(This story was updated to correct an earlier inaccuracy.)
The Labor Day weekend might mark the end of the traditional summer visitor season for Door County, but its theater companies have plenty more to stage in 2025.
Four of the five regularly active theater companies in Door County follow their busy summer seasons with fall seasons that run into October or November. For 2025, the fall season features Northern Sky Theater’s 25th anniversary production of one of its hit original musical comedies, a warm ensemble melodrama widely known for its hit movie adaptations at Peninsula Players Theatre, a world premiere at Third Avenue Playworks, and three plays including a dinner theater mystery at Rogue Theater.
Here’s the what, where and when of Door County’s fall theater season.
Northern Sky Theater: ‘The Bachelors’
After Northern Sky Theater’s 35th outdoor summer season of original musical comedies in the amphitheater at Peninsula State Park, the company moves indoors to the Gould Theater on its creative campus in Fish Creek with the fall run of its hit show “The Bachelors,” making its return to Northern Sky after an 11-year absence.
The Fred Alley/James Kaplan follow-up to their smash hit “Guys On Ice” looks at bachelorhood through the lenses of Stew and John, a pair of 30-something bumblers living together in a state of extended adolescence when they innocently order out for pizza, never expecting the delivery girl to be the reincarnation of a woman they both wronged in a previous lifetime. The show has had four runs at Northern Sky since its 2001 premiere but none since 2014.
“The Bachelors” plays from Aug. 29 to Oct. 25 in the Gould Theater at Northern Sky’s Creative Center, 9058 County A, Fish Creek. Showtimes are 7 p.m. Aug. 29, 2 and 7 p.m. Aug. 30, then 2 p.m. Mondays, 7 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and 4 p.m. Fridays through Oct. 25, except Monday shows Oct. 6, 13 and 20 are at noon.
Tickets are $40 for adults, $27 college and teenage students, $22 ages 12 and younger, and reservations are highly recommended. For tickets or more information, call 920-854-6117 or visit northernskytheater.com.
Peninsula Players: ‘Steel Magnolias’
The fall show at America’s oldest professional resident summer theater – 2025 marks its 90th season – is Robert Harling’s moving comedy-drama, based on his family experiences, about the lives and friendships of six women who support each other through their triumphs and tragedies, gathering at a beauty shop in Louisiana to ponder life and death, husbands, men and children.
Harling adapted his play into a hit 1989 film with an all-star cast that included Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Darryl Hannah and Olympia Dukakis, and a made-for-TV movie with an all-Black cast including Queen Latifah, Jill Scott, Alfre Woodard and Phylicia Rashad was produced in 2012 for the Lifetime cable network.
“Steel Magnolias” is on stage from Sept. 3 to Oct. 19 at Peninsula Players Theatre, 4351 Peninsula Players Road, Fish Creek. Curtain times are at 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, with Sunday shows at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 and 21 and Oct. 12 and 2 p.m. Sept. 14 and 28, and Oct. 5 and 19. With its all-weather stagehouse and location along the shore of Green Bay, where patrons can relax and picnic or enjoy the beer garden and other gardens before performances, audience members should dress for the weather.
Tickets are $51 to $56; ; discounts are available for ages 18 and younger or groups of 15 or more, and gift certificates are available. For tickets and more information, call 920-868-3287 or visit peninsulaplayers.com.
Rogue Theater: ‘An Audition for Murder,’ ‘The Tin Woman’ and ‘The Unexpected Man’
The Door County-based community theater company brings three different shows, including one of its signature dinner mysteries and a drama that premiered 11 years ago at a different Door County theater, to its 2025 fall season. The shows are:
Sept. 13 to 21: “An Audition for Murder,” a dinner theater murder mystery show that has audience members help solve the case of an actor’s murder.
Oct. 16 to Nov. 2: “The Tin Woman,” a Sean Grennan comedy-drama that premiered at Peninsula Players in 2014 about a woman who is drawn to contact the family of the donor of the heart transplanted into her, with emotional results.
Nov. 14 to 23: “The Unexpected Man,” in which a famous male novelist and a female admirer of him (although he doesn’t know she knows who he is) share a train compartment and separately muse about their lives.
Rogue Theater shows are held in its DC Arts Center, 917 N. 14th Ave., Sturgeon Bay. Curtain times are at 7 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. For tickets or more information, call 920-818-0816, visit roguetheater.org or email 1roguetheater@gmail.com.
Third Avenue Playworks: ‘Ryan’s Pub, Trivia Night’
The downtown Sturgeon Bay playhouse is the site for the world premiere of “Ryan’s Pub, Trivia Night,” a new play by Alec Silberblatt that received a staged reading at TAP during its annual play reading event in February 2024. The play focuses on Marci and Richie, the best team at the regular trivia nights at Ryan’s Pub in Pittsburgh, and how their rivalry with another team takes an unexpected turn. The cast features Doug Mancheski, one of the most well-known actors in the Door County theater scene, and Kelli Strickland.
“Ryan’s Pub, Trivia Night” runs from Sept. 24 to Oct. 12 in the 124-seat Kane Theatre at TAP, 239 N. Third Ave., Sturgeon Bay. The Sept. 24 show is an unticketed pay-what-you-will preview performance, followed Sept. 25 by a ticketed final preview before the official run of the show starts Sept. 26. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, along with a 2 p.m. Friday matinee Oct. 3.
Tickets are $44 for adults, $25 college students, $15 ages 19 and younger; ages 65 and older and veterans receive a 10% discount. For tickets or more information, call 920-743-1760 or visit thirdavenueplayworks.org.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Door County fall theater season includes popular hit, world premiere. Here’s your guide
Reporting by Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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