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FXBG - City of Fredericksburg, VA

Fall Performance Guide

Curious about what’s playing this fall? Fredericksburg is packed with live theater over the next few months, from classic musicals to family shows, thrillers, and comedy nights. Here’s your guide to the season’s can’t-miss performances:

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts – Sweeny Todd

  • Dates: September 9-October 25, 2026

  • Venue: Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

  • Details: An infamous tale, Sweeney Todd, an unjustly exiled barber, returns to nineteenth century London, seeking vengeance against the lecherous judge who framed him and ravaged his young wife. The road to revenge leads Todd to Mrs. Lovett, a resourceful proprietress of a failing pie shop, above which, he opens a new barber practice. Mrs. Lovett’s luck sharply shifts when Todd’s thirst for blood inspires the integration of an ingredient into her meat pies that has the people of London lining up… and the carnage has only just begun!

  • Tickets

UMW Theater – The 39 Steps

  • Dates: September 17 – 27, 2026

  • Venue: Klein Theater

  • Details: Patrick Barlow’s dazzling adaptation of Hitchcock’s iconic thriller tosses audiences headlong into a whirlwind of espionage, wit, and sheer theatrical invention energetically pulled off by just four fearless performers. When the thoroughly unsuspecting Richard Hannay is dragged into a deadly conspiracy, he must flee across Britain, dodging a gloriously exaggerated band of spies and relentless law enforcement at every turn. Quick-fire costume changes, razor-sharp dialogue, ingenious staging, and a surprise romance round out a production that crackles with intensity from the first scene to the last. The 39 Steps is a comic thrill ride you won’t want to miss.

  • Tickets

FTE – A Few Good Men

  • Dates: September 18 – 27, 2026

  • Venue: Allstate Community Theater

  • Details: This Broadway hit about the trial of two Marines for complicity in the death of a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay sizzles on stage. The Navy lawyer, a callow young man more interested in softball games than the case, expects a plea bargain and a cover-up of what really happened. Prodded by a female member of his defense team, the lawyer eventually makes a valiant effort to defend his clients and, in so doing, puts the military mentality and the Marine code of honor on trial.

  • Tickets

Riverside Center for the Performing Arts Children’s Theatre – Shrek

  • Dates: September 29-October 24, 2026

  • Venue: Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

  • Details: “Once upon a time, there was a little ogre named Shrek….” And thus begins the tale of an unlikely hero who finds himself on a life-changing journey alongside a wisecracking Donkey and a feisty princess who resists her rescue. Throw in a short-tempered bad guy, a cookie with an attitude and over a dozen other fairy tale misfits, and you’ve got the kind of mess that calls for a real hero. Luckily, there’s one on hand… and his name is Shrek.

  • Tickets

FTE – Veronica’s Room

  • Dates: October 23, 2026

  • Venue: Allstate Community Theater

  • Details: This chilling mystery thriller by the author of Rosemary’s Baby explores the thin line between fantasy and reality, madness and murder. Students Susan and Larry find themselves as guests enticed to the Brabissant mansion by its dissolute caretakers, the lonely Mackeys. Struck by Susan’s strong resemblance to Veronica Brabissant, the long-dead daughter of the family for whom they work, the older couple gradually induce her to impersonate Veronica briefly to solace the only living Brabissant, her addled sister who believes Veronica remains alive. Dressed in Veronica’s clothes, Susan finds herself locked in the role and locked in Veronica’s room. Or is she Veronica, in 1935, pretending to be an imaginary Susan?

  • Tickets

UMW Theater – Dear Evan Hansen

  • Dates: November 5 – 22, 2026

  • Venue: Klein Theater

  • Details: When a misunderstanding catapults him to unexpected internet fame, Evan Hansen becomes an unlikely symbol of hope for a grieving family and discovers a sense of belonging he has never dared imagine. But navigating a world fractured by loneliness and driven by social media comes at a cost, and Evan must ultimately reckon with the gap between the life he has carefully constructed online and a truth he can no longer outrun. This Tony Award-winning musical from the songwriters behind The Greatest Showman and La La Land soars with raw emotional power, delivering a deeply human story about connection, identity, and what it truly means to be seen.

  • Tickets

From Broadway blockbusters to local youth theater and laugh-out-loud comedy, Fredericksburg’s fall lineup has something for everyone.

Updated 5/19/2026