Calgary's theatre season heats up just as the cold sets in. This November, the city has five very different productions on its stages — a horror-comedy musical, a Disney spectacular, a live-orchestra screening of a Tim Burton classic, a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and a rock biopic show honouring Ozzy Osbourne.
Kicking things off at the Martha Cohen Theatre (215 8th Ave. SE) is Evil Dead: The Musical, running November 1–14, 2026, with 7:30 p.m. curtain times. It follows five college students whose cabin getaway goes badly wrong when they unleash a demonic force — expect gore played for laughs. Tickets start at $59.
If you'd rather ease out of Halloween, The Nightmare Before Christmas in Concert lands at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium (1415 14th Ave. NW) on Friday, November 6 at 7:30 p.m. The film plays on a big screen while the FILMharmonique Orchestra performs Danny Elfman's score live.
The same venue hosts Disney's Beauty and the Beast from November 10–15, also at 7:30 p.m. It's the full-scale stage version with the familiar songs — "Be Our Guest" and the title ballad among them — but it's the priciest of the bunch, with tickets starting at $185.60. The Jubilee then closes out the month with The Story of Ozzy Osbourne on November 20, where Mike Braniff performs "Crazy Train," "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" with a live band, woven together with stories from Ozzy's Black Sabbath years onward. Tickets start at $79.50.
For something moodier, Vertigo Theatre (115 9th Ave. SE, unit 161) stages Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty from November 14 through December 19. The plot starts with a dead government clerk carrying classified documents and spirals into a string of deaths tied to Holmes's greatest rival. Prices vary by date, and the longer run makes this the easiest one to fit around a weekend trip.
Why it matters for travellers: November is a shoulder season in Calgary — ski season hasn't fully kicked off and the weather is chilly — which makes an evening show an easy anchor for a city break. The good news for planners is that most of these are clustered downtown or near the Saddledome area, so you can pair a performance with dinner on 17th Avenue or a stroll along the Bow River. The Jubilee Auditorium shows work well as a splurge night, while Evil Dead and Sherlock Holmes offer more budget-friendly entry points. Book ahead for Beauty and the Beast, since a five-night Disney run tends to sell fast.
