The 2026-27 community theater season in Southwest Florida will stand out no matter how well audiences respond to the shows being presented. It will mark the debut of two new theater spaces.

The Sarasota Players, the area’s oldest performing arts organization, plans to open its new home at the Payne Park Auditorium in January with the musical “The Producers,” just a few weeks before Venice Theatre hopes to reopen its rebuilt Jervey Theatre with the musical “Kinky Boots” in February.

Thayer Greenberg, who took over as managing artistic director of the Sarasota Players in December, has announced plans for a seven-show mainstage season, along with another eight shows presented by its education wing, the Players Studio.

Renovation work on the auditorium is expected to begin later this summer and be done in time for a grand opening Jan. 7. Greenberg said she wanted to open with something big and theatrical.

“We thought, why not come in with a bang, come in with a really fun show that everyone was really excited about,” Greenberg said. “What a fun show, and Jill (Castle), our costume shop manager, is already planning out costumes. We’re just excited for it.”

“The Producers” won 12 Tony Awards in 2001, more than any other show in history. The Sarasota Players first produced the musical in 2011.

Greenberg said the renovation work needed to turn the existing auditorium into a theater with flexible seating, dressing rooms and expanded bathrooms, should be completed in time for the opening.

“We have plans for a simplified version of ‘The Producers’ to be done in our current space if that’s needed. Both theaters will be in the round, so the set we plan for one space could be built in the other,” she said. “But we don’t expect that to be a problem.”

Since 2020, the company has been operating in a converted Banana Republic clothing store at the Crossings at Siesta Key Shopping Center, with about 110 seats. The new theater will seat about 200 people, Greenberg said.

The Players, which will launch its 97th season in August, has been working toward a new home since it sold its longtime theater building on U.S. 41 in 2018 with initial plans to build a new complex in the Waterside community in Lakewood Ranch. That proposal was eventually abandoned, and the Players’ bid to lease the historic Sarasota Municipal Auditorium was rejected by the Sarasota City Commission.

The same commission rejected the theater company’s original proposal to lease Payne Park Auditorium because the plans called for building a 17,000-square-foot theater next to the auditorium. Commissioners and some neighbors objected to cutting into the footprint of the surrounding Payne Park. The commission eventually accepted a plan for to more simply renovate the existing building and turn it into a functioning theater space.

Greenberg, who had been running the Players Studio education program, is now also overseeing all of the theater’s programming, and the Studio shows will be sharing the mainstage space for most of the new season.

While the Players long ago divided its mainstage season between musicals and non-musicals, in more recent years, musicals have dominated. In the new season, in part to ease use of the space, there will be four non-musicals, two of which will be presented in the company’s black box space at its Studio building on Boulevard of the Arts.

“When we were planning the season, we talked about not producing for a little bit and focusing solely on the move,” she said. “But that didn’t sit well with everybody. We’re a theater and we want to produce, and we thought we could do a couple of plays in the black box.”

Those productions are Ren Pearson’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (Oct. 3-25) and Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” (Feb. 6-28). Pearson has created a series of staged radio plays of old gothic stories that have been presented in the loft space at Bookstore1Sarasota in the last few years.

“I know everyone loves a musical, but I think plays are just as important. When we get into the new space, my desire would be to do more plays. Our goal is to serve the community and not everybody does musicals,” Greenberg said.

In picking the shows for the mainstage season, Greenberg said she was going for “a little something for everyone, especially while we’re transitioning. So let’s choose some shows we like and that we can do. Even once we get into Payne Park, you can see the shift in shows. They are bigger and a little bit flashier.”

After “The Producers,” the theater will present a murder mystery comedy it can’t yet name (but its familiar characters include Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock and Professor Plum), and the 2018 musical “The Prom,” about a group of Broadway actors trying to save a small town high school prom after it is canceled because one of the students wants to bring her girlfriend.

The new season will open in August with “Bat Boy: The Musical,” a show that has not been seen in the area since a production by the Manatee Players in 2005. It will be followed by Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” 

For the Players Studio season, Greenberg said she tries to combine shows that the students like and want to do and “what shows are they going to learn from, allow them to step out of themselves, learn different types of music.”

High School students will be creating a production of “Urinetown” in the fall, and the comic adventure play “She Kills Monsters” in late winter. Mid-school students will get to work on “Between the Lines, Jr.,” based on a popular novel, and elementary school students will be featured in “Frozen Jr.” The company will take a production of “Godspell Jr.” to the Junior Theatre Festival in Georgia in January, and all age groups will be featured in “How to Train Your Dragon Jr.”

Next summer will bring a production of Stephen Schwartz’s “Children of Eden” and a summer camp production of “Beetlejuice Jr.”

The Players Studio is less than a decade old, but has been attracting a growing audience, especially since many of the shows have been presented in the company’s mainstage space.

Following is the schedule for the Sarasota Players 2026-27 season. For ticket and subscription information: theplayers.org; 941-365-2494

Mainstage season

“Bat Boy: The Musical,” Aug. 27-Sept. 6 (Crossings)

“As You Like It,” Sept. 17-Oct. 4 (Crossings)

“Dracula,” Oct. 3-25 (Players Studio)

“The Producers,” Jan. 7-24 (Payne Park)

“The Importance of Being Earnest,” Feb. 6-28 (Players Studio)

Murder Mystery to be announced, April 14-May 2 (Payne Park)

“The Prom,” August 25-Sept. 5 (Payne Park)

Players Studio

“Urinetown,” Oct. 29-Nov. 8 (High School)

“Between the Lines Jr.” Dec. 3-6 (Middle School)

“Godspell Jr.” Jan. 15-17 (Junior Theatre Festival, Georgia)

“Frozen Jr.” Jan.21-24 (Elementary)

“She Kills Monsters,” March 4-14 (High School)

“How To Train Your Dragon Jr.,” May 13-16 (Generations, all school ages)

“Beetlejuice Jr.” July 9-11, 2027 (Summer Camp)

“Children of Eden,” July 22-Aug. 1, 2027 (Studio Summer Experience)

“Bad Auditions, By Bad Actors,” Dates TBA (Home School Play)