This is Ozarks at Large. I'm Kyle Kellams.
"The nightly Double Drive-In was a pretty tough hangout. Kids went there to make out and blow off steam — greasers and Socs. I didn't know it at the time, but this would be the night that I would meet the one and only Cherry Valance. When the week is over and school is out, Friday at the Drive-In is what it's really about. I'm feeling kind of crazy."
If the reference to greasers and Socs didn't tip you off, that's the song "Friday at the Drive-In" from the Broadway musical adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel "The Outsiders." The story of teenage gangs in 1960s Oklahoma will hit the Walton Arts Center stage this fall to begin the 2026-27 Broadway season.
There are six productions included in the season, with four bonus returning shows. New for the season, Friday and Saturday night performances will begin at 7:30. Weekend curtains remain at 8, and a couple of tours will begin there. Fayetteville runs on Wednesday nights, so season ticket holders with Tuesday night tickets will shift to Sunday night performances.
Jennifer Ross, vice president of programming at Walton Arts Center, and Kurt Owens, director of programming, recently came to our studio to preview the season. Jennifer Ross says the adaptation of "The Outsiders" includes music from a beloved Texas-based folk duo.
Jennifer Ross: Jamestown Revival wrote all the music for this show, and man, it's where you want to be.
Kurt Owens: It's a really dynamic show. There's fire, there's rain, there's fights, there's love. It's really theatrical.
Kyle Kellams: And Kurt, when you say there's fire, there's water — you're talking fire and water. Not that there's anything wrong with theater of the imagination, but this isn't like cardboard that looks like water.
Owens: Correct.
Kellams: This is water. This is fire.
Owens: Correct.
Kellams: OK. That starts the season when?
Owens: September. It opens Sept. 1. It's a very early season this year.
Kellams: Next up, this one has a great genesis because it was Ry Cooder getting some people together. Then there was the documentary film "Buena Vista Social Club."
Ross and Owens: Oh my goodness. People are excited about this. And it's really kind of a full circle moment, because one of the performers in the original Buena Vista Social Club, Omara Portuondo, performed at Walton Arts Center. But it's basically the imagined origin story of these musicians that Ry Cooder and Juan de Marcos and a couple of other producers put together.
"¿Te importa, si tú no me quieres ya, amor? ¿Qué pasa? No se debe recordar."
Buena Vista Social Club will be at Walton Arts Center Dec. 15-20. In January 2027, another musical based on a novel: "The Notebook" by Nicholas Sparks, with music by Ingrid Michaelson.
Owens: It's really a beautiful love story of a couple who came together and then separated for years. One of them met another person and realized, wait a minute, maybe this isn't the person for me. And then they come back together until age starts to take its toll.
"Time to get up. Time to get up now. And let the bones crack into place. I look in the mirror. I see an old man. But in my eyes a young man's face. Time."
Kellams: I get the feeling from talking to people you might shed a tear during this production.
Owens: Perhaps. They do sell boxes of tissue at the merchandise stand. And they do that for a reason, so I don't want to say any more about it.
Kellams: That's the general vibe I've gotten from people who love "The Notebook." That will be here Feb. 24-28, and that's one that's opening on Wednesday evening. Tuesday subscribers will be seated on Sunday evening after that.
After that is "The Sound of Music."
"A day. Like every morning you greet me, morning and white, clean and bright. You."
Owens: Most people have seen the movie, but seeing it live on stage gives you a different connection to it. And it's timeless and timely both. The latter of those is sort of unfortunate, but it's going to do really well here.
Ross: One of the fun things for me about "The Sound of Music" is it is the very first show that I saw at Walton Arts Center. My mom and my sister and I all came to see that show together. It was the first time I'd stepped foot, and I never dreamed that however many years later, here I would be responsible for the things going on stage. It's really kind of amazing for me, and I love this show.
Kellams: "The Sound of Music" begins at Walton Arts Center on April 13, 2027. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1959.
Next up in the season: "Operation Mincemeat" had an early version premiere in London 60 years later in 2019.
Ross: When I go to the theater in New York, I don't want to know anything about the show. I go in blind. So with "Operation Mincemeat," all I knew was the title, and I knew that people were talking about it. I was absolutely blown away, astounded. It's so much fun. It's poignant. It's laugh-out-loud funny in some places. In other places you just need a Kleenex or a hankie because you're bawling. And then it just sort of closes the loop on some history that not a lot of people know.
Owens: Basically, the Allies are wanting to invade Sicily, but there are a lot of Nazis in Sicily. In order to draw them away, they steal a corpse and plant a fake love letter and a fake photograph and some forged documents on the corpse, who they hope will be discovered by the Nazis. Unbelievable, if it wasn't actually true.
Kellams: Ian Fleming is connected to this somehow.
Owens: Ian Fleming, before he wrote the James Bond novels, was in British intelligence. He and another British intelligence agent put together a bunch of theses and ways to bamboozle the enemy. One of them was called the Trout Memo. And one of the suggestions — in parentheses, "not a very nice one" — is sort of where Operation Mincemeat came from. It's just, from beginning to end, it's mind-blowing that it happened and that it actually worked.
Kellams: Then the last of the six shows in the season proper: the story of Bobby Darin, "Just in Time."
"Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me. My lover stands on golden sands."
Ross: A lot of people know his songs — "Splish Splash," "Dream Lover," "Mack the Knife." But they don't necessarily know his story. He was married to Sandra Dee, and they had this great love affair. But he died really young. A lot of people don't know that. What's fun about this is I've been doing a little more research to find out he was a nightclub animal. He was so much better in a live performance, according to everything that I've read. And when I saw the show on Broadway, as Jonathan Groff plays it, you could understand why.
Kellams: When is that?
Owens: That is the middle of the summer. July 6-11.
Kellams: If you subscribe to the season, you get those six shows?
Ross: Absolutely, yes.
Kellams: Then the bonus shows.
Owens: The first bonus show has a title that's been here before, but this is a brand-new production. It's "Dirty Dancing: The Musical," based on the classic film written by Eleanor Bergstein. The really interesting thing about this one is it's being directed by Lonny Price, who played Neil Kellerman in the original film. Having the director with that connection from that movie so many years ago will make it really special.
Kellams: And is that another one that's arriving on Wednesday?
Owens: That's another one that's coming in on Wednesday due to its travel schedule. It's opening on Wednesday evening and will have a Sunday evening performance as well.
Kellams: Coming back: "Jersey Boys."
Owens: Of course, it's the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. All their hits. I think "Mamma Mia" sort of started the jukebox musical trend. This is a jukebox musical, but it's also a bio musical. It's very different. It's seamless. You don't feel like, oh, here's that hit, now this hit, with no segue in between. There's a story. The thing that makes it so phenomenal is that you're getting four different viewpoints.
Kellams: Also "Kinky Boots."
Ross: It's such a great show. It's really about people who think they're so far apart that they don't think they'll ever be able to see eye to eye, and then literally at the end of the show–
Owens: They discover that you really can't change the world if you change your mind. This is another one that's based on a true story — and was, I believe, an independent film from the late '90s. It's a great film, and it's a phenomenal musical. Cyndi Lauper wrote the score. Harvey Fierstein wrote the book. It has Jerry Mitchell's fantastic choreography, which really makes the show. We're excited to have it back.
Kellams: And finally, the last bonus show: "Beetlejuice."
"I was hot. I went to parties a lot. You know, I was driving a Lamborghini, sipping super-dry martinis and the tiniest bikinis on a yacht, but I was depressed."
Owens: It was just a few years ago, but people really loved it. It pretty much sold out and people asked for it to come back. We were lucky enough that we were able to bring it back this soon.
Kellams: The full Walton Arts Center season — is that usually announced in May?
Owens: It's usually late July or August, depending. Some things will be announced earlier — some of the earlier shows, some concerts, national announcements will get announced early. But it's generally a little bit later in the summer, July/August-ish.
Ross: Watch the social media.
Jennifer Ross is vice president of programming at Walton Arts Center. Kurt Owens is director of programming. They came to the Bruce and Ann Applegate News Studio One to preview the 2026-27 Broadway season at Walton Arts Center. More details about that season and tickets at WaltonArtsCenter.org.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
