Previews: 2024-2025 Season of Adventurous Musical Theatre at Theater Latte Da

Theater Latté Da has announced their highly anticipated productions, creative teams, and key casting for their 2024-2025 season. In the first season programmed by Artistic Director Justin Lucero, who joined the award-winning organization in March 2023, Latté Da will launch a slate of productions reflecting the organization’s commitment to producing new and boldly re-imagined musical theater and creating exceptional arts experiences for Minnesota audiences.  

Theater Latté Da opens the season with the Regional Premiere of SCOTLAND, PA:

 Stifled by the limitations of their lives in ’70s small-town Pennsylvania, Mac and Pat are burger joint employees with ambition. As their hunger for power grows–and the body count rises–the couple cooks up a plan to supersize their serving of the American Dream. Under the direction of Broadway legend Lonny Price, Gwon’s tasty rock score and Mitnick’s sizzling script are the perfect recipe for a bloody good time.

With music and lyrics by Adam Gwon, book by Michael Mitnick, based on the cult film by Billy Morrissette and Shakespeare’s Macbeth. First seen by Twin Cities audiences as part of the 2022 NEXT Festival of New Musicals, the production will be directed by esteemed Broadway director Lonny Price (Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill; Tony Nominee, A Class Act) and Matt Cowart (Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill and Sunset Boulevard on Broadway), with choreography by Lorin Latarro (Waitress and The Who’s Tommy on Broadway) and Travis Waldschmidt (Matilda The Musicaland Hello, Dolly! on Broadway), and music direction by Joshua Zecher-Ross (Be More Chill on Broadway). 

The cast of SCOTLAND, PA features Will Dusek (TLD debut), Katherine Fried (TLD debut), Emily Gunyou-Halaas (Passage of Dreams, NEXT Festival), andMatthew Riehle (Next to Normal, Twelve Angry Men). 

(September 18 - October 20, 2024)

During the holiday season, Theater Latté Da will delight audience members of all ages with RODGERS + HAMMERSTEIN’S CINDERELLA:

Spirited, savvy Ella defies her stepmother’s wishes and captures the heart of a charming prince on her quest to transform her life… and the world. Empowered by kindness and a fairy godmother, she both sparkles and sparks change in this beloved classic with some surprise twists! A cherished score, a fresh, modern script, and inventive staging magically combine in Artistic Director Justin Lucero’s Latté Da debut, reminding us that goodness and courage can lead to happily ever after.

The first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical to be presented in the company’s 26-year history. Artistic Director Justin Lucero makes his Twin Cities and Theater Latté Da directing debut with a new take on the classic work, with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, a new book by Douglas Carter Beane, and original book by Oscar Hammerstein II. Kyle Weiler (Next to Normal) will choreograph the production, with music direction by Wesley Frye. 

The cast of CINDERELLA features Theo Janke-Furman (TLD debut), Nambi Mwassa (The Color Purple), Hope Nordquist (TLD debut), and Sally Wingert (A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd). 

  (November 20, 2024 - January 5, 2025)

The new year will bring Milo Cramer’s (they/them) solo show SCHOOL PICTURES, to Twin Cities audiences following a critically acclaimed run Off-Broadway, for which their “completely wonderful” musical portrait of modern school life was chosen by New York Magazine’s Vulture as the Best Play of 2023. Called “as riveting as it [is] sweetly funny,” the production will be led by its original director Morgan Green.

 This “extraordinary meditation on teaching and learning” is told in musical snapshots of individual teenagers. Solo writer-performer Milo Cramer, a former tutor, offers charming and keen observations of ten NYC students fighting to get into competitive schools. At its heart are questions about what’s really worth knowing and worth sacrificing in a system in which success seems so arbitrarily distributed.

 (February 5 - March 2, 2025)

In the spring, Addie Gorlin-Han (Guthrie’s A Christmas Carol) directs the first local production of FUN HOME, the Tony Award-winning musical with book by Lisa Kron and music and lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, based on the best-selling graphic memoir byAlison Bechdel. Jason Hansen will serve as music director. 

Introspective and refreshingly honest, this hit musical is hailed as one of Broadway’s most original. Through the lens of three pivotal stages in Alison’s life, Bechdel’s witty and wistful illustrated autobiography comes to life in this moving journey to acceptance, directed by Addie Gorlin-Han. Looking back on her 1970s childhood in the family-owned funeral home and her complex relationship with her father, Alison discovers they had more in common than she ever knew.

The cast of FUN HOME features Shad Hanley (TLD debut), Monty Hays (TLD debut), Sara Masterson (Falsettos), and Essence Renae (TLD debut). 

(April 2 - May 4,2025)

A return to Latté Da’s signature staging of Sondheim’s masterworks concludes the season with the stunning and rarely produced PASSION, with book by James Lapine, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Justin Lucero will direct the production, with musical direction by Jason Hansen. 

Set in 1860s Italy, a gripping, fiery love triangle ignites when a dashing army captain is transferred to a remote military outpost. Giorgio, already in a passionate, clandestine affair with Clara back home, enters the sights and heart of Fosca, a fragile woman who turns out to be capable of adoration and desire unlike anything he has ever known. This Best Musical Tony winner, one of Sondheim’s most unforgettable, is an exultantly dramatic journey of love, desire, and obsession.

The cast of PASSION features Sasha Andreev (Falsettos, Twelve Angry Men), Katherine Fried, Bradley Greenwald (Johnny Skeeky, Christmas at the Local, C.), and Isa Condo-Olvera (TLD debut). 

(June 4 - July 13, 2025

Theater Latté Da continues its robust commitment to new work with its NEXT Festival in Summer 2025. The festival showcases three new works that stretch the boundaries of musical storytelling, where audience members are invited into the ground floor of the creative process. In addition to its public offerings, the development of new musical theater through commissions, workshops and residencies will continue throughout the year as part of NEXT 25x25, Theater Latté Da’s ambitious initiative to support the creation of 25 new musicals over a five year period between 2021 and 2025. Many works first seen in past NEXT Festivals have gone on to become some of the company’s most acclaimed productions,  among them Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical, Christmas at the Local, Five Points, Underneath the Lintel, the upcoming Johnny Skeeky; or, The Remedy for Everything, and next season’s Scotland, PA. 

Additional Info:

Following an early release to renewing subscribers on Tuesday, May 21, subscription purchases broke all prior company records for first-day sales. Subscriptions open to the general public at 12:00 PM on Thursday, May 23. 5-show subscription packages start at $159.50. New 3-show packages featuring a curated selection of productions start at $97.50. A new Ritz Club subscription for patrons aged 39 and under offers the opportunity to see all five titles at a special price, plus special gatherings for young professionals for every production. FLEXPacks of 5 tickets for $335 are also new for 2024-25 and may be used in any combination to see shows throughout the season. Subscriptions may be purchased online at www.latteda.org, by calling the box office at 612-339-3003, or in person at the Ritz Theater, 345 13th Ave NE, Minneapolis. Box office hours are from 12 - 5 PM Tuesday to Friday, and from 12 - 5 PM on Saturdays during performance runs only. 

Theater Latté Da will continue popular new offerings launched in the 2023-24 season, including weekday matinees during each run, and the Row A for All initiative, which offers pay-what-you-can pricing as low as $5 for first-row tickets at select performances. A range of discounted attendance  opportunities and physical access initiatives are offered for every production to ensure a welcoming experience for patrons of all backgrounds. Access offerings include ASL interpretation, open captioning, and audio description at select performances, and services including Braille and large-print programs, assistive listening devices, multiple accessible seating choices, wheelchair companion seating, bariatric chairs, and physically accessible all-gender restrooms are available for every mainstage performance. 

Theater Latté Da’s 2024-25 season is made possible in part by Ameriprise Financial, Elizabeth C. Quinlan Foundation, McKnight Foundation, The Nara Fund, The National Alliance for Musical Theatre, National Endowment for the Arts, RBC, Prospect Creek Foundation, The Ruth Easton Fund of the Edelstein Family Foundation, The Scrooby Foundation, The Shubert Foundation; the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grants, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund; and numerous generous individual contributors.

To post a comment, you must register and login.