Welcome to Naples’ Premier Musical Theatre
Mark Danni, founding artistic director of TheatreZone, Naples’ premier professional theatre, announced its 2024-2025 musical productions. The theatre company will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2025 with a year-long observation of its milestones.
The 2024-2025 season begins with the traditional opener in Dec. 2024, Home for the Holidays, and continues with the Tony Award winning best musical Once; Jersey Boys; the Kander and Ebb treasure The Rink, and the musical version of the hit film Ghost.
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
December 20-22, 2024
TheatreZone’s original musical extravaganza, Home for the Holidays, is a Southwest Florida tradition celebrating its eighth annual production. The show delights audiences with beloved traditional and popular Christmas songs, sparkling and elaborate costumes, and Christmas-themed scenery. The cast combines professional Equity performers and a few young stars of the future, adding charm and fun to the performances.
Home for the Holidays creator Mark Danni, TheatreZone’s founding artistic director, reimagines the show every year to enchant audiences with new music and glittering costumes and scenery. Home for the Holidays’ cast members perform energetic dance routines, choreographed by Associate Artistic Director Karen Danni, accompanied by a live orchestra leaving the audiences filled with joy after every performance.
7:30 p.m. December 20 and 21
2 p.m. December 21 and 22
ONCE
January 9-19, 2025
Once, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2012, tells a story of passion for music, heartbreak, intimacies, and wonder about the future. The musical, based on the 2007 film of the same name by John Carney, won eight Tony Awards. The Broadway cast album won a Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album.
Once, set in Ireland, features a cast who are also the show’s musicians and speak with Irish and Czech accents. The plot follows the relationship between Guy, a street performer who is a songwriting guitar player, and Girl, whose encouragement and appreciation of Guy’s music lifts his spirits when he wants to quit music. As the friends develop feelings for one another, they make decisions of the heart that will keep the audience guessing about happy endings.
Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, “The songs … soar with rough-edged, sweet-and-sad ambivalence that is seldom visited in contemporary American musicals.” In his London Theatre Guide review of the West End production, Peter Brown wrote, “Almost from the first note, you realize you are listening to music that is extraordinarily distinctive, powerfully emotional, and hugely affecting – in a word … stunning.”
7:30 p.m. January 9-12 and 16-19
2 p.m. January 11-12 and 18-19
Talkback: January 16, 2025
THE RINK
February 6-16, 2025
Kander & Ebb’s The Rink made its Broadway debut in 1984 and was nominated for five Tony Awards. It starred Liza Minnelli, Jason Alexander and Chita Rivera, who won the Tony Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. The Rink is one of ten Kander & Ebb collaborations, whose credits include Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and many more.
The heart of the plot is the relationship between a mother, Anna, and her estranged daughter, Angel. Anna decides to sell her dilapidated roller-skating rink on a decaying boardwalk to developers.
Angel returns to town seeking to reconnect with the people and places she long ago left behind, complicating Anna’s plans. The mother and daughter argue, and flashback scenes reveal ancient resentments. The cast also includes six male actors who tap dance and also play women’s roles.
Composer John Kander commented that The Rink “was the most complete realization” of his intentions of any production he had done. Lyricist Fred Ebb agreed, asserting that, “Every single element of it was exactly as we imagined.”
The Rink will be presented with the help and blessing of John Kander, who helped grant the exclusive rights for this TheatreZone production.
7:30 p.m. February 6-8 and 13-16
2 p.m. February 8-9 and 15-16
Talkback: February 13, 2025
Sponsored by: Stock Development
JERSEY BOYS
March 6-16, 2025
Jersey Boys, the 2006 Tony Award-winning Best Musical, was a blow-out Broadway success dramatizing the formation, success, and breakup of the 1960s group, The Four Seasons.
Jersey Boys was one of Broadway’s longest-running shows in history. The musical is structured in four seasons, each narrated by a different member of the group who gives his own perspective on the history and music of The Four Seasons.
The group was formed in the early 1950s by Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Nick DeVito, and Bob Gaudio, who was introduced to the group by Joe Pesci. Severe financial difficulties, jail sentences, deceptions, double-crossing, and mob connections added stress to the partnership, even as they created such hit songs as “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Sherry,” “My Eyes Adored You,” “Walk Like a Man,” and “Working My Way Back to You.”
Jersey Boys is a high-energy, innovative musical that takes audiences behind the scenes of the group and its music in a classic rags-to-riches — and back to rags — story.
7:30 p.m. March 6-9 and 13-16
2 p.m. March 8-9 and 15-16
Talkback: March 13, 2025
Sponsored by: Charity Randall Foundation
GHOST
June 5-15, 2025
TheatreZone presents a rare early summer treat with Ghost: The Musical, an adaptation of the 1990 Academy Award-winning hit film. Sam and Molly are deeply in love. Their connection takes a shocking turn when Sam is killed in a mugging that turns out to be a planned murder by a close associate of the couple. Unwilling and unable to leave Molly, Sam hovers between two worlds and learns the truth of his murder.
To communicate with Molly, he turns to a storefront psychic, Oda Mae Brown, a character with a rap sheet for conning money out of vulnerable widows. Oda turns out to be the real deal, and she works with Sam as a medium who can communicate to Molly. Sam and Oda Mae concoct a scheme to expose the murderer, exact revenge, and ensure Molly’s safety. Ghost: The Musical is a touching love story about a connection that even death cannot sever.
7:30 p.m. June 5-8 and 12-15
2 p.m. June 7-8 and 15
Talkback: June 12, 2025