‘Best of Broadway’ Cabaret Series Brings Musical Theatre to Mobile

MOBILE, Ala. — Local musical theatre fans have a new reason to head downtown: JF Morris Performance LLC is launching a ‘Best of Broadway’ Cabaret Series celebrating the world of musical theatre, with productions scheduled to run through May 2024. The series pairs the intimacy of the cabaret format with the big songs of the Broadway canon, and it arrives with a distinctly local stamp: a Mobile-based production team and a cast drawn from the area’s own performing artists.

Cabaret-style programming has long offered theatre audiences something a full production cannot — performers close enough to talk to the room, songs delivered without sets or scene changes, and an evening shaped as much by the performers’ storytelling as by the material itself. The ‘Best of Broadway’ series leans into that format, organizing its shows around eras and themes from musical theatre rather than mounting a single show, which allows each performance to range across the genre’s most beloved numbers.

Holiday Shows Kick Off the Season

The series opens with “Mega Musicals” on Dec. 10, followed by “A Very Broadway Holiday” on Dec. 21. Both performances will take place at the Arlene Mitchell Theatre at Spring Hill College.

The venue places the series in one of the city’s most established theatrical settings. Spring Hill College, the Jesuit liberal arts school on the northern edge of the Mobile city limits, has a long tradition of campus theatre, and the Arlene Mitchell Theatre gives the new company a proper stage with the kind of acoustics and seating that suit an evening of vocal performance. Hosting on the Spring Hill campus also connects the series to an audience that has supported college and community theatre in Mobile for generations.

The December dates are a deliberate choice. The weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s are among the busiest on the Gulf Coast entertainment calendar, with audiences looking for holiday outings that go beyond the usual offerings. Opening with “Mega Musicals” and following quickly with “A Very Broadway Holiday” gives the company two chances in the same month to establish its identity — one built around the genre’s showstoppers, the other around the season’s favorites — before the series settles into its longer run through the spring of 2024.

A Company Built on Local Talent

The company behind the series is led by Executive Director Jacob F. Morris, a regional director and performer whose credits include work with Bay Area Performing Arts and the City of Orange Beach. Morris brings to the project experience on both sides of the footlights, and the series’ structure — professional-caliber productions staged with local performers — reflects the career he has built in regional theatre along the Gulf Coast.

The production team also features artistic associates with deep local roots: Seward Studios owner Michael Seward, University of Mobile adjunct instructor Malinda Powers, producer and technical theatre specialist Justin Gipson, and St. Luke’s Episcopal School Theatre Director Hannah Grace Smith.

That roster represents a cross-section of Mobile’s theatre infrastructure. Seward’s studio brings photography and design capabilities that productions increasingly rely on for marketing and archival work. Powers’ position at the University of Mobile ties the series to the school’s vocal and theatre programs and to students training for professional careers. Gipson’s technical background covers the lighting, sound and staging work that separates polished cabaret evenings from simple revues. And Smith’s leadership of a school theatre program connects the company to the next generation of performers and audiences moving through Mobile’s schools.

A Mission Beyond the Stage

Organizers say the Mobile-based production team and cast of local performers are central to the company’s mission of hiring area performing artists while delivering accessible, high-quality entertainment.

That mission addresses a gap that Gulf Coast performers know well. Mobile sits between two larger markets — New Orleans to the west and Pensacola and the Panhandle to the east — and actors, singers and dancers who want regular professional work have historically had to travel to find it. A series that pays local performers to perform at home, season after season, functions as both entertainment and economic support for a creative community that has grown steadily in the city over the past decade.

Beyond putting shows on stage, the series aims to support Mobile’s professional theatre and entertainment industry, giving working performers another outlet close to home. The distinction between “community theatre” and professional work matters to the people who make their living on stage, and companies that commit to hiring working artists help build the kind of scene that keeps trained performers in the region instead of losing them to bigger cities.

The accessible-entertainment side of the mission shapes the business model as well. Cabaret evenings in a college theatre can be priced and scheduled in ways that large touring productions cannot, making live musical theatre available to audiences who rarely buy season subscriptions — families, students, and residents who want a night out downtown or on the Spring Hill campus without the cost of a major venue ticket.

Mobile’s Growing Performance Scene

The series arrives at a moment when Mobile’s live performance landscape has been expanding. The city’s downtown theatre venues have anchored a cultural revival along Dauphin Street and the surrounding blocks, the Saenger Theatre continues to draw touring acts, and community and church stages across the area fill their calendars with musical productions throughout the year. Mobile audiences have historically shown up for musical theatre — the city’s long relationship with touring Broadway shows has made it one of the strongest markets on the Gulf Coast.

What has been thinner is the layer of locally produced professional work between the community stage and the touring roadshow. The ‘Best of Broadway’ Cabaret Series is positioned to occupy exactly that middle ground: fully produced evenings, built and cast in Mobile, running on a schedule that keeps performers working and audiences returning. A run that extends through May 2024 suggests the company is planning a sustained presence rather than a one-time event, with additional themed productions following the December launch.

For the performers, the format offers a particular kind of opportunity. Cabaret evenings spotlight individual voices in a way that book musicals do not, giving local singers the chance to carry major material in front of an attentive room. For directors and technical artists, a series built on themes rather than a single show provides steady creative work across an entire season.

What Audiences Can Expect

The opening production, “Mega Musicals,” points toward the big, era-defining numbers that casual fans know as well as devoted theatre-goers do — the showstoppers that have carried musical theatre from the great white way into popular culture. “A Very Broadway Holiday” follows two weeks later with seasonal material drawn from the stage, timed for audiences planning their December calendars. Performances at the Arlene Mitchell Theatre put the audience close to the performers, and the cabaret format leaves room for the kind of direct connection between singer and song that larger halls rarely allow.

The company has not announced the full slate of productions between the December opening and the May 2024 close, but a series of this length typically unfolds in themed installments, each built around a composer, an era or a style within the musical theatre tradition. That structure lets each show stand on its own while giving subscribers a reason to follow the series across its entire run.

For Mobile’s performing artists, the launch of JF Morris Performance LLC adds a named, local employer to the scene’s short list. For audiences, it adds a reason to be in a theatre seat in December — and, if the company’s plans hold, several more reasons across the seasons that follow. The ‘Best of Broadway’ Cabaret Series opens Dec. 10 with “Mega Musicals” at the Arlene Mitchell Theatre at Spring Hill College, with “A Very Broadway Holiday” to follow Dec. 21.

The connection to Spring Hill College carries weight in Mobile’s theatre history as well. The college’s theatre program has trained generations of Mobile performers and audiences alike, and staging a professional series on campus creates a bridge between academic theatre and the working profession — the kind of bridge that lets students see local professionals practicing their craft and lets the community see the college’s facilities put to use in service of the wider scene.

The series’ leadership group also reflects how Gulf Coast theatre careers actually work. Directors, designers and performers in the region typically build careers across multiple organizations — a school production here, a community theatre show there, a commercial project across the state line — and a company that assembles working artists from that same ecosystem gives those careers a steadier foundation. Each of the named artistic associates continues to hold their own positions and studios, and the series layers additional professional work on top of an already active schedule.

For the city, a series that runs through May 2024 represents more than a season of entertainment. Companies that commit to multi-year plans create the continuity that performers need to build lives around the work, that audiences need to form habits around, and that funders and venues need before they invest further. The ‘Best of Broadway’ series is entering that long game deliberately, starting with two December dates at Spring Hill College and building from there.