Hancher Auditorium’s 53rd season features over 70 performances ranging from the grand to the personal, from the familiar to the new. The schedule includes a Broadway series, traditional performing arts events, cutting-edge multidisciplinary arts, contemporary touring music and comedy, and special events like the Infinite Dream festival.
“Every time we host a performance, it’s an opportunity to bring people together: our campus, our community, and all the artists who visit Iowa City,” said executive director Andre Perry. “We offer a wide range of events with the goal that everyone in our community can find the perfect show to attend—an experience that speaks directly to them.”
The season opens August 28 with a free concert on the Hancher lawn featuring the jam band Goose, fresh off their first sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. From there, a busy schedule of artists lands in Hancher’s main auditorium, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma; Americana-rocker Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit; songwriter Ben Folds; comedian Josh Johnson on his Flowers Tour; actress, comedian, and singer Jane Lynch with her A Swingin’ Little Christmas holiday show; and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra featuring Wynton Marsalis performing a program in honor of Duke Ellington.
The 2025-2026 classical music slate features ten performances ranging from intimate chamber recitals during which audiences will sit onstage with the artists to full auditorium events. The Minnesota Orchestra plays Hancher in November for the first time in 43 years and The Academy of St Martin in the Fields performs in March with violinist Joshua Bell.
This season’s dance program centers two major events. First, the Trisha Brown Dance Company visits Iowa City for a week in November, working closely with University of Iowa Department of Dance students and celebrating their long partnerships with Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg. UI Dance students—with direction from current UI faculty and former Trisha Brown Dance Company members Melinda Myers and Tony Orrico—will perform during the company’s public program, continuing a growing tradition of collaboration between professional dance companies and emerging dancers at the University of Iowa.
In the spring, The Joffrey Ballet will make its first visit to Iowa City since the first season in the new Hancher Auditorium facility. The company’s relationship with Hancher and Iowa City is forty-years strong. In 1987, The Joffrey Ballet debuted its Nutcracker at Hancher followed by the premiere of the international hit Billboards in 1993. In 2016, the company helped open the new Hancher with an updated version of their Nutcracker. The Joffrey’s program in March, American Icons, celebrates their lineage and introduces the company’s work to a new generation of fans and friends.
“I have seen so much collaboration between The Joffrey and Hancher during my years as a student, a Hancher usher, and a longtime full-time staff member,” said Performing Arts at Iowa communications director Rob Cline, who was an usher for Hancher’s world premiere of Billboards. “It has been a wonderful, collaborative, and inspirational relationship for many, many years, and having them back this season is an affirmation that Hancher will always be a home for The Joffrey and will always be a home for dance.”
In addition to the shows on the big stage, the Hancher team is excited to debut the first phase of upgrades and renovations in Club Hancher, a series presented in the smaller Strauss Hall performance space that features alternative music, jazz, stand-up comedy, and cabaret. “Over the past year, our production and front of house teams put a lot of work into making this venue a great experience for our touring artists and patrons,” said Hancher operations director Danielle Wilbanks. “We now have better sound, better lights, and better seats. This first round of improvements rolls out in the fall, and we’ll keep fine-tuning throughout the year.”
Club Hancher typically seats 195 patrons and hosts some events that are mostly standing room only for 300 patrons. Tickets for most Club Hancher shows are $20. “It's essential that patrons feel they can take chances on new and exciting artists in Club Hancher. We've endeavored to make the price-points affordable and accessible for our community,” said programming and engagement director Aaron Greenwald.
Accessibility and engagement are key goals for Hancher. Throughout the season, most events offer $10 tickets for students (any school, any age) and youth. The Hancher is for Hawkeyes sale at the beginning of the semester offers even larger discounts for UI students returning to campus. Many of the visiting artists playing shows will also directly interact with UI students through collaborative performance, coaching, and professional development workshops.
In 2024-2025, Hancher artists visited UI classrooms on average twice every week, serving over 1,700 UI students. Likewise, over 10,000 students attended a public Hancher performance during the 2024-2025 season. “All these efforts contribute to sustaining and growing the UI’s historic commitments to the arts,” said Perry. “As part of the UI’s Performing Arts at Iowa effort, Hancher will continue to build a destination campus that celebrates creativity and creative practice.”
More information about special events like Infinite Dream and the new Stop/Time festivals, artist engagements in the community, and added touring shows will be released in the coming weeks and months.
Some shows have been previously announced and are currently on sale. Tickets for Hancher’s complete 2025-2026 season will go on sale to the public on Monday, July 21, at 10 a.m.
Tickets will be available from the Hancher Box Office, which is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Tickets can be purchased in person or by phone (319-335-1100 or 800-HANCHER) during those hours. Tickets are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at hancher.uiowa.edu and hbotix.hancher.uiowa.edu. All ticket buyers are encouraged to make sure they are at one of those two websites—and no others—when purchasing tickets online.
Explore the full Hancher season at hancher.uiowa.edu/2025-26.