CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — The Virginia Theater Festival announced its 2026 season will feature productions of Ken Ludwig’s “Moriarty,” Disney’s “Newsies” and “Frida…A Self Portrait,” last Tuesday. The festival’s 52nd second will open June 20 and run through July 26.

“I love working with the Virginia Theater Festival because it’s opportunity to have an intersection between kind of the best of Charlottesville and the best of theater nationwide,” artistic director Jenny Wales told Cville Right Now. “We bring in artists from all over the country to work here with local artists, students, faculty and staff to put these shows together.”

The festival will kick off with Ken Ludwig’s “Moriarty,” a new adaption of a Sherlock Holmes story that Wales described as both funny and thrilling with five actors playing over 40 roles. the play will run at the Ruth Caplin Theatre from June 20-28.

Next will be Disney’s “Newsies,” a stage production based on the 1992 movie musical of the same name. The inspiring story follows a young newspaper boy who band together with his fellow “newsies” to protest unfair working conditions. It will run from July 9-19 in the Culbreth Theatre.

Finally, the festival will end with “Frida…A Self Portrait,” a one-woman show written and performed by Vanessa Severo that explores the life and artistry of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. The show will run at the Ruth Caplin Theatre from July 23-26.

The festival is a program of the University of Virginia, and each show will be held in the UVA Drama Building. Wales said keeping the event on Grounds is “incredible” for both the university and the community as a whole.

“I think it’s a great way, particularly in the summer, to have a forward-facing arts organization that’s providing opportunities for our students, our facility and our staff, but also our community members to come to Grounds to see the work we’re doing,” she said.

Wales said the process of picking the festival’s lineup each year comes down to a number of factors, including each show’s size, scope and type. She says the key is finding a balance for the festival’s local audiences that allow people to find something they want to see.

“We really try to look at the balance of it,” she said. “So, the fall is spent doing a lot of research. Reading a lot of plays, seeing a lot of plays and then figuring out how the calendar works and slotting the shows in the spaces.”

With the shows in place, the festival’s organizers begin reaching out to directors, designers, technicians and actors among others to put together each show’s creative teams.

That process is still ongoing, as the festival’s organizers will be hosting local auditions for “Moriarty” and “Newsies” on Feb. 20 and 21 on actors 18 years and older in the UVA Drama Building, with callbacks for “Newsies” taking place from Feb. 22-24, with callbacks for “Moriarty” occurring at a later date.

Actors who are between 8-17 years old can audition to be a “Brooklyn Boy” in “Newsies” on Feb. 23 at Belmont Arts Collaborative and DMR Adventures. The festival is also partnered with DMR Adventures, a Charlottesville-based performing arts academy, to support the young actors who will be cast in “Newsies.”

Tickets for the festival will go on sale April 17,