RIDE THE CYCLONE, THE 39 STEPS & More Set for NextStop Theatre Company 2023/2024 Season

NextStop Theatre Company has announced its 2023-2024 season of professional theater in and for Northern Virginia. From Broadway classics to cutting-edge contemporary works, the upcoming season promises an incredible array of shows that will ignite your imagination and touch your heart. 

“Get ready for some fun, new, and inventive theater, like you have never seen at NextStop before,” says Hoffmann. “We have put together the most wild, wacky, and perhaps even weird collection of shows in our more than ten year history! The past few years have taught us that our audiences truly and desperately want to be challenged, they want to experiment, and above all they want to be entertained! We can’t wait to get started.”

To kick off the season is Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of NextStop as a professional theater, the company will remount their very first production. The 39 Steps is an hysterical comedy based on Alfred Hitchcock’s first hit film, adapted by Patrick Barlow, about a handsome yet unassuming gentleman who gets swept up in the high stakes world of international espionage. Four actors play dozens of characters, in a story featuring daring escapes, speeding trains, plane crashes, and plenty of mistaken identities!

In the fall comes the cult musical phenomenon Ride The Cyclone from Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell. In this hilarious and outlandish story, the lives of six teenagers from a Canadian chamber choir are cut short in a freak accident aboard a roller coaster. When they awake in limbo, a mechanical fortune teller invites each to tell a story to win a prize like no other– the chance to return to life. This outrageous musical is quickly becoming a cult-classic for the social media generation, featuring a funny and surprisingly moving examination at what makes a life well-lived!

The New Year will bring the lovingly irreverent musical comedy Nunsense A-Men! by Dan Goggin. Five misfit nuns from the Little Sisters of Hoboken convent are trying to put on a variety show to raise money to bury sisters accidentally poisoned by the convent cook. Filled with zany characters, outrageous costumes, and plenty of laughs, Nunsense is a heavenly musical full of devilish comedy! To make things even more “divine”,  all five nuns are portrayed by drag performers! Because sometimes we need to be reminded that gender is a construct and drag is an art form!

Attention all Regina George lovers! In Spring 2024, NextStop will present School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh, a buoyant, biting, and meaningful comedy about the twists and turns of high school drama. Paulina, the reigning queen bee at one of Ghana’s most exclusive boarding schools, has her sights set on the Miss Global Universe pageant. But the arrival of Ericka, a new student with undeniable talent and beauty, captures the attention of the pageant recruiter– and Paulina’s hive-minded friends. This show explores the universal similarities (and glaring differences) facing teenage girls across the globe. 

Closing the season with a bang is Reefer Madness by Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney, an outrageously campy musical comedy! A tongue-in-cheek, musical comedy satire, based on the 1936 film of the same name. Reefer Madness tells the cautionary tale of Jimmy Harper and Mary Lane, a wholesome pair of all-American teenage sweethearts, who fall victim to the dangers of the drug menace…MARIJUANA!!! The musical chronicles their downward spiral, filled with evil jazz music, sex, and violence!

NextStop offers flexible subscription options for the 2023-2024 season. Season packages are on sale now, with pricing beginning at $175 for all five mainstage productions. Benefits of subscribing include first choice of performances, savings over individual ticket prices, and fee-waived ticket exchanges. Season subscriptions are available at  www.nextstoptheatre.org or by calling the NextStop Theatre Box Office at (703)481-5930.

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