An exciting new season of Broadway musicals will hit the stage at the Granada once again. On the precipice of the 2025-26 season announcement, I spoke with Craig Aikman, Senior Director of Booking & Operations for The American Theatre Guild, about the just-announced Broadway in Santa Barbara season slate that includes: The Book of Mormon, Hadestown, Kinky Boots, and Pilobolus’s Other Worlds Collection.
“I refer to it as a big 1,500-piece puzzle,” laughed Aikman, when I asked about how he went about putting this schedule together. The American Theatre Guild is the largest nonprofit touring Broadway presenter in the nation and covers 14 markets from Long Beach and Lubbock, to Wichita and even Peoria. They send out surveys to subscribers and pay close attention, which is why The Book of Mormon, for example, is returning February 24–25, 2026, after a sold-out Santa Barbara run in 2023.
“It’s irreverent, it’s funny. It makes you think, it makes you feel, even though you don’t think that you’re going to feel anything except laughter, but it’s a show that’s got heart,” said Aikman of The Book of Mormon, adding that it was one of the most requested that the audiences in Santa Barbara wanted to have come back.
Megan Colton (Eurydice), Jaylon C. Crump (Hermes), Jose Contreras (Orpheus), and ‘Hadestown’ North American Touring Company, 2025. | Photo: Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade 
Megan Colton (Eurydice) and Jose Contreras (Orpheus) in ‘Hadestown’ North American Tour, 2025. | Photo: Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade 
The 2019 National Tour of ‘Kinky Boots’ | Photo: Matthew Murphy 
Connor Allston in the 2019 National Tour of ‘Kinky Boots’ | Photo: Matthew Murphy 
Kenneth Mosley in the 2019 National Tour of ‘Kinky Boots’ | Photo: Matthew Murphy 
Pilobolus ‘Branches’ | Photo: Brigid Pierce 
Pilobolus ‘Rushes’ | Photo: Emily Denaro 
Diego Enrico in ‘The Book of Mormon’ North American tour | Photo: Julieta Cervantes
“Kinky Boots [playing December 9-10, 2025] is a revival,” he explained. “It’s played in Santa Barbara once before, and it’s so relevant right now, it just makes sense that it’s coming back out on tour.” The show, featuring music by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Harvey Fierstein, was inspired by a true story about a man who inherited a shoe factory from his father and formed an unlikely partnership with a cabaret performer and drag queen to produce a line of high-heeled boots and save the business. In the process, Charlie and Lola discover that they are not so different after all.
“Hadestown [playing April 28-29, 2026] is, I really refer to it as the closest thing to just pure art on stage. Several people that had seen it in New York said to me, ‘You know, it’s going to change you. It will change your life,’” said Aikman. Adding, “And I’m like, sure. I mean, how many times do you hear that and you just don’t necessarily believe it. And five minutes into seeing it, it does. It quite literally does, and it makes you think in ways that you never thought you would before. It’s a story about love and loss and finding your way and finding your own path,” he said.
“I think that’s kind of the common theme with all of the shows this season, even Pilobolus [a contemporary dance production coming March 18-19, 2026] is that storytelling in a different way and, and it’s about discovering your authentic self in some way, shape, and form. I think that’s the commonality between all four shows this season,” said Aikman.
All shows take place at The Granada Theatre (1214 State St.). Season tickets are now on sale at americantheatreguild.com/santabarbara.
