ENTERTAINMENT

Weidner announces 2015-16 season

Kendra Meinert
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

The Weidner Center for the Performing Arts looks to continue its trend of increasing attendance with a 2015-16 season that includes a 2014 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Broadway touring musicals and several returning favorites.

Executive director Kate Green announced the new 27-performance season Wednesday at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay venue. It will kick off Oct. 9 with improv comedy show Whose Live Anyway? and conclude May 12 with a return appearance by blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa.

The 2014-15 season wrapped up last month with attendance of 96,500. That’s up from 93,000 for the 2013-14 season, which saw a significant jump from the 75,000 the previous season. The Stage Doors Education Series, which offers educational programming for school children in Northeastern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, played to 15,000 students from 61 cities in 23 counties last season.

Highlights of the upcoming season include a new touring production of the popular Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” Oct. 20, country great Ronnie Milsap for an afternoon performance Oct. 25 and “The Princess Bride”: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes, who played Westley in the 1987 cult classic. After a screening of the movie Nov. 21, Elwes will lead a discussion of classic scenes from the film.

Several acts that have been popular during past Weidner visits will be back, including the Irish music of Celtic Woman Oct. 14. The vocal group last sold-out the Weidner in 2014. Chip Davis’ popular Mannheim Steamroller returns for a holiday show Nov. 28, and by request from Weidner patrons, “The Midtown Men,” featuring four stars from the original cast of Broadway’s “Jersey Boys,” returns Oct. 27.

On the pop culture front, Vocalosity taps the popularity of a cappella music for a show Jan. 22. It’s from creator Deke Sharon, the music arranger of both “Pitch Perfect” movies and producer of TV’s “The Sing-Off.” Home Free, the a cappella country band that won Season 4 of “The Sing-Off,” will play Oct. 10. The Weidner has already been getting calls from fans of the latter, Green said.

Mnozil Brass, the acclaimed Austrian brass ensemble that mixes originals, jazz standards, pop hits and classical music with comedy, will perform April 12. The name might not be familiar to patrons, but Green said, “If you want to take a risk on something you’ve never heard, I’d suggest Mnozil Brass next season.”

2015-16 season

» “Whose Live Anyway?”: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9

» Home Free: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 10

» Celtic Woman: 7 p.m. Oct. 14

» “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20

» Ronnie Milsap: 3 p.m. Oct. 25

» The Midtown Men: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27

» Cirque Mechanics: Pedal Punk: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6

» “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play”: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 19-20

»The Princess Bride”: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21

» Mannheim Steamroller Christmas by Chip Davis: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 28

» Holiday Pops: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11 and 2:30 p.m. Dec. 12

» Doctors in Recital: 7 p.m. Jan. 16

» Vocalosity: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 22

»Goodnight Moon and the Runaway Bunny”: 11 a.m. Jan. 30

» L.A. Theatre Works — “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2

» Celtic Nights — Spirit of Freedom — Celebrating 100 Years: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12

» The Peking Acrobats — 30th Anniversary Tour: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18

» “Once”: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25

» PostSecret: The Show: 2 and 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27

» Dancing in the Streets”: 7:30 p.m. March 17

» Wild Kratts Live!: 7 p.m. April 8

» Mnozil Brass: 7:30 p.m. April 12

» RAIN — A Tribute to The Beatles: 7:30 p.m. May 1

» Joe Bonamassa: 7:30 p.m. May 12

— kmeinert@pressgazettemedia.com and follow her on Instagram and Twitter @KendraMeinert.

Getting tickets

Subscription packages (three or more shows) are currently on sale at weidnercenter.com.

Tickets for most of the individual shows go on sale at 11 a.m. Aug. 14. Celtic Woman will go on sale at 11 a.m. July 1 and Mannheim Steamroller Christmas at 11 a.m. July 24. Tickets for Joe Bonamassa will go on sale this fall on a date still to be announced.

In celebration of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s 50th anniversary later this year, a three-shows-for-$50 special is available. The three shows in that package are Cirque Mechanics: Pedal Punk, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and Mnozil Brass. More information at weidnercenter.com and Ticket Star at (800) 895-0071.