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Best Los Angeles Musicals Running in 2024 & Coming in 2025

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Published on: Mar 12, 2024
Last Updated on: Jul 15, 2024
By: Kathryn Willingham
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Los Angeles Cityscape

Best Los Angeles Musicals Running in 2024 & 2025

New York may be synonymous with Broadway musicals, but Los Angeles and the nearby cities of Costa Mesa and Pasadena have flourishing musical theater scenes as well. Many touring Broadway shows play at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre while theaters like Center Theatre Group, South Coast Repertory, and Pasadena Playhouse create brilliant new works attracting both local and national talent. Other popular venues include the Geffen Playhouse, A Noise Within, and the Fox Performing Arts Center. Here are the some of the best musicals running in 2024!

Musicals Currently Running in Los Angeles

Company on tour

Company

It’s Bobbie’s 35th birthday party, and all her friends keep asking, Why isn’t she married? Why can’t she find the right man and isn’t it time to settle down and start a family? As Bobbie searches for answers, she discovers why being single, being married, and being alive in 21st-Century New York could drive a person crazy. Three-time Tony Award-winning director Marianne Elliott (War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Angels in America) helms this revelatory new production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s groundbreaking musical comedy, at once boldly sophisticated, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious. COMPANY features Sondheim’s award-winning songs You Could Drive a Person Crazy, The Ladies Who Lunch, Side by Side by Side and the iconic Being Alive. Let’s all drink to that.

Running July 30 to August 18, 2024 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. 

Upcoming Musicals

Hamilton

Hamilton

Hamilton, with book, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, direction by Thomas Kail, choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler, and orchestrations and co-arrangement by Alex Lacamoire, is based on the book “Alexander Hamilton” by Ron Chernow. Following the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton, this musical has become a global blockbuster and won 11 Tony Awards including Best Musical.

Running September 4 to October 13, 2024 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors

Little Shop of Horrors, with book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menkin, plays at South Coast Rep with direction from Jenn Thompson. At Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists, down-on-his-luck Seymour pines for his beautiful co-worker, Audrey, not knowing the feelings are mutual. When he stumbles across a strange and interesting new plant, it looks like Seymour may get everything he’s ever wanted. But first, he’ll have to tackle the sneaky succulent’s unquenchable thirst for human blood in this thrilling creature feature bursting with the sounds of doo-wop and Motown!

Running from September 21 to October 19, 2024 at South Coast Rep’s Segerstrom Stage.

Kimberly-Akimbo-Cast-Recording-Album

Kimberly Akimbo

Kimberly Akimbo features Tony Award-winning book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole), a Tony Award-winning score by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), choreography by Danny Mefford (Dear Evan Hansen) and direction by Tony-nominated director Jessica Stone. Kimberly is about to turn 16 and recently moved with her family to a new town in suburban New Jersey. In this “howlingly funny heartbreaker of a show” (The New Yorker), Kim is forced to navigate family dysfunction, a rare genetic condition, her first crush…and possible felony charges. Ever the optimist, she is determined to find happiness against all odds and embark on a great adventure.

Running October 15 to November 3, 2024 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

Back to the Future the Musical

Back to the Future

Great Scott! The multi-award-winning Back to the Future the Musical is set to change musical theatre history. When Marty McFly finds himself transported back to 1955 in a time machine built by the eccentric scientist Doc Brown, he accidentally changes the course of history. Now he’s in a race against time to fix the present, escape the past and send himself... back to the future. Experience this high-voltage comedy as the iconic story is adapted for the stage by the movie’s creators Bob Gale (Back to the Future trilogy) and Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) and is directed by the Tony Award-winning John Rando. Back to the Future the Musical features original music by multi-Grammy winners Alan Silvestri (Avengers: Endgame) and Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror), alongside hit songs from the movie including The Power of Love, Johnny B. GoodeEarth Angel and Back in Time. When BACK TO THE FUTURE THE MUSICAL hits 88mph, you’re gonna see some serious… entertainment.

Running November 5 to December 1, 2024 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

Wicked on Tour

Wicked

This musical theatre juggernaut looks at what happened in the land of Oz – but from a different angle. There is a young woman, born with emerald-green skin – smart, fiery, misunderstood and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships until the world decides to call one good and the other wicked. The Los Angeles Times called it “the official girl-power show of the millennium.”

Running December 4, 2024 to February 2, 2025 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

The Incredible Book Eating Boy, with book by Madhuri Shekar, music by Christian Magby, lyrics by Christian Albright, based on the book by Oliver Jeffers, and directed by H. Adam Harris, plays at South Coast Rep’s Julianne Argyros Stage. Henry loves books, but doesn’t like reading them. If only he could learn new things without deciphering long, complicated words. One day he tries nibbling on a page—and it works! Soon he’s chomping his way through the school library, getting smarter with each bite…until the facts get all jumbled up and his tummy hurts. Celebrate the joys of reading with a hilarious family musical almost good enough to eat.

Running from February 28 to March 16, 2025 at South Coast Rep’s Julianne Argyros Stage.

A Beautiful Noise

A Beautiful Noise: the Neil Diamond Musical

Created in collaboration with Neil Diamond himself, A BEAUTIFUL NOISE is the uplifting true story of how a kid from Brooklyn became a chartbusting, show-stopping American rock icon. With 140 million albums sold, a catalogue of classics like “America,” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” and “Sweet Caroline,” an induction into the Songwriters and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and sold-out concerts around the world that made him bigger than Elvis, Neil Diamond’s story was made to shine on stage. Like Jersey Boys and The Carole King Musical before it, A BEAUTIFUL NOISE THE NEIL DIAMOND MUSICAL is an inspiring, exhilarating, energy-filled musical memoir, that tells the untold true story of how America’s greatest hitmaker became a star, set to the songs that defined his career.

Running July 8 to July 27, 2025 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

Some Like It Hot Cast Recording

Some Like It Hot 

Set in Chicago when Prohibition has everyone thirsty for a little excitement, Some Like It Hot is the “glorious, big, high-kicking” (Associated Press) story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit. With gangsters hot on their heels, they catch a cross-country train for the life-chasing, life-changing trip of a lifetime. And what a trip it is! With its irresistible combination of heart and laughs, song and dance, Some Like It Hot won more theater awards than any show it's season, and was named Best Musical by the Drama Desk, The Drama League, and the Outer Critics Circle. No wonder Deadline calls it “a tap-dancing, razzle-dazzling embrace of everything you love about musical theater.”

Running July 20 to August 17, 2025 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

Shucked-Nederlander

Shucked

Shucked is the Tony Award®–winning musical comedy The Wall Street Journal calls “flat out hilarious!” And nobody knows funny like economists. Featuring a book by Tony Award winner Robert Horn (Tootsie), a score by the Grammy® Award–winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally (Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow”), and directed by Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien (Hairspray), this corn-fed, corn-bred American musical is sure to satisfy your appetite for great musical theater.

Running August 19 to September 7, 2025 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

Plays in Los Angeles

If you’re looking to buy tickets to a play, check out our article about the Best Plays Running in Los Angeles to learn more about what’s on stage right now, and what is coming up soon. And if you’re travelling a bit further south, read our articles about the Best Plays in San Diego and Best Musicals in San Diego!

Kathryn Willingham

Head of Creative Development at Jean Doumanian Productions

Kathryn Willingham has worked in entertainment for over ten years, and recent credits include: Co-producer of SHRINK currently streaming on Peacock, Associate Producer of the independent film UNA, and Creative Executive on multiple theatrical productions including HANGMEN by Martin McDonagh on Broadway, NASSIM by Nassim Soleimanpour Off-broadway and Associate on productions EVERY BRILLIANT THING by Duncan Macmillan with Jonny Donahoe and THE EFFECT by Lucy Prebble. She was Producer of Todd Almond’s musical travelogue “Wyoming and Parts of Kansas” and Production Coordinator for Karen O and KK Barrett's “Stop the Virgens.”

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Education: B.A. in English, Literature & Creative Writing from Rhodes College
Knowledge: Theatrical Production

Published

Oct 27, 2024

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