Ogunquit Playhouse is taking Mary Poppins to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for the holidays, with Talia Suskauer in the title role and Tony Award nominee A.J. Shively as Bert. The production runs at The Music Hall from December 2–20, 2026.
The Playhouse named its two principals on October 7. Both have worked with the company before, and this is its holiday show for 2026, staged across the state line from its home in Ogunquit, Maine, at The Music Hall's 1878 Victorian theater in downtown Portsmouth.
Suskauer played Audrey in the Playhouse's Little Shop of Horrors in 2024. Her more recent work includes Lucille Frank in the North American tour of the Tony Award-winning revival of Parade and Pearl in A Walk on the Moon, a 2026 Off-Broadway musical. She is best known as Elphaba in Wicked, a role she played on Broadway and on the national tour, and she made her Broadway debut in 2019 in the original company of Be More Chill.
Shively is back at The Music Hall a year after playing Bob Wallace in the Playhouse's 2025 holiday staging of Irving Berlin's White Christmas. He earned a Tony nomination as Owen Duignan in Paradise Square, created the role of Billy Cane in Bright Star, and first appeared on Broadway as Jean-Michel in the 2010 revival of La Cage aux Folles.
“We are proud to welcome two highly regarded members of the Playhouse family home for the holidays to star in this beloved Disney production,” said Bradford Kenney, the Playhouse's executive artistic director. “Mary Poppins offers the perfect spoonful of Sherman Brothers music, Disney magic, and P. L. Travers merriment. What a way to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year!”
The musical adapts the P. L. Travers stories and the Walt Disney film. It keeps the original music and lyrics of Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, with a book by Julian Fellowes and new songs and additional music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe; Cameron Mackintosh co-created it. The score includes A Spoonful of Sugar, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Chim Chim Cher-ee.
Shaun Kerrison, who directed the Playhouse's Titanic, stages the production, with choreography by Jeffry Denman and music direction by Jeffrey Campos. The design team is David Arsenault (additional scenic elements), Richard Latta (lighting), Colleen Grady (costumes), Brian Simons (costume coordination), Mike Tracey (sound) and Roxanne De Luna (wigs, hair and makeup). Casting is by ARC, and the rest of the company will be announced later.
Tickets are on sale now at TheMusicHall.org, by phone at 603.436.2400 and in person at The Music Hall box office, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. An ASL-interpreted performance is scheduled for Friday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m.
