Eight shows in three different venues will make up Youngstown Playhouse’s 2026-27 season, and a Broadway veteran will choreograph the season-opening show.

Playhouse Managing Director Tyler Stouffer said two musicals are planned on the main stage at the Playhouse’s home off Glenwood Avenue — Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights, opening Aug. 28, and the stage version of the 1939 beloved film “The Wizard of Oz,” opening May 21, 2027.

“We have been waiting for the right team to come together and waiting for the right moment to do this show, and I am just wildly thrilled that we were able to put it on this season,” Playhouse Managing Director Tyler Stouffer said about “In the Heights.”

Caitlyn N. Santiago will direct the musical, which won four Tony Awards, including best musical in 2008, and the choreographer will be Amber Ardolino, a Pittsburgh native whose Broadway credits as a performer include “Hamilton,” “Moulin Rouge!,” “A Beautiful Noise, the Neil Diamond Musical” and the original cast of “Back to the Future: The Musical.”

“I actually got to work with Amber when we were in high school,” Stouffer said. “We did a production of ‘Annie’ together, and when Caitlyn said she was looking for a choreographer, I said, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna take a shot in the dark and shoot her a text and see if she’s interested.’ And lo and behold, she is. She’s going to be fresh off doing the ‘Beautiful Noise’ national tour and then come to Youngstown to choreograph.”

Stouffer will be the director for “The Wizard of Oz,” which was staged as a youth theatre show in the early ’90s but has never had a full-scale production at the Playhouse.

“It’s going to be a humongous spectacle — a huge cast, and we are bringing back another ‘Oklahoma’-sized orchestra for ‘Wizard of Oz,'” he said. “That beautiful score is going to be really authentically presented.”

Playhouse Youth Theatre has two Main Stage offerings — the comedy “The Brother’s Grimm Spectaculathon” in November, directed by Shiloh Hart, and the musical “Disney’s The Lion King Jr.” in February 2027, directed by Sindy Hanna.

The Playhouse also announced a new youth theater group called YP Teens, which will make its debut with “She Kills Monsters: Young Adventurers Edition” in June 2027 at The Playhouse Downtown at 220 Boardman St., which opened earlier this year.

“It was founded out of feedback we received from the teens in our youth program,” Stouffer said. “We found that they were really hungry for more mature and sophisticated material, instead of just doing those youth shows that are mostly for younger kids. We’re working with Isa Foltz (who will direct ‘Monsters’) and Caitlyn Santiago. They’re the leaders of the youth program …We’re hoping to build it to something really great.”

The community theater will do its first musical at The Playhouse Downtown with “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” in January 2027, directed by Connor Bezeredi. And Lundeana Thomas will direct the comedy “Chicken & Biscuits” there in November.

The lone show scheduled for the Moyer Room performance space at the Playhouse will be in April 2027 with “The Father: A Tragic Farce,” written by French author Florian Zeller and translated by Christopher Hampton. They won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for the film version in 2020, and Anthony Hopkins won best actor. It will be directed by Frank Martin.

“The Moyer Room is starting to become almost like an incubator for cool, innovative work,” Stouffer said. “We’re really going to start working with new playwrights and new directors who want to do innovative work and let that Moyer Room space be a really cool sandbox for that kind of art to happen.”

With three stages available between the two locations, the Playhouse will continue to be a home for other area theater companies as well.

Rust Belt Theater Company will do three shows in the Moyer Room — “Forbidden Youngstown!,” “How the Drag Queen Stole Christmas” and “Dating Sucks! The Musical” — and it will bring back “Godiva: a Burlesque Musical” for a run at The Playhouse Downtown.

Millennial Theatre Company will stage the musicals “Dear Evan Hanson” in July and “Come from Away” in November, both on the Main Stage.

While the season was announced Friday, details on ticketing are coming later this month. Single tickets for each show will go on sale six weeks before opening night, but Playhouse is eliminating its flex passes, which it sold instead of season tickets.

“We are moving to a new membership-based program,” Stouffer said. “It’s going to be called the Spotlight Membership Program, and we are planning to announce that in the next couple of weeks, so we can show all the details and get people excited about it, and then those will go on sale on opening night of ‘Urinetown,’ which is Friday, May 29.”

Youngstown Playhouse 2026-27 Season

Aug. 28 to Sept. 6 — The musical “In the Heights” (Main Stage)

Oct. 2 to 4 — Playhouse Youth Theatre production of the comedy “The Brother’s Grimm Spectaculathon” (Main Stage)

Nov. 20 to 29 — The comedy “Chicken & Biscuits” (The Playhouse Downtown)

Jan. 22 to 31, 2027 — The musical comedy “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” (The Playhouse Downtown)

Feb. 19 to 21, 2027 — Playhouse Youth Theatre production of the musical “The Lion King Jr.” (Main Stage)

April 16 to 25, 2027 — “The Father: A Tragic Farce” (Moyer Room)

May 21 to 30, 2027 — The musical “The Wizard of Oz” (Main Stage)

June 18 to 20, 2027 — YP Teens production of “She Kills Monsters: Young Adventurers Edition (The Playhouse Downtown)

Single tickets for each production will go on sale six weeks in advance of opening night. The Playhouse is replacing its current flex pass ticket plan with a Spotlight Membership Program, which will go on sale May 29. For more information, go to youngstownplayhouse.org.