.
Zeitgeist’s 2026 Season
Beautiful Thing – April 9-18, 2026
Witch – July 30-August 8, 2026
American Son – September 24-October 3, 2026
Urinetown – November 12-21, 2026
