In a not particularly surprising reveal, The Sarasota Ballet has announced it will begin its 20th season under Director Iain Webb with a six-day, seven-performance run at The Joyce Theater in New York City prior to opening its home season in Sarasota in late October.

The company will present a program honoring three of Britain’s most notable choreographers – Antony Tudor, Sir Peter Wright and Sir Frederick Ashton, whose work has become a mainstay of the ballet’s repertoire and reputation – from September 29 through October 4.

Webb had hinted at a return tour to The Joyce, where the company previously performed in 2016 and 2022, when he announced the upcoming season’s programming in April, saying it would kick off the year with a tour, but “I’m not allowed to tell you anything about it except that it’s in New York.”

The New York programs will open with Tudor’s one-act masterpiece, “Lilac Garden,” (“Jardin aux lilas”), which was first presented 90 years ago by Ballet Rambert at the Mercury Theater in London in 1936. The emotional tale of a young woman torn between the man she must marry and her lover, it is considered to be the first of the genre of psychological ballets.

As in its first appearance at the Joyce 10 years ago, The Sarasota Ballet will also perform a selection of Ashton divertissements – brief, self-contained dances – one of which will be the balcony scene from the choreographer’s seldom-seen version of “Romeo and Juliet.” The company performed the full length version of the ballet in 2025, five years after it was originally scheduled and was bumped by the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Other scheduled divertissements include Ashton’s Pas de Cinq from “Illuminations;” Pas de Trois from “Les Rendezous;” “Meditations from Thais;” and Friday’s Child from “Jazz Calendar.”

The Joyce programs will conclude with Wright’s “Summertide,” which the company has performed multiple times, most recently in May, as part of the last program of the 2025-2026 season. In three movements, to the music of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 2, the abstract ballet follows the course of a summer’s day from a brisk morning to an ethereal evening. Webb selected the piece to honor the birthday of the choreographer, who will turn 100 on November 25.

After the program on Wednesday, September 30, Webb will take part in a “Curtain Chat,” one of The Joyce’s post-performance discussions with artists that offer new perspectives on the programs. He will discuss the works and the choreographers, two of whom he worked with during his years performing with The Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet.

Tickets for the Joyce run, which range from $32 to $82, are available at shop.joyce.org. For more information and tickets for The Sarasota Ballet’s home season visit sarasotaballet.org.