The Citadel announces a new 10-show season: the 2026-2027 lineup

At the centre of the upcoming 10-show 2026-2027 season at the Citadel, announced Monday night by artistic director Daryl Cloran, are two world premiere stage adaptations by notable Canadian playwrights, and an original production of a Canadian hit musical.

The Citadel turns 61 with a $13 million lineup that includes a new stage version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby, by Canadian playwriting star Erin Shields. And Cloran is collaborating with actor/playwright Jessica B. Hill on a new stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Both productions, directed by Cloran, involve partnerships with theatre companies across the country — in the case of the former with two others, not yet announced, the latter with Theatre Calgary.

To help support .ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

“One of the most prolific and exciting playwrights in the country,” as Cloran describes, Shields has made something of a specialty of re-imagining classics for contemporary audiences, through a feminist lens. “It’s one of her super-powers,” says Cloran. And Shields has the archive to prove it: it includes 2022 Citadel premiere of her version of Jane Eyre, and more recently such theatrical challenges as The Iliad and The Odyssey (Ransacking Troy), Shakespeare’s King Lear (Queen Lear), and, perhaps most amazingly, Milton’s Paradise Lost.

“She’s done a beautiful job of it,” says Cloran of the new Shields adaptation of The Great Gatsby (Oct. 31 to Nov. 22). “It leans theatrically into the opulence of the Jazz Age, a live jazz band onstage (at Gatsby’s splashy party).… And at its heart it’s such a great story.”

Cloran says the inspiration for a new version of Sense and Sensibility (Feb. 20 to March 14, 2027) happened at the Stratford Festival last summer, directing an adaptation of Jane Austen’s first novel by the American writer Kate Hamill. In Cloran’s cast as Elinor, the “sensible” one of the Dashwood sisters, was Hill, a notable playwright in her own right (The Dark Lady). And in the course of working on it, “Jessica and I imagined how we would tell it if we had a chance to do it differently….” The result, he says of the new six-actor adaptation, is “an Austen story everyone knows and loves told in a fun, theatrical way…. And it has such a beautiful heart, both the romance of it and the story of the two sisters finding their own autonomy and agency in an age of gossip and society rules.”

Of the three Broadway musicals in the Citadel mainstage season, one is Canadian and tells a real-life Canadian story. Come From Away, by the Toronto husband-and-wife team of Irene Sankoff and David Hein, started small, as a Sheridan College student workshop and has gone on to major Broadway and West End successes and beyond. It’s based on the real-life events of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on New York, when 38 flights were diverted to Gander Newfoundland, and a little town of 9,000 found a way to shelter and feed 7,000 stranded passengers.

Come From Away has come from away to Edmonton before now, in American touring productions. The rights were opened up just this season for regional theatres, as Cloran explains. And the Citadel and the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver are collaborating on their own production (May 9 to June 6, 2027), directed by the latter’s artistic director Ashlie Corcoran. “Such a great musical,” says Cloran. “And in a time when there are lots of questions about what it means to be Canadian, and standing up (for that), this is 90 minutes of Canadians being … good people.”

The Citadel’s “big family-focused musical” of the season Annie (Jan. 30 to March 7, 2027), the evergreen ‘70s Thomas Meehan/ Charles Strouse musical, is directed and choreographed by Julie Tomaino (Jersey Boys). Cloran points out Edmonton’s unusual wealth of young actors,; stage opportunities at the Citadel have played their part. “You don’t want to program Annie unless you have lots of super-strong young talent!,” Cloran laughs. “Right now because of shows like Frozen and A Christmas Carol, we have a great number of talented young performers. I’m so blown away by what kids are capable of….”

This summer, expect to see a musical that spells c-h-a-r-m (not to mention e-u-d-a-e-m-o-n-i-c), a vindication of nerds and outliers, all motivated differently. That would be The 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee (“so funny, so charming, with light, kind audience interaction” as Cloran describes). The Citadel’s associate artistic director Mieko Ouchi (whose own play Burning Mom starts previews soon) directs an “all-local team” in the 2005 Tony-winning William Finn/ Rachel Sheinkin musical comedy (July 4 to Aug. 2).

The season opens (Sept. 19 to Oct. 11) with a stage adaptation of the deluxe 1934 Agatha Christie whodunnit Murder on the Orient Express, by the dexterous American playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me A Tenor). Set on the luxury train of the title it comes with all the trimmings — lavish period costumes and, yes, the train (designed by Brian Perchaluk) onstage. Ah, and, of course, the fastidious Belgian detective with the waxed moustache and the little grey cells. Cloran compares its mystery/comedy mix to such popular screen offerings as Glass Onion. The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre/ Citadel co-production, currently running in Winnipeg and starring Alex Poch-Goldin as Hercule Poirot, is directed by RMTC artistic director Kelly Thornton.

The season lineup includes the 2024 Indigenous comedy The Comeback by the Winnipeg-based couple Trish Cooper and Sam Vint and inspired loosely by their own experience — he’s Métis, she’s settler — finds its heart and its laughter at the intersection of two families, and the family chaos triggered by an unexpected pregnancy.

“Every season since I’ve been here, we’ve produced or presented Indigenous work,” says Cloran of the Citadel commitment to “shining a light” on Indigenous creation. The Comeback (March 27 to April 18, 2027), which premiered at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in 2024, is the Citadel’s first co-production with the National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre. It’s directed by Eric Coates.

The Highwire Series, alternative shows by indie artists and companies presented at the Citadel, returns with Our Little Secret: A True, New Musical (Oct. 15 to 25 ). A hit at the Toronto Fringe, then in Edinburgh, and most recently at the Segal Centre in Montreal, the solo musical by and starring Noam Tomaschoff is, as Cloran describes, “the playwright’s true story.” The catalyst is his impulse, age 31, to order up a 23&Me DNA ancestry kit — and his discovery that his father isn’t his biological father and that he has 35 siblings around the world. “Funny, charming, and well-written,” says Cloran of the contemporary pop musical (music by Ryan Peters). Building from its Fringe origins (à la Drowsy Chaperone), the production is directed by Adam Pascal, from the original cast of Rent. Safe to say it has upward-and-onward cross-border aspirations.

Mrs. Krishnan’s Party arrives on tour (Jan. 15 to Feb 6, 2027) in the Citadel’s most intimate house, the Rice, from across the world. The show, by the New Zealand company Indian Ink, “lives in the same world as Big Stuff,” says Cloran. “It’s a lovely and heartfelt story about a mother and son. And it encourage the audience to be part of it, but in such a gentle, kind way.”

The Rice, he says, “will feel like the backroom of Mrs. Krishnan’s corner store. And she has members of the audience help her out with the cooking as she sets up her party…. I saw a video of it, and was crying all through it. So joyous and lovely.”     

“In the last couple of seasons we’ve hit our stride with the Highwire Series,” says Cloran of the shows by smaller and indie companies presented at the Citadel. He points to the success of Goblin:Macbeth and Big Stuff, indie alternative shows presented by the Citadel, “shows with a slightly immersive, unique feel to them.”

The season includes the eighth annual return of David van Belle’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol (Nov. 22 to Dec. 24), directed by Lianna Makuch. This past year was our highest sales we’ve ever had,” Cloran reports, even with Vinyl Cafe the Musical and the Bear Grease holiday special running at that time, too ( “we were quite the holiday destination”). “It’s so much part of people’s holiday traditions….”

Cloran’s announcement of the upcoming season, at the 60th anniversary bash Monday night, comes midway through a season in which Vinyl Cafe The Musical, its biggest success at the box office so far, was held over before it even opened. “It more than doubled our projections,” and has dates across Canada at other theatres, yet to be announced. With its numerous co-productions, next season, dubbed ‘From Here to Everywhere’, “will see a lot of our work out there across the country.”

Meanwhile, the 60th anniversary season continues with Death of a Salesman running through Feb. 15, and Burning Mom, The Wizard of Oz, Casey and Diana, and Cyrano de Bergerac still to come.

Looking ahead at the 2026-2027 Citadel season

Mainstage series: Murder on the Orient Express (Sept. 19 to Oct. 11, 2026); The Great Gatsby (Oct. 31 to Nov. 22, 2026); Annie (Jan. 30 to March 7, 2027); Sense and Sensibility (Feb. 20 to March 14, 2027); The Comeback (March 27 to April 18, 2027); Come From Away (May 9 to June 6, 2027).

Summer Musical: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (July 4 to Aug. 2, 2026)

Highwire series: Our Little Secret: A True, New Musical (Oct. 15 to 25, 2026); Mrs. Krishnan’s Party (Jan. 15 to Feb. 6, 2027).

Holiday production: A Christmas Carol (Nov. 22 to Dec. 24, 2026).

Tickets and subscriptions: citadeltheatre.com, 780-425-1829. Season packages on sale Feb. 2, casual tickets for the summer musical on sale March 18, casual tickets for productions in the 2026-2027 season on sale July 3.