Asolo Rep to premiere a circus musical in its 2026-27 season

Next season, Asolo Repertory Theatre plans to party like it's 1927 in what it's calling "The Greatest Season on Earth." 

At a presentation in the Mertz Theatre at Sarasota's FSU Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, Asolo Rep unveiled its lineup for the 2026-27 season, whose title is a nod to "The Greatest Show on Earth," the tagline for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Among the five mainstage productions will be a world premiere that celebrates the centennial of John Ringling's decision to make Sarasota the winter home of his circus in 1927. That move buoyed a town reeling from the hurricane-related collapse of the Florida land boom in 1926. 

Together with Carla Noack and David Darrow, Asolo Rep Producing Artist Director Peter Rothstein has created a "docu-musical" called "The Day the Circus Came to Town." Darrow composed the music and wrote the lyrics for the circus show, which will debut in Sarasota on March 21, 2027. Rothstein will direct. 

Ringling's circus set the stage for Sarasota to become the "cultural mecca" of Florida that it is today, Rothstein said. "A century later, the seeds of wonder John and Mable Ringling planted here continue to grow," he told the audience.

Rothstein developed "The Day the Circus Came to Town" in collaboration with the Ringling Museum and the Circus Arts Conservatory. Winner of the 2026 Richard and Ellen Sandor Workshop Award, the production was created based on dozens of interviews with legendary performers in Sarasota's circus community.

It will feature a cast of actors, acrobats, aerialists and a singing ringmaster accompanied by a circus band. 

Given Rothstein's track record with "All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914," his circus production seems destined to be more than a hometown jamboree. 

Based on the true story of soldiers who briefly put down their arms during World War I, "All Is Calm" was first produced by Theater Latté Da, the theater Rothstein founded in Minneapolis, and premiered on Minnesota Public Radio in 2007.

In 2018 Laura Little produced "All is Calm" Off Broadway, where it won a Drama Desk Award. After Rothstein was hired by Asolo Rep in 2023, the a capella production made its Sarasota premiere in 2024 in The Ringling's Historic Asolo Theater. It had an encore run in 2025.

A centennial thread runs through the season

The 1927 tribute continues with the other four tentpoles of Asolo Rep's 2026-27 season. They are:

• "Singing in the Rain," based on the classic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film about the tectonic shift in Hollywood when talkies were introduced in 1927. Josh Rhodes ("Jesus Christ Superstar," "Spamalot") will direct and choreograph.
• August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," which takes place in Chicago in 1927 as a group of musicians try to cut a record with Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues. Chuck Smith will direct the play, a collaboration with Chicago's Goodman Theatre, which has produced all 10 plays in Wilson's American Century Cycle.
• "The Royal Family," Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman's sardonic play about a theater family that first premiered on Broadway in 1927. It will be directed by Peter Amster ("Good Night, Oscar," "Murder on the Orient Express").
• "Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery," whose Victorian-era  protagonist strays slightly from the Jazz Age celebration of "The Greatest Season on Earth." The play makes the cut, Rothstein says, because Arthur Conan Doyle published his last Holmes detective story in 1927.

For the first time ever in its 2026-27 season, Asolo Rep will sell a subscription to three productions in the Jane B. Cook Theatre. Also located in FSU Center for the Performing Arts at 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, it seats 161 patrons, less than the Mertz, which accommodates more than 500 theatergoers.

The three shows scheduled for the Cook are:

• Joe Landry's radio-inspired production of the holiday classic "It's A Wonderful Life," which will be directed by Scott Keys, 
• The world premiere of Jennifer Maisel's "Provenance," winner of the 2025 Jewish Plays Project, to be directed by Casey Stangl, and 
•  "Bootleg: America Sings 1927,"  a Jazz Age cabaret that Rothstein will direct.  Rothstein and Asolo Rep creative team members Cat Brindisi, Terrance Jackson and James Monaghan curated the show.

For more information about dates and ticket prices and to purchase season subscriptions, visit AsoloRep.org.