The Limelight Theatre production of Nunsense is a joyful, laugh-filled romp that celebrates the playful side of musical theater. From start to finish, it brims with energy, wit and charm, offering an evening of comfort and comedy in equal measure.

The story itself is delightfully offbeat: a group of nuns putting on a variety show to raise money after a few missteps. What makes it so endearing is the way the music and humor flow — some songs are presented as rehearsed numbers for the sisters’ fundraiser, while others burst forth as spontaneous expressions of character and circumstance. This balance adds to the show’s quirky appeal and keeps the evening unpredictable.

The 5 & Dime’s production of Gutenberg! The Musical! is delightfully and unapologetically stupid — and it’s glorious. From the opening moments, the audience is roaring with laughter, and by the end, many are holding their sides in pain from laughing so hard, leaving the theater aching in the best way possible. What unfolds across the evening is a dazzling collision of silliness, heart and sheer theatrical joy, a reminder of why audiences keep coming back to the stage in the first place.

A new play from one of television’s most recognizable creative voices is making its world premiere in Jacksonville this month. Michael Jacobs, the Emmy-nominated creator behind hit sitcoms Boy Meets World and My Two Dads, is bringing his latest work, Harlan and Bronna Jump Out the Window, to the stage with Lumen Repertory Theatre.

“In the end it’s a metaphor for what we’re currently going through with our world situation,” Jacobs said on First Coast Connect on WJCT News 89.9. “But that’s not entertaining. What’s entertaining is a couple who live on the 34th floor in Manhattan who look down upon all of the people on the street and are informed that they’re down to their last million dollars.”

Alhambra Theatre & Dining’s production of Come From Away is a moving, exhilarating reminder of the power of community in the face of tragedy. Now, even 24 years after the events of Sept. 11, the show still resonates with urgency and compassion, and this cast brings it to life with both precision and heart.

With a cast featuring many of Jacksonville’s brightest stars and Tony Award winner Cady Huffman, Theatre Jacksonville’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum In Concert lights up the Florida Theatre.

In this episode of The JaxPlays Green Room, Ray Hollister talks with playwright Sean Daniels about his semi-autobiographical play The White Chip, which comes to Players by the Sea August 22–31. Daniels reflects on how Jacksonville played a pivotal role in his own sobriety, the people and science that helped shape his recovery, and how he balances humor and vulnerability when telling such a personal story.

If you think you know Willy Wonka, think again. At Alhambra Theatre & Dining, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a wild, whimsical ride that delivers the spectacle and charm you’d expect from Roald Dahl’s classic, but with its own fresh spin. Director Shain Stroff’s artistry shines in his leadership, guiding a team of creative minds that transforms Roald Dahl’s classic into a full-blown theatrical treat that is heartfelt, hilarious and delightfully off-kilter.

The 5 & Dime’s, The Baltimore Waltz opens with Kristen Walsh as Anna, an elementary school teacher blindsided by a devastating diagnosis that she is terminally ill. Instead of resignation, Anna decides she will seize every pleasure Europe has to offer. Her plan is to embrace life in the most hedonistic way possible, abandoning her old rules and letting desire set the itinerary. What unfolds is not a straightforward journey but a wild, hallucinatory romp: whimsical, raunchy and bursting with the kind of logic found only in dreams.

In the dim, cluttered recesses of a Chicago junk shop, three men circle a scheme like wolves around a carcass. There’s the shop’s owner, Donny Dubrow, trying to stay one step ahead of poverty and moral compromise. His young protégé, Bobby, skittish and uncertain, wants to prove his worth. And then there’s Teach, a walking powder keg with a leather jacket and a mean streak, who sees every slight as an excuse to seize power.

ABET - All Beaches Experimental Theatre’s The Fantasticks takes on one of musical theater’s most curious relics — a minimalist fable of young love and life lessons that has charmed audiences for decades. Whether its particular blend of whimsy and earnestness holds up for modern viewers is debatable, but ABET’s production finds genuine moments of charm amid the show’s quirks.

Desperate Measures is a sly and spirited musical adaptation of Measure for Measure, Shakespeare’s morally knotty comedy about justice, mercy and the abuse of power. Rather than Elizabethan Vienna, the action here unfolds in the Arizona Territory during the late 1800s, where saloons and six-shooters replace dukes and friars.

Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, now playing at Limelight Theatre’s Matuza Blackbox, is not merely a play — it’s a philosophical provocation. Written in 1959, this absurdist work remains startlingly resonant, especially in an age where ideological conformity and social contagion continue to shape public discourse.

In the razzle-dazzle world of Chicago, crime meets celebrity in a sultry, satirical musical set during the roaring 1920s. The story follows Roxie Hart, a housewife-turned-murderess who uses the media circus to climb her way to stardom. Alongside her is Velma Kelly, a vaudeville performer with her own murderous past and ambitions. As both women vie for the spotlight and the services of slick lawyer Billy Flynn, the lines between justice and showbiz blur into a glittering spectacle of manipulation, jazz and courtroom theatrics.

Set in New York City during the 1965 Northeast blackout, Fly By Night follows Harold, a lonely sandwich maker grieving the loss of his mother, and the two sisters he meets by chance: Daphne, a wide-eyed aspiring actress, and Miriam, a quiet dreamer with an uncanny sense of premonition. As their lives intersect, the show explores how fate, love and loss shape their destinies in surprising and interconnected ways. Structured like a memory — looping, layered and lyrical — the musical finds meaning in small moments and unexpected connections.

In early April, just weeks before opening night, a fire inside Players by the Sea’s Studio Theatre set off the sprinkler system. The flames were quickly put out — but not before smoke and water left the building in ruins. Rehearsals for Waitress had been underway for weeks. The set was built. The cast was ready. And then, everything stopped.

When a fire broke out at Players by the Sea’s building in April, it brought their spring season to a sudden standstill. Smoke and water damage left the building unusable, and with the set built and rehearsals well underway, the fate of their production of Waitress hung in the balance.

Acclaimed actor and director David Alford returns to the Jacksonville stage this summer to star in Lumen Repertory Theatre’s upcoming production of David Mamet’s American Buffalo. The gritty three-man drama opens June 13 in the intimate black-box setting of WJCT Studio B.

Jason Woods’ A Mad, Mad Wonderland! is a virtuosic, no-frills thrill ride: no set, no props, just Woods alone onstage with a whirlwind of characters he channels with uncanny precision and theatrical bravado.

MJ The Musical, the electrifying Broadway sensation, lands in Jacksonville with a show that not only pays homage to the King of Pop but also delivers a theatrical experience that is as grand as it is intimate. With its opening night at the Jacksonville Center for the Performing Arts, the production sets the stage ablaze with dazzling choreography, stunning visuals and a heartfelt tribute to Michael Jackson’s legacy.

Steel Magnolias at Orange Park Community Theatre invites audiences into the warm, familiar hum of a Southern beauty salon where hairspray is as essential as heart. Over the course of several years — and across changing seasons, hairstyles and life stages — six women gather to share gossip, swap advice and support one another through life’s joys and devastations. Set entirely in Truvy’s salon, the play chronicles the wit, warmth and resilience of its characters as they navigate friendship, family and loss.