Not that long ago many people considered the stage a place for Shakespearean drama and British period pieces. There were occasional musicals, but those were limited to Broadway and community theater. Today’s theater landscape has changed dramatically.

Powerful stories with and without song tour the country, making the same moving message that originated in New York available in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Currently people in almost every major city can find Color Purple tickets as the forty-year story of Celie, a poor African-American woman, is told with intense writing and touching lyrics.

The stage has become not only a place for tales of Americana, but also for the stories from our childhood to come to live. Mary Poppins is the latest Disney Theatrical production to move from film to stage. The magic and wonder is not lost as the musical take the original Super Nanny and the Banks children on journeys of wonder with a lesson always in sight. This play causes some controversy by adopting a seven and older policy.

One Disney production that has managed to stay kid friendly to all ages has been the Lion King. The Lion King tickets has productions around the world on almost every continent and a few touring companies traveling around the United States. Simba and the Safari come alive with inventive costume design and clever set works that set the musical apart from the Disney classic.

The Little Mermaid has followed the lead and used similar imagination to bring Ariel and the sea to life. With translucent props and wheeled feet the stage flows like the ocean’s currents in this new Broadway production. The stage show delves farther into Hans Christian Andersen’s tale than the animated film, but carries the same excitement throughout.

Sometimes, stage adaptations take a different look at an old story. Wicked tickets fill in the back story of the Wicked Witch of the West before Dorothy and Toto arrive. The much heralded musical is one of the reasons musical theater has bounced back in the last few years. Even after Disney took to the stage, adults were left with few guilty pleasures themselves. Though this production is appropriate for all ages, it has enough layers to speak to adults as much as elementary school children.

The bevy of kid friendly productions has been balanced with a few musicals truly meant only for adults. Audiences have enjoyed Jersey Boys tickets since the raucous juke box musical has told the story of the Four Seasons from the original foursomes point of view, with onstage confessionals guiding the way from struggle to success and all the jail time in between.

Monty Python’s Spamalot is everyone’s inner nerd, dork, or geek’s fantasy. The story of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is reborn in the musical version that freely adds song to the Knights of the Round Table’s hilarious search for the Holy Grail. Eric Idle brings Monty Python classics and Broadway satire that only the tongue in cheek Brit can reproduce.

Theater, especially musical theater, has woken up from its nap and taken its rightful place alongside movies and television in the entertainment world again. Tickets are for all ages and every taste with shows traveling across the nation, reinvigorating everybody’s yearning for great live entertainment.