Death Becomes Her — Straz Center

Death Becomes Her is the Tony-winning stage musical based on the 1992 Robert Zemeckis film about two rival women — played on screen by Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn — who both drink a magic potion promising eternal youth, then spend the rest of the story literally falling apart while refusing to die. The stage version keeps the film’s most famous gags as live illusions: a 360-degree head-spin trick done with stunt doubles and timed stagecraft, a staircase tumble designed by an actual illusion designer, and a shotgun blast through one character’s stomach shown as a cloud of smoke instead of the film’s visible hole. It’s played in front of a live orchestra on a proscenium the production itself describes as IMAX-screen-sized.

It premiered in Chicago in May 2024, moved to Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre that November, and closed its Broadway run in June 2026 after 650 performances — a real, completed hit, not an untested property, before launching this national tour.

It’s a comedy built on vanity, aging, and dark slapstick violence played for laughs — fine for teens and adults, but the humor (and some of the gorier illusions) will go over younger kids’ heads or just not land as funny.

Good to know: Carol Morsani Hall, Straz Center, 1010 N W.C. MacInnes Pl, Tampa, FL 33602. Dec. 8-13, mostly 7:30pm evenings with a Saturday 2pm matinee and Sunday 1pm and 6:30pm shows. Tickets from around $85-120, through Ticketmaster.