Alhambra Theatre & Dining’s 1776 is a slow burner that asks you to settle in, lean forward and listen. Under Tod Booth’s patient direction, the production resists every modern temptation to juice the pacing or punch up the politics. Instead, it trusts Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone’s talky, argumentative musical to do what it does best: turn a sweltering Philadelphia room full of stubborn men into a piece of theatre that earns every degree of its eventual catharsis.

The first thing to know about Beetlejuice: The Musical. The Musical. The Musical. (yes, that’s is the actual subtitle) is that it knows exactly what it is. The second thing to know is that it has no interest in being a karaoke version of the 1988 Tim Burton film. The touring engagement presented by FSCJ Artist Series’ at the Moran Theater threads that needle with confidence: tons of fun, with moments of real emotion that catch you sideways when you are least prepared for them.

Lumen Repertory Theatre’s The Pillowman is a gripping, gorgeously executed production elevated by mesmerizing performances, stunning technical design and confident direction that navigates the play’s tonal minefields with precision. Martin McDonagh’s dark psychological thriller asks important questions about storytelling, cruelty, state power and the moral responsibility of art, and Lumen Rep meets those questions with seriousness, precision and theatrical force. Those questions matter. They deserve to be asked. Unfortunately though, important stories are not always the same thing as entertaining theater. Where the evening falters, it’s not from a lack of craft in the production, but from a script that too often mistakes endurance for profundity.

Alhambra Theatre & Dining’s Morning After Grace is the kind of play that sneaks up on you. It opens with the recognizable mechanics of sitcom comedy — a disoriented morning after, mistaken assumptions and mounting embarrassment — but before long it reveals itself to be something richer, sadder and far more profound. Written by Carey Crim and directed by Tod Booth, this three-character dramedy finds humor in indignity, heartbreak in loneliness and, ultimately, grace in the stubborn human need to connect.

Alhambra Theatre & Dining’s Damn Yankees is pure old-school musical-comedy fun — nostalgic, high-energy and packed with standout performances that know exactly what show they’re in. Under Tod Booth’s direction, this revival leans into its midcentury charm without feeling dusty, delivering a production that is both lovingly retro and sharply alive in the moment.

Players by the Sea’s production of Rent arrives with the pulse and grit that changed the trajectory of musical theater in 1996. Jonathan Larson’s story of struggling artists in New York’s East Village gave Broadway a jolt of raw sound and real life, pairing rock music with a candid look at poverty, queer identity, addiction, illness and chosen family. It helped pull musical theater into the modern era and gave a generation of performers and audiences a voice they recognized. This production honors that legacy while delivering a fresh reading shaped by a cast that understands the material and a director who refuses to let the show sit in nostalgia.

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.

The Alhambra Theatre & Dining’s production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood begins not with a curtain rise but with a delightful invasion of the audience’s reality. Performers spill into the aisles, chatting, jesting and instructing patrons on how the evening’s intrigue will unfold. It’s instantly clear that this isn’t a typical musical but a metatheatrical romp that knows it’s a show within a show. The conceit is that we’re watching a Victorian music hall troupe perform the unfinished Dickens tale, and the fourth wall is more suggestion than structure.

In its dazzling world premiere at Lumen Repertory Theatre, Harlan and Bronna Jump Out the Window proves itself to be a wildly funny, thought-provoking and utterly original theatrical experience. Written and directed by Michael Jacobs, the play takes the familiar story of the wealthy elite brought low by their own excess and reinvents it as a fast-moving, absurdist romp layered with bite and brilliance.

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.