Upcoming LU Theatre season will showcase stories of redemption, growth, and joy

Whether it’s Eliza Doolittle discovering her worth in “My Fair Lady,” Ebenezer Scrooge embracing grace in “Scrooge: The Musical,” or workers fighting for justice in the true story of “Radium Girls,” every production in the 2026-27 season from the Liberty University Department of Theatre Arts centers on transformation.

Artistic Director Linda Nell Cooper said the theme points audiences toward both personal growth and deeper faith.

“I’m looking at the whole season as the audience’s portal into transcendence, and so every show is about how we transcend to become better people, and how we transcend to be closer to God,” Cooper said.

For the third consecutive year, the season will open with a production by the Alluvion Stage Company, Liberty’s Broadway-quality professional theatre company, welcoming audiences back into the Tower Theater to experience the beloved musical “My Fair Lady” on Sept. 11-27. The show follows the transformation of Eliza Doolittle, a cockney flower girl, into an elegant lady through elocution lessons from Professor Henry Higgins, with whom an unlikely relationship forms. “It’s a very bright, fresh, romantic, beautiful way to start the season,” Cooper said.

Alluvion Stage Company gives Liberty students the unique opportunity to join professional actors and multiple alumni on and off the stage. Liberty will welcome New York-based actress Evan Bertram, who understudied the role of Eliza on the Broadway national tour, as she returns to the role.

Although Shakespeare plays are performed year after year at Liberty, this season will mark Liberty’s first production of “The Winter’s Tale” (Oct. 23 – Nov. 1), a “tragicomedy” that blends comedy and drama in a tale of hidden identities, romance, and family. Cooper said the lesser-known play may be having a newfound resurgence, as it will soon be staged at Shakespeare in the Park in New York City’s Central Park.

“It’s a beautiful show, the poetry is gorgeous, and it’s again about transcendence and finding oneself,” Cooper said. “We are so delighted to be able to present it to audiences. (Director) Neal Brasher has a very interesting concept for it, and that’s all I can say, but we’re excited for it.”

For a full four weeks leading into the Christmas season, “Scrooge: The Musical” (Nov. 13 – Dec. 13) will bring the familiar Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” to life in a way that, even more than the source novel, focuses on a deep change of heart for the central character.

“There’s a very blissful moment in this musical where his eyes are completely wiped clean of the life he remembered, and he now sees life in a completely different way,” Cooper said. “It has a transformative power for the audience, because we get to relate to Scrooge and how he feels like he’s unworthy to have a good life, and then he finds out that we are all worthy, and that we all have the potential to change and find that grace that is abundantly given to us by God.”

She said the musical will have audiences “walking out of the theater ready to embrace life, ready to give of yourself at Christmas, which is what we are supposed to do.”

In the final weekend of the fall semester (Dec. 11-13), the play “Her Last Mutiny,” written by rising juniors Madeline Pope and Jessica Chang, will be staged in the Black Box Theater and tell the story of Mary Critchett, an Englishwoman who became one of the earliest recorded female pirates active in colonial America, including Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. The play was created through The Writing Project, a program that encourages Liberty theatre students to write original plays based on Virginia history. The Writing Project has previously produced eight plays since it began in 2018.

Coinciding with the launch of the department’s new bachelor’s in dance program, the spring semester will begin with a dance concert, titled “Inquiries in Motion” (Jan. 29-31). Unlike a recital format, the concert will tell a full, cohesive story through the art of dance and music.

“We are very excited to highlight our students in this way, to bring storytelling through dance to audiences in a way we haven’t before,” Cooper said. “It’s very much a theatrical production, with sets, lights, and costumes.”

In “Radium Girls” (Feb. 26 – March 7), the themes of science’s commercialization and protecting workers’ health in the workplace are explored in the true account of female employees at the U.S. Radium Corporation in 1926. In order to craft the luminous watches that were in demand of the time, employees are told to use radium-based paint, not knowing the dangers of the harmful chemical that is slowly killing them. The workers must advocate for their safety.

“The heart of the story is how these girls are so elated to be able to help with this progress and research, and they feel like they’re doing something wonderful for the future, but it’s not until the end that they realize they’re literally poisoning themselves. It’s a beautiful story because the girls are very much sacrificing themselves for the betterment of others.”

Closing the season, “No, No, Nannette” is the farcical tale of three couples sharing a cottage in the midst of a blackmail scheme, with plenty of deception, romantic mishaps, and comical misunderstandings along with charming musical numbers. Cooper said the show is a great finale to the 2026-27 season.

“It’s all about people finding joy in their lives and just spreading that joy to everyone who comes near them,” she said. “It’s just about the good heartedness of the American people and how we circle around someone to lift them up and encourage them and show them what it means to be an American.”

>>Season tickets for the 2026-27 shows are now available, and single tickets will go on sale in August. Visit the Department of Theatre Arts website for dates and ticket information.