Cast your vote: Theatergoers will have a say in what productions are part of Albuquerque Little Theatre's upcoming season

Theater lovers will have the opportunity to cast their votes for productions featured at Albuquerque Little Theatre’s 2025-2026 season during the WinterFest Season Preview Gala.

Cast your vote: Theatergoers will have a say in what productions are part of Albuquerque Little Theatre's upcoming season

The gala will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 12, at the theater located at 224 San Pasquale Ave. SW. It will feature eight local performers who will sing songs from shows that are up for consideration to be part of the 2025 season. The event also will be the unveiling of a “bigger and better” subscriber season.

“We thought people would really enjoy having a little gala (that is) black tie optional, or they can wear a costume or whatever they want to wear, and hear not only what we’re going to announce, but participate in some voting to help us break some ties among what the staff has chosen as the finalists for our musicals,” said Rob Armstrong Martin, executive director at Albuquerque Little Theatre. “There’s going to be (eight) musicals with a musical excerpt being sung, a solo by a local legend from our community, and we use all local talent. And then the audience will vote on which of those numbers and shows they think they want to see in the next season.”

The audience will be asked to vote on the productions they would like to see during the 2025-2026 season. Each ticket allows each guest to cast five votes via a QR code. Additional votes can be purchased. Three to four musicals with the most votes will be selected to be performed during the season. The winning productions will be announced on Saturday, Feb. 1, according to a theater news release.

“Instead of only six shows (during the 2025-2026 season), we’re going to produce 12, and change up our subscriber options from everybody gets the same six to more of a flexible, customizable subscription,” Martin said. “If somebody wants all 12, great. If they want nine of the 12, they can mix and match, pick what they want, take a vacation and not miss anything. And (we) just really want to meet the audience with flexibility.”

Some productions have been announced on ALT’s Facebook page including “The Prom” that runs Jan. 24-Feb. 9, “A Streetcar Named Desire” playing March 7-23, “Misery” running April 25-May 11 and “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” that plays June 6-22.

The theater is looking to introduce lower ticket prices for some of the plays.

“We really want to see young people being able to get a hold of tickets,” Martin said. “Some of our prices will be going down and some of the more premium seats will be going up, so you know all of that will be talked about within the event.”

The theme for the upcoming 2025-26 season is “Let Her Speak.” The intent is to focus on female-forward plays and musicals.

“That’s really to pay tribute to the predominance of local talent being female,” Martin said. “In theater, generally women drive the creativity and most of our volunteer performers, we sometimes scrape the barrel for men to be in shows with women, and then we end up with maybe less experienced men beside really amazing women. So we’re going to change it up and pick plays to showcase the women, rather than make them fight each other for the choice roles in a year. So all of these musicals are stuff that is well known, stuff people have heard of and loved, and I believe, except for only one, none of them have ever been done at the Albuquerque Little Theatre in our 90-year history.”

Ten of the 12 plays being looked at have not been done at ALT, according to Martin.

“It gives a chance for our local talent, who are always eager to learn new material, to really sink their teeth into some of this stuff for the first time,” he said. “We’re really excited about giving our volunteers a satisfying performing experience in terms of how we’re going to run kind of the season tickets. Now, anybody can buy a ticket for any of our shows, but we do have a very loyal base of subscribers that want to come every month, or every once in a while, and they like to grab the same seats every time they come.”