Lauren Alaina brings 'Stages' to Celebrity Theatre, her first Phoenix show since 2023

Three years and a new album after her last Valley stop, Alaina plays the round room on Dec. 7 with Drew Baldridge and Charles Wesley Godwin.

The stage at Celebrity Theatre has been turning since 1969. On Monday, Dec. 7, it will carry Lauren Alaina around the room for her first Phoenix show in more than three years.

Lauren Alaina headlines Celebrity Theatre on Monday, Dec. 7, with Drew Baldridge and Charles Wesley Godwin on the bill. The show starts at 7 p.m., and tickets are sold through the venue's own site. The date was announced Oct. 26.

Her last Valley stop was Sept. 9, 2023, at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, a big outdoor shed. This one is a 2,650-capacity room in the round, which makes for a very different night: closer, louder in the good way, and with nowhere for a performer to hide.

A lot has happened in between. Alaina's fourth studio album, *Stages*, came out Aug. 28 on Big Loud. It was previewed by "All My Exes," her duet with Chase Matthew, and by "Better Off," which Big Loud released in late May. Since Oct. 1 she has been out on the Stages Tour, a 15-date headlining run that started in Milwaukee and wraps Nov. 12 at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, according to Country Standard Time and Country Now. Big Loud promised a set touching every era of her career, with new songs alongside the older hits, and iHeart called it her "most personal" run of shows yet. She is doing it with company, too: Wide Open Country reported that she would tour with her infant daughter this year.

The Phoenix date falls a few weeks after that run's Ryman finale, so the songs will have had a full fall on the road by the time they reach the Valley.

Then there is the room. Celebrity Theatre is one of the few venues in the country with a revolving stage, installed in 1969, and the building is a rare piece of Brutalist architecture in Phoenix that became a historic landmark in 2017, as Phoenix New Times laid out in its history of the place. The paper once handed it a Best of Phoenix award for the "best place to watch someone sit and rotate," noting that no seat is farther than 75 feet from the stage. For a singer whose new record is pitched as her most personal, that kind of closeness matters.

For a singer whose new record is pitched as her most personal, a room where no seat sits more than 75 feet from the stage matters.

The venue has kept adding to itself, too. In 2024 the lower level reopened as the Encore Lounge, a second stage for smaller artists with a full bar and merch, so there is somewhere to be before the lights go down.

Drew Baldridge and Charles Wesley Godwin round out a full country bill, which makes the 7 p.m. start worth taking seriously. Get there early, find your section, and watch the stage start to move.

Sources: Celebrity Theatre (celebritytheatre.com); Big Loud: Lauren Alaina takes her next chapter on the road with headlining The Stages Tour (bigloud.com); Big Loud: Lauren Alaina releases new anthem 'Better Off' (bigloud.com); Country Standard Time: Alaina announces tour (countrystandardtime.com); Country Now: Lauren Alaina Announces The Stages Tour (countrynow.com); iHeart: Lauren Alaina to kick off 'most personal' run of shows yet (991wqik.iheart.com); Wide Open Country: Lauren Alaina will tour with her infant daughter in 2026 (wideopencountry.com); Phoenix New Times: Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, a history (phoenixnewtimes.com); Phoenix New Times: Best place to watch someone sit and rotate (2005) (phoenixnewtimes.com); Pollstar: Celebrity Theatre unveils Encore Lounge (news.pollstar.com); JamBase: Lauren Alaina at Celebrity Theatre (jambase.com)