When only a live theater experience will do, come to Delaware. There are numerous outstanding performances to experience.
Live theater can be found all year long at many great venues. The variety of performances, the talent, both local and professional, and the quality of the productions are outstanding. Let’s look at live theatre starting from northern Delaware travelling south.
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Northern Delaware Entertainment Venues
Wilmington is home to the Delaware Theatre Company, founded in 1979 and now located on the Riverfront. Since its founding, the theatre has produced 220 mainstage productions, seen by more than one million patrons, and has impacted over 100,000 people through its Education and Community Engagement programs. Over the last four years, DTC has developed FIVE new productions for Broadway or Off-Broadway.
Take a look at the exciting seasons At Delaware Theatre Company!
The Delaware Children’s Theatre is located just off Rt. 95 in Wilmington, DE. The Delaware Children’s Theatre has been entertaining audiences of all ages for over forty seasons. In that time, it has grown to meet the needs of the community it serves. The DCT mission and goals have remained constant: to enrich our Children’s cultural life, to help young talent find its way to the stage, to continue a tradition of affordable quality theatre, to entertain families with exceptional theatrical experiences, and to preserve our Historic Theatre House for generations to come.
What a fun season this year at DCT!
For more than 140 years The Grand Opera House and The Playhouse on Rodney Square has been delighting the citizens of Wilmington, Delaware, and the greater Brandywine region with the finest live entertainment the country and the world has to offer. In 2015, they assumed operation of The Playhouse on Rodney Square (formerly the DuPont Theatre), adding the best of touring Broadway to their roster. With more than 120 performances a year, their three venues offer the very best entertainment options—something to please every taste.
The Grand and Playhouse are more than just the wonderful shows on stage. They provide a wide variety of community engagement programs for children, adults, and adults in the region.
Highlights of the current season include Beautiful, the Musical!
The Everett Theatre Middletown debuted on November 9, 1922 and was designed by noted theater architects,12 W.H. Hoffman and Paul J. Henon, Jr. The Philadelphia architectural firm was known for its theater designs—100 theaters in total, 46 of them in Philadelphia alone. From the day it first opened, the Everett was a favorite place for everyone in the area to enjoy new motion pictures or vaudeville stage performances.
Generations of Middletown area residents enjoyed the special experience of seeing a movie in a distinguished movie house. The Everett Theatre was beloved by many. That fact didn’t always protect it from societal pressures. As televisions and state-of-the-art movie theaters and shopping malls all took away the Everett’s potential audience, it fell on hard times. In 1983, a group of concerned citizens formed the Associated Community Talents, Inc., a nonprofit organization, to purchase the Everett Theatre and restore it. Associated Community Talents, Inc. evolved into The Everett, Inc. That nonprofit operates both the Everett Theatre and The Gibby Center for the Arts. Live theatre in 2019 kicks off the season with Mary Poppins.
Central Delaware Theater to be Enjoyed
The Kent County Theater Guild history began in 1953 when Alan Hunn, Earl Scheidt, Dick Clark and Sug Adlam met and discussed the need for a community theater in Kent County. Adlam suggested an ad be placed calling on all who shared the same interest to attend a meeting and 50 folks showed up! As a result, the Kent County Theatre Guild was formed, a charter and bylaws were drafted, and Alan Hunn was elected the Guild’s first President of the Board of Trustees. KCTG has been providing quality, award-winning theater to the central Delaware community since 1953. The Guild currently presents five shows each season—January through December. The 100-seat house Patchwork Playhouse provides every patron an excellent view of the elevated stage. The intimacy of a small theater makes each audience member feel part of the production—lending itself to an important aspect of community theater.
The Second Street Players at the Riverfront Theatre Milford is a year-round community theater which produces shows covering practically every genre. Included in yearly productions, you will find musicals, dramas, comedies, original works, Children’s Dessert Theater and cooperative productions with other cultural groups and schools.
Riverfront Theater is located at 2 South Walnut Street on the south bank of the Mispillion River in scenic downtown Milford. The theater is handicapped accessible and can accommodate the hearing impaired.
SSP programs are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
Check out the schedule for this current season.
Performing Arts in Southern Delaware
The Milton Theatre located in historic downtown Milton Delaware, has had an illustrious history in its more than 100-year existence. Erected circa 1910, the two-story building served, at one time or another, as the town’s movie theatre, basketball hall, fire station, social center and community stage. Various retail businesses and restaurants also thrived there. It has survived three major fires, countless “nor’easters,” and decades of neglect. But now, it proudly stands as a hub of artistic culture, not just to the town of Milton, but to the Delmarva Peninsula.
Since its reopening four years ago, the Milton Theatre has been a catalyst for the flourishing arts and entertainment scene in the region. Currently hosting more than 300 events this year, the Milton Theatre is now considered the gem of the DelMarVa Peninsula.
What an exciting season including live theatre at the Milton Theatre.
The Possum Point Players is a volunteer community theater organization. All productions take place at POSSUM HALL, a 184-seat handicapped-accessible facility.
The Possum Point Players (PPP) was formed, “to contribute to the cultural diversity and vitality of Sussex County, Delaware, by bringing the experience of live theater for education and enjoyment to residents and visitors alike.” The non-profit community theater group has achieved that goal annually since April of 1973 and has earned a reputation for bringing to the stage productions that have been consistently well received by critics and the community.
With support of all kinds from Sussex County and the surrounding community, PPP has experienced phenomenal growth over the years. The theater offerings total hundreds of different shows including dozens of Broadway or full-length musicals. PPP has staged comedies, dramas, Christmas shows, children’s shows, and musical reviews, it has produced performances by the Possum Juniors, historical productions, readers theater events, melodramas, and one woman shows. PPP has also presented dozens of shows in dinner theater and “champagne dessert” theater formats.
Take a look at the current season!
The Clear Space Theatre Company, a 501(c)3 cultural organization, founded in 2004, is located at 20 Baltimore Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971. The Clear Space Theatre Company is comprised of a remarkable team of full-time, part-time, and volunteer administrators, artists, and educators.
The Three Facets of Clear Space are: The Acting Company (a professional acting company producing dozens of performances each season); The Arts Institute (an educational program offering classes to more than 500 students of all ages); On Tour (community presentations in southern Delaware using professional actors and outstanding students, offered in cooperation with local civic groups).Clear Space Theatre, Rehoboth Beach, provides approximately 150 professional theatre performances each year. The company’s performances are developed by a paid team of theatrical artisans, emphasizing exceptional acting, elaborate costumes, and creative lighting. The talented casts, often utilizing students of the Arts Institute, performed for more than 15,000 theatre-goers in 2015 at the Company’s home at Baltimore Avenue or through ongoing partnerships at Milton Theatre, the Schwartz Center for the Arts in Dover and the Freeman Stage in Fenwick Island.
A typical season includes:
Summer Repertory a rotation of three popular Broadway shows, specifically targeting the summer tourists of Rehoboth Beach.
- TWO Spring Musicals, plus a smaller musical in the Fall
- TWO Plays – Spring and Fall, plus a one-person play in June
- A reader’s theatre presentation each March in cooperation with a local community non-profit
- A seasonal musical for the holiday season
Read about the current season at Clear Space Theatre.
The Dickens Parlour Theatre performers are from all over the world and continue to give generously of their time and talent in supporting Dickens. Dickens hosts a different magician every week of the year. This growing cabal of conjurors is quickly amounting to one of the larger magic families on the planet.
During the summer they feature world class magic shows at 7:00pm every night. In the off-season shows are on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings at 7:00pm.
The Parlour opens at 6:00pm, with complimentary popcorn and beverages available for purchase.
The Freeman Stage, an open-air performing arts venue located near Fenwick Island, Delaware, first opened in the summer of 2008. A program of the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation, a fundraising 501(c)3 nonprofit arts organization, The Freeman Stage presents diverse programming in the genres of dance, live music, theatre and children’s programming.
The Joshua M. Freeman Foundation is proudly accredited by the Standards for Excellence Institute® as having met all the requirements of the Standards for Excellence®: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector.
Notice the theatrical performances by Clear Space Theatre listed among the many performances in this current schedule!
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