Shows to Make Your Mind Travel

We all need a little escape from time to time – be it to the beach to soak up a little sunshine, or to the mountains to swoosh your skirt and sing amongst the flowers.

To help you on your travels, we’ve made a list of a few shows that will make you feel as though you’re wandering the world from the comfort of your own home!

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A Madhouse in Goa by Martin Sherman
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2f, 4m)
Destination: Corfu and Santorini, Greece
Webs of personal, political, sexual, social and artistic deception unfold in the indigo nights and bright days of the Greek islands in this two-part play. In A Table for a King, a writer helps blackmail an unpleasant and uncompromising woman who refuses to relinquish her table on the terrace of a Corfu hotel for the King of Greece. Part Two, Keeps Rainin’ All the Time, moves to Santorini, where a disparate group of expatriates, including a famous author, face nuclear rain, terrorism and the impending eruption of the volcano.
(US/UK)

Amélie by Craig Lucas, Nathan Tysen, Daniel Messe, Jean Pierre Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 5f, 7m, 1girl)
Destination: Paris, France
Amélie is an extraordinary young woman who lives quietly in the world, but loudly in her mind. She covertly improvises small but surprising acts of kindness that bring joy and mayhem. But when a chance at love comes her way, Amélie realises that to find happiness she’ll have to risk everything and say what’s in her heart. Be inspired by this imaginative dreamer who finds her voice, discovers the power of connection, and sees possibility around every corner.
(US/UK)

Anastasia: The Musical by Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 4f, 5m, 1girl)
Destination: Saint Petersburg, Russia and Paris, France
This dazzling show will transport you from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s, as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Pursued by a ruthless Soviet officer determined to silence her, Anya enlists the aid of a dashing con man and a lovable ex-aristocrat. Together, they embark on an epic adventure to help her find home, love and family.
(US/UK)

Anything Goes by Cole Porter, Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 4f, 3m)
Destination: London, England, the Atlantic Ocean and New York City, USA
”There’s no cure like travel!” Join Reno Sweeney and her shipmates as they sail the S.S. American from London to New York in this nautical romantic comedy. Music, dance, laughs, and the age-old tale of Boy Meets Girl… Anything Goes is Delightful, Delicious and De-Lovely.
(US/UK)

Cabaret by Joe Masteroff, John Van Druten, Christopher Isherwood, John Kander and Fred Ebb
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 4f, 3m)
Destination: Berlin, Germany
In a Berlin nightclub, as the 1920’s draw to a close, a garish Master of Ceremonies welcomes the audience and assures them they will forget all their troubles at the Cabaret. With the Emcee’s bawdy songs as wry commentary, Cabaret explores the dark, heady, and tumultuous life of Berlin’s natives and expatriates as Germany slowly yields to the emerging Third Reich. Cliff, a young American writer newly arrived in Berlin, is immediately taken with English singer Sally Bowles. Meanwhile, Fräulein Schneider, proprietor of Cliff and Sally’s boarding house, tentatively begins a romance with Herr Schultz, a mild-mannered fruit seller who happens to be Jewish.
(US/UK)

California Suite by Neil Simon
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 3f, 2m)
Destination: California, USA
A humorous confection divided into four parts, each featuring guests who have travelled to Los Angeles. From New York, Hannah, a magazine writer, and her ex-husband debate the question: with whom should their daughter spend the next six months? From Philadelphia, a wife arrives at the suite, catching her husband with a prostitute. London actress Diana returns from the Academy Awards ceremony empty-handed, and her homosexual husband Sidney offers no comfort. And finally, from Chicago, two couples end a disastrous vacation they should never have embarked on together.
(US/UK)

Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1f, 3m, 2m or f)
Destination: Cambodia
In 1978, Chum fled Cambodia and narrowly escaped the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. Thirty years later, he returns in search of his wayward daughter, Neary. Jumping back and forth in time, thrilling mystery meets rock concert as both father and daughter are forced to face the music of the past, and move together into a new future.
(US)

Do I Hear a Waltz? by Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy  /  5f, 4m, 1boy(s)
Destination: Venice, Italy
Leona, an unmarried American secretary, goes on a vacation to Venice where, under the spell of that enchanted city, she falls in love. The gentleman is an attractive, middle-aged shopkeeper, whose attentions give flight to her deepest dreams of romance. But this tale of Mediterranean romance isn’t as straightforward as it seems to be.
(US/UK)

Gypsy by Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim and Gypsy Rose Lee
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 6f, 2m)
Destination: Seattle, Los Angeles, Akron, New York, Omaha, Texas, Wichita, Detroit, Philadelphia and other locations throughout the USA
Gypsy is the ultimate tale of an ambitious stage mother fighting for her daughters’ success – while secretly yearning for her own. Set all across America in the 1920s and 30s, when vaudeville was dying and burlesque was born, Arthur Laurents’ landmark show explores the world of two-bit show business with brass, humour, heart, and sophistication.
(US/UK)

Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 4f, 4m)
Destination: Tuscany, Italy
Margaret Johnson, the wife of an American businessman, is touring the Tuscan countryside with her daughter, Clara. While sightseeing, Clara loses her hat in a sudden gust. As if guided by an unseen hand, the hat lands at the feet of Fabrizio Naccarelli, a handsome Florentine, who returns it to her. This brief episode, charged with coincidence and fate, sparks an immediate and intense romance between Clara and Fabrizio. Margaret, extremely protective of her daughter, attempts to keep Clara and Fabrizio apart. But as events unfold, a secret is revealed that surprises them all.
(US/UK)

London Suite by Neil Simon
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 3f, 3m)
Destination: London, England
America’s premier comic playwright crosses the Atlantic for a suite of hilarious comedies set in a deluxe London hotel; a sedate place until a few interesting characters check in, one story at a time. Set as four different plays in one, London Suite features a bit of everything: villains, romance, moments of deep realisation, and dash of Kevin Costner.
(US/UK)

Milk and Honey by Don Appell and Jerry Herman
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 2f, 3m)
Destination: Israel
Jerry Herman’s first full-length Broadway musical is a romantic comedy-drama set in Israel during the nation’s early days of independence. A group of American widows – led by the hilariously blunt and amiable Clara – tour the country by bus in hopes of landing a husband. Meanwhile, two lonely Americans named Ruth and Phil meet and begin a mid-life romance, hoping to overcome any obstacles to their happiness.
(US/UK)

Murder on the Nile by Agatha Christie
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 5f, 8m)
Destination: Along the River Nile
Kay Ridgeway has led a charmed life. Blessed with beauty, enormous wealth, and a new husband, she embarks on a honeymoon voyage down the Nile. Fatal circumstances await when the idyllic surroundings are shattered by a shocking and brutal murder. Under scrutiny is a multitude of memorable passengers, all with a reason to kill. The tension and claustrophobia builds, as a shocking and audacious conspiracy is laid bare.
(US/UK)

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie and Ken Ludwig
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 5f, 5m)
Destination: Simplon-route of the Orient Express (Istanbul to London)
Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train is surprisingly full for the time of the year, but by the morning it is one passenger fewer. An American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Isolated and with a killer in their midst, detective Hercule Poirot must identify the murderer – before he or she decides to strike again.
(US)

No Strings by Richard Rodgers and Samuel Taylor
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 5f, 5m)
Destination: Paris, France
A successful high-fashion model meets and falls in love with a writer in Paris. While this Pulitzer prizewinner has been trying to recover from a prolonged case of writer’s block, he’s assumed the dubious role of charming intellectual-in-residence at some of the Continent’s more luxurious watering holes. As the model’s work takes them on a whirlwind tour of the most exclusive European playgrounds, their romance develops into the first deeply-felt, honest relationship either has ever known.
(US/UK)

Plaza Suite by Neil Simon
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 5f, 7m)
Destination: New York City
Hilarity abounds in this portrait of three couples staying at the Plaza Hotel. A suburban couple take the suite while their house is being painted and it turns out to be the one in which they honeymooned. There’s also a Hollywood producer who, after three marriages, is looking for fresh fields, and decides to call a childhood sweetheart, now a suburban housewife, for a little fun. The last couple is a mother and father fighting about the best way to get their daughter out of the bathroom and down to the ballroom.
(US/UK)

Sail Away by Noël Coward
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 8f, 9m)
Destination: Mediterranean
In this shipboard musical comedy, recent divorcée Mimi Paragon is serving tourists as a ship’s hostess when she falls for the much younger and strikingly handsome Johnny Van Mier. Complicating their relationship is a host of eccentric and hilario
us cruise ship characters – from the cynical and quirky Sweeneys to Johnny’s dominating and diva-like mother, Mrs. Van Mier, to the wacky novelist Spencer Bollard and her wide-eyed niece, Nancy. The Noël Coward score includes “You’re A Long, Long Way From America” and “Why Do The Wrong People Travel?”
(US)

Samsara by Lauren Yee
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2f, 3m)
Destination: India
Katie and Craig are having a baby… with a surrogate… who lives in India. A month before the baby’s due date, Craig reluctantly travels to the subcontinent, where he meets Suraiya, their young, less-than-thrilled surrogate. As all three “parents” anxiously wait for the baby to be born, flights of fancy attack them from all sides, in the form of an unctuous Frenchman and a smart-mouthed fetus. A whimsical take on modern day colonialism.
(US/UK)

Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1f)
Destination: Greece
The heroine in this actor’s tour-de-force is an ordinary middle class English housewife. As she prepares chips and egg for dinner, she ruminates on her life and tells the wall about her husband, her children, her past, and an invitation from a girlfriend to join her on holiday in Greece to search for romance and adventure. Ultimately, Shirley does escape to Greece, has an “adventure” with a local fisherman and decides to stay.
(US/UK)

The Great Leap by Lauren Yee
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1f, 3m)
Destination: Beijing, China
When an American college basketball team travels to Beijing for a “friendship” game in the post-Cultural Revolution 1980s, both countries try to tease out the politics behind this newly popular sport. Cultures clash as the Chinese coach tries to pick up moves from the Americans and Chinese-American player Manford spies on his opponents.
(US/UK)

The King and I by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Margaret Landon and Jerome Robbins
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 3f, 4m, 2boy(s)
Destination: Bangkok, Thailand
It is 1862 in Siam when an English widow, Anna Leonowens, and her young son arrive at the Royal Palace in Bangkok, having been summoned by the King to serve as tutor to his many children and wives. The King is largely considered to be a “barbarian” by those in the West, and he seeks Anna’s assistance in changing his image, if not his ways. With both keeping a firm grip on their respective traditions and values, Anna and the King grow to understand and respect one another in a truly unique love story.
(US/UK)

The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman, Lucy Simon and Frances Hodgson Burnett
(Full-Length Musical, Drama / 10f, 12m, 1girl(s)
Destination: Yorkshire, England
Orphaned in India, 11-year-old Mary Lennox returns to Yorkshire to live with her embittered, reclusive uncle Archibald and his invalid son Colin. The estate’s many wonders include a magic garden which beckons the children with haunting melodies and the “Dreamers”, spirits from Mary’s past who guide her through her new life, dramatising The Secret Garden‘s compelling tale of forgiveness and renewal.
(US/UK)

The Sound of Music by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse and Maria Augusta Trapp
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 7f, 4m, 5girl(s), 2boy(s)
Destination: Austria
The inspirational story, based on the memoir of Maria Augusta Trapp, follows an ebullient postulate who serves as governess to the seven children of the imperious Captain Von Trapp, bringing music and joy to the household. But as the forces of Nazism take hold of Austria, Maria and the entire Von Trapp family must make a moral decision.
(US/UK)

The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Harold Arlen, E. Y. Harburg, Herbert Stothart, Peter Howard, Larry Wilcox and John Kane
(Full-Length Musical, Dramatic Comedy / 3f, 5m, 16 any gender)
Destination: Kansas, USA and The Land of Oz
Follow the yellow brick road in this delightful stage adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s beloved tale, featuring the iconic musical score from the MGM film. The timeless tale, in which young Dorothy Gale travels from Kansas over the rainbow to the magical Land of Oz, continues to thrill audiences worldwide.
(US/UK)

To discover more shows that’ll transport you somewhere new, just visit our website!

In North America, visit concordtheatricals.com. In the UK and Europe, visit concordtheatricals.co.uk.

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Photo: Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee (Joan Marcus)