A sold-out Little Women: The Musical opened at Amelia Community Theatre on Saturday night and wastes no time upending expectations. After receiving her twenty-second rejection letter, this time from a publisher who deems her story “tasteless and vulgar,” Jo March vents her frustration to her friend Professor Bhaer. Intrigued, he asks what the story is about, and Jo perks up immediately. “Blood and guts stuff. It’s all the rage. The magazines and periodicals are full of it!”

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is writing loud for all to hear, so let’s talk about Elf, which debuted at the Alhambra Theatre and Dining on Friday night. The Alhambra has a long, outstanding reputation for putting on the finest holiday shows year after year, and this year’s presentation of Elf is no exception.

The BroadwayWorld Jacksonville Awards are back, celebrating the productions and people who kept local stages busy over the past year. As part of BroadwayWorld’s annual Regional Awards, the Jacksonville edition looks only at work from our corner of Florida, covering productions from as far west as Gainesville and as far south as Palm Coast.

Jacksonville area artists, productions and companies are competing with fellow locals, not theatres from across the state or country. The ballot becomes a snapshot of the past year on First Coast stages, filtered through the audiences who filled the seats and sent in their favorites.

Samuel Issac Nelson III has been named a 2025 U.S. Presidential Scholar, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school seniors.

Nelson, a member of Douglas Anderson School of the Arts’ class of 2025, is one of only 161 students recognized nationwide and among just 20 honored for achievement in the arts. He is one of three recipients from Florida and the only one from Jacksonville.

WJCT Public Media is giving Jacksonville audiences another chance to experience the best of British theatre without leaving town. As part of its partnership with London’s National Theatre and BY Experience, Film at WJCT Studios will screen Mrs. Warren’s Profession on Wednesday, November 5.

In Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten, the past hangs heavy over a Connecticut farm where resentment, survival and yearning intertwine. Josie Hogan, the sharp-tongued daughter of an aging tenant farmer, scrapes out a life shaped by both hardship and wit. Her father, Phil, schemes to secure the family’s land from their landlord, James Tyrone Jr., whose charm masks deep grief and self-loathing. What begins as a bluff for ownership becomes a night of searing honesty, as Josie and Tyrone’s defenses crumble and their pain is laid bare beneath the moonlight.