B Street Theatre Extends Around The World In 80 Days Through Sept. 13

Sacramento's B Street Theatre has extended its 2026 production of Around the World in 80 Days through September 13, adding five extra showtimes after ticket demand outpaced the original schedule. The fast-paced comedy, staged as the centerpiece of the company's 40th-anniversary season, follows Phileas Fogg and his newly hired servant Passepartout as they race around the globe on trains, ships, hikes and even an elephant to win a bet.

The extension adds performances Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 6 p.m., Saturday at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m., stacked on top of the regular schedule that already runs Tuesdays through Sundays, according to Sacramento News & Review. B Street also confirmed the run extension through mid-September on its own social channels, citing strong local ticket sales as the reason for adding five extra showtimes.

Adapted by playwright Mark Brown from Jules Verne's 1872-set globe-spanning tale, the script has become one of the most-produced comedies in American regional theater. It premiered in September 2001 and has repeatedly landed on American Theatre magazine's list of the countries' most-produced plays, having been staged across North America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

A Script With Deep Roots In Sacramento

This isn't B Street's first trip around the world. The company debuted Mark Brown's version of the play two decades before this remount and has staged it three more times since, according to the Sacramento News & Review account of the production's history. In September 2020, B Street even convened original cast members Greg Alexander, Elisabeth Nunziato, Dave Pierini, Amy Resnick and Michael Stevenson for an anniversary panel to revisit the show's staging history at the theater.

Alexander is the only actor to have appeared in all four of B Street's productions of the comedy, and he returns again for the 2026 anniversary run alongside Hunter Hoffman as Phileas Fogg, Arusi Santi, Tara Sissom and Meher Mistry. The five-person cast portrays dozens of characters as Fogg's journey carries him and Passepartout through London, India, Hong Kong, Japan and San Francisco while Detective Fixx trails them, convinced Fogg is a thief.

Mistry's presence in the cast carries its own backstory. She first saw B Street perform the show during the company's 2014 tour of Meherabad, India, roughly a decade before joining the ensemble for this anniversary staging, a trip that company members Jason Kuykendall and Elisabeth Nunziato later chronicled in a documentary film.

Built For The Sofia's Turntable Stage

The production plays at The Sofia, B Street's home at 2700 Capitol Ave. in Midtown Sacramento since the venue opened in February 2018 as a $30 million, 45,000-square-foot facility, according to CapRadio. The building includes a 250-seat mainstage and a 365-seat children's theater, replacing B Street's former retrofitted venue on B Street itself.

Unlike that earlier space, where stages sat on a concrete slab under a 13-foot ceiling, The Sofia was engineered with subterranean trap space and high fly space above the stage, allowing actors and scenery to emerge directly from beneath the floorboards. That technical capacity made possible the custom set designed by Ian Wallace for this production: a revolving stage built as a rotating compass and clock, paired with digital projections depicting train rides, jungles, pagoda tiles and other scenery to give the show cinematic scale.

Sound designer John Lamb provides all of the production's foley effects live onstage, including shuffling cards, clinking glasses, trains, storms and elephant trumpeting timed to the action. Director Lyndsay Burch, who became the first woman to hold B Street's artistic director position when she was appointed in May 2022 after originally joining the company as a directing intern in 2013, leads the anniversary staging.

A Milestone Season For B Street

The 40th-anniversary run arrives on the heels of national recognition for the company, which the National Theatre Conference named its 2025 Outstanding Theatre for its work incubating new American plays and providing regional arts education. B Street traces its roots to 1986, when actor Timothy Busfield founded it as Theatre for Children, Inc., a mobile touring troupe that later expanded into adult mainstage productions in 1991 alongside his brother, Buck Busfield.

The Sofia has hosted a range of Sacramento arts programming beyond this production over the years, including a tea shop that once opened inside the venue and film screenings tied to the Sacramento Film Festival. Regular performances of Around the World in 80 Days continue Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m., Wednesdays at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., with the added showtimes running through the newly extended closing date of September 13.