The Battle Of The Musicals: 5th Avenue vs Village vs Paramount

Well, the Big Three producers/presenters of Musical Theater in the Greater Seattle Metroplex have all announced their line-ups for the upcoming 2026/27 season…let’s look and see how they did! Oh, and for the record, I consider the Big Three to be: The 5th Avenue Theatre, Issaquah based Village Theatre and the Broadway Across America series based at Seattle Theatre Group’s Paramount Theatre. All three are professional theater producers/presenters with mostly union talent.

We’ll start with Village Theatre who currently are producing 4 musicals and one play every season, with all productions debuting at their mainstage located in Issaquah and running for a month, followed by a run at the Everett Performing Arts Center in Everett Washington. For the 26/27 season, Village will produce productions of three classic musicals, a mystery play, and the premiere of an original new musical.

Their opening show in September will be Ragtime, the 1996 musical based on the award winning novel by E.L Doctorow which is onstage in NYC in a well reviewed revival. It will be followed by Come From Away, the popular 2013 musical about airplane passengers stranded in Newfoundland during the 9/11 crisis.

The Village’s play for the season follows in their tradition of staging well loved mysteries…Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None will kickoff in January of 2027 followed by the Seattle area professionaly produced premiere of Dear Evan Hansen, the hugely popular teen musical from the EGOT winning team of Pasek and Paul. The world premiere of LOVE IS DEAD A New Musical Comedy—”a darkly funny, delightfully offbeat rom‑com about a woman who falls for the extremely handsome ghost haunting her Airbnb” will wrap up their season.

Meanwhile, back in downtown Seattle, the 5th Avenue Theatre have announced 4/5ths of their 2026/2027 season which will include 2 locally produced productions, two national tours, and “one show to be announced” which I’ve heard through the grapevine, will also be a locally produced show.

The first two shows of the season, will both be local, with the return of A Chorus Line happening this fall, and a new production of The Wizard of Oz filling the “holiday family show” slot for December of 2026. Two eagerly awaited tours will hit the 5th Avenue stage in 2027 with Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical playing in February of 2027 and last year’s Tony Award winning Best Musical, Maybe Happy Ending, coming to town in August of next year.

In between, the “mystery show” will be produced in June of ’27. Note that while both Operation Mincemeat and Maybe Happy Ending are being presented as part of the 5th Avenue’s partnership with Seattle Theatre Group, neither of those tours will be part of the Broadway Across America package for 2026/27.

Which leads us TO the shows that WILL be part of that line-up…which includes EIGHT musicals and eagerly awaited debuts of TWO hit Broadway plays, one of them with a (slight) Seattle connection. We’re actually going to start with the two plays; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will hit the Paramount from Aug 22 – Sep 12, 2026, and the VERY gay Oh, Mary! will have curiously short run of Nov 3 – 8, 2026. Oh, Mary!, the mega comedy hit from the very gay Cole Escola, has featured our own drag diva JINXK MONSOON as one of the many stars to have played the leading role on Broadway. No word on who will playing that role for the tour…we can’t believe they’ll cast an unknown in that role, so stay tuned!

Broadways Across America’s musical line up is also pretty impressive and includes:

Water for Elephants, Oct 6 – 11, 2026

The Outsiders, Nov 27 – Dec 6, 2026

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Dec 22, 2026 – Jan 3, 2027

Hadestown, Jan 19 – 24, 2027

The Who’s Tommy, Mar 16 – 21, 2027

Six, Apr 20 – 25, 2027

The Sound of Music, Jun 1 – 6, 2027

The Great Gatsby, Jul 6 – 11, 2027

Sooooooo….let’s review these line-ups. From MY cranky old theater going view. Village has TWO shows that very much interest/excite me: Ragtime, because I’m a big fan of this musical. It has one of the best opening scenes in musical theater and it’s just a terrific adaptation of the book (which I also love) and it has a great plot, characters to care about, and a strong score. There’s also the professional, local debut of Dear Evan Hansen and…I’m curious to see what the Village can do with the material.

I’m neutral on the world premiere show and frankly ambivalent about the play, though I love me some Dame Agatha Christie….but, I’m VERY confused why the Village is doing Come From Away so soon after Seattle Rep staged it, this past fall. Don’t get me wrong; I love Come From Away and very much liked the Rep’s production, which means…I’m not really in a hurry to see it AGAIN so soon. But, the show is beloved, so, there’s that.

Then we come to the 5th Avenue and the jury is still out on their line-up because we don’t know what the 5th show will be. I’ll be frank and say, I’ll not entirely enthused by the choice of A Chorus Line, a show they produced not that super long ago (2014) when there’s so many other shows they haven’t done in a long time. (Should note, I think A Chorus Line is a brilliant musical. But, I’d rather see the 5th produce…Gypsy. Or, Follies. Or, Company. Or, A Little Night Music. Or…even something NOT by Sondheim.) And, like every one else, I adore The Wizard of Oz but…I don’t really need to see it onstage again. Ever. Maybe if Meryl Streep was playing the Witch. Maybe.

I am however, excited by the two tours coming to the 5th…both fun, recent Broadway hits. So, yay for them.

As for the Paramount/STG/Broadway Across America, they do have an impressive showlist for 26/27. The two plays are exciting, though I worry how Oh, Mary! will play in a huge space like The Paramount. This past season, they did the intimate little Broadway hit play Stereophonic at The Paramount and it the intimacy of that play was just lost in that cavern. “Mary” is a silly little farce…can it ‘fill’ the vastness?

Then there’s all those musicals including debuts of recent hits like The Outsiders, The Great Gatsby, Water for Elephants plus return visits from many others including a new tour of The Who’s Tommy. Of the musicals, I’m a sucker for Tommy, which is a terrific rock musical and both The Outsiders and Gatsby seem intriguing.

I’d rather eat dirt from the Hanford Site than see Six (a Vegas/Cruise Ship Act with ghastly grrrrl power songs and uglyass costumes.) Or, The Sound of Music…yes, blasphemy, I know but I’ll be honest….The Sound of Music is an amazing musical movie I’ll watch once a year but the stage musical is…clunky. And, cloying. With a couple turd songs. Give me Julie Andrews, surly Christopher Plummer, those adorable movie kids, and 1960s Salzburg and I. Am. There.

So, there really isn’t a clear “winner”. All three companies have some great picks and some…less than great picks but it’s all subjective! If you’re rich, go see it all!! If I had to choose only nine to see it would be, in no specific order:

• Ragtime
• Dear Evan Hansen
• Maybe Happy Ending
• Operation Mincemeat
• The Who’s Tommy
• Harry Potter & The Cursed Child
• Oh, Mary!
• The Great Gatsby
• The Outsiders