From spooky-season specials (don’t forget Evil Dead: The Musical — we’ll have a preview up next month!) to heartwarming holiday favorites, it’s time to get your calendar ready for fall and winter theater shows in 2026. There are great shows to choose from at dozens of venues; any night at the theater is more than worthy, but here are a few of our favorite upcoming shows.
Pittsburgh Theater Shows Coming This Fall and Winter 2026
Ulster American
October 8-25, barebones black box theater
David Ireland’s Ulster American gained its reputation across two well-received runs at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Reviewing the second of those, Fringe specialist Shay Mace said: “It’s in the misunderstandings between one another, that, paradoxically, we often find the truth. In the case of Ulster American that truth isn’t just between one another, but also in the complexities of national identity, liberalism, race and gender relations, and subsequently how all those things sit within people’s individual psyches.” The show will get its first Pittsburgh run courtesy of barebones productions.
Radio Island
October 23-November 15, Rockwell Park
Quantum Theatre follows their hit summer production of The Tempest, which we reviewed, with this drama about a hostage negotiator dealing with real-world stakes and intimate import. Quantum will stage the show in the towering, modular space Rockwell Park, a building full of spaces for artists and performances hidden in plain sight in Point Breeze. Siovhan Christensen, who previously starred in The River and Chickens in the Yard for Quantum, returns for this production.
Night of the Living Dead N’at
October 29-November 15, Lillie Theatre at City Theatre
Bricolage’s Midnight Radio series reimagines popular tales as old-time radio broadcast — complete with over-the-top voices, live sound effects and vaudeville-style flair. They’ve been invited to the City Theatre campus (specifically, the black-box Lillie Theatre space) to present Night of the Living Dead N’at, an (even more) yinzer-fied riff on George A. Romero’s immortal zombie classic. The virtuosic Cello Fury will appear to provide musical accompaniment.
Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical
November 5-8, Byham Theater
The young artists studying at Pittsburgh Musical Theater get a shot at one of Pittsburgh’s finest stages with Matilda the Musical, running for one weekend only at the Byham. Adapted from the 1988 children’s novel — and, in turn, the 1996 film — Matilda is no quick translation; the original West End run nabbed seven Olivier Awards, a record at the time. Professionals and young performers will be joined by the CAPA Orchestra.
The Notebook
November 10-15, Benedum Center
Folk-pop singer songwriter Ingrid Michaelson wrote the music and lyrics for The Notebook, the musical-theater adaptation of the 2004 film — and, in turn, the page-turner 1996 novel by Nicholas Sparks. The brief Broadway run netted three Tony nominations and found a fanbase through its national tour … but that jaunt has taken a full year to make its way to Pittsburgh, after beginning its voyage in Cleveland in September 2025. Get a long-awaited burst of romance when The Notebook arrives at the Benedum as part of this year’s Cultural Trust Broadway series.
Spring Awakening
November 12-21, Allegheny RiverTrail Park
A cast of rising stars, including Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff, brought Spring Awakening to Broadway in 2006. As the Great White Way was still shaking off the bombast of the ’90s, the show was a jolt of energy; a frank and adult coming-of-age tale with an alternative-folk score by Duncan Sheik, Spring Awakening earned an immediate following. Some 20 years later, Riverfront Theatre brings the show back to Pittsburgh at their intimate space in Allegheny RiverTrail Park. (Don’t let the name fool you; it’s indoors. But you’ll want to stroll around the beautiful park beforehand.)
Who’s Holiday
December 2-23, Greer Cabaret Theater
As part of the “prologue season” for the new organization born out of the merger of the CLO and Public — a company that may, in fact, have a name by the time this show opens — the holiday hit Who’s Holiday returns to the Greer Cabaret Theater. The rhyming, one-woman show follows a grown-up and ground-down Cindy Lou Who as she recounts her love affair with the Grinch and enduring love of all things tinsel-strewn. It’s an uproarious, ribald show that at once takes down and celebrates the season, made unforgettable thanks to a perfect performance by Lara Hayhurst.
White Christmas
December 3-20, Canonsburg Educational and Cultural Institute
There are plenty of holiday shows, but only one has the best-selling song of all time. Irving Berlin’s White Christmas remains the number-one single ever issued, with global sales of more than 50 million copies; the musical version, adapted from the 1954 film, is an enduring hit, too. Little Lake Theatre revives the show, which has been a hit for them in the past, at a new venue: The Canonsburg Educational and Cultural Institute, a new, nearby proscenium that can fit far more yuletide revelers than Little Lake’s traditional venue.
Story by Sean Collier
Photo by KGTunney Photography
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