Broadway’s New Season: ‘A Few Good Men,’ a Singing Galileo, and a Dolly Parton Musical

Autumn is upon us, which means an increasing number of high-profile productions are set to open on Broadway in the months ahead. As is typically the case, they’ll include an assortment of new works, revivals, and transfers, as well as beloved troupers and at least a sprinkling of film and TV stars – not that those two categories are always mutually exclusive.Perhaps most notably, after a dire season for original musicals, two will arrive before Christmas that are neither screen adaptations nor jukebox outings. Fans will also be able to see “The Fantasticks,” the longest-running musical in history, in its outrageously overdue Broadway premiere, which will feature some very conspicuous adjustments. Here’s a quick look at what’s in store. (Dates and other production details are subject to change.)“School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play” Jocelyn Bioh’s acclaimed comedy, set in a Ghanaian boarding school, makes its Broadway premiere, with red-hot director Whitney White (last season’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Liberation,” Ms. Bioh’s “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”) and a cast featuring Tony winner Patina Miller and the rising star Jasmine Amy Rogers, who will also lead a new staging of “The Sound of Music” next spring. (Previews begin September 8, opens September 28),“The Imaginary Invalid” Molière’s hypochondriac returns to Broadway for the first time in nearly 60 years, played, most fortuitously, by the great actor and clown Bill Irwin, who also adapted the play. Brandon J. Dirden, better known for his work onstage—he earned a Tony nomination for last season’s “Waiting for Godot”—will direct a company that also includes Brooks Ashmanskas, Dylan Baker, and Rachel Bloom. (September 25, October 22)“Other Desert Cities” Julia Louis-Dreyfus will make her Broadway debut in a starry revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s Pulitzer finalist, a razor-sharp account of a family gathering rocked by the announcement of a memoir revealing dark secrets. She’ll be joined by Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe, under Tony-winning actor John Benjamin Hickey’s direction. (September 29, October 18)Billy Crystal in ‘Mr. Saturday Night’ on Broadway in 2022. Matthew Murphy“860” More than two decades after introducing “700 Sundays,” a recollection of his youth and his late father, Billy Crystal—who last appeared on Broadway a few years back in a musical adaptation of “Mr. Saturday Night,” the 1992 film—is back with another highly personal solo piece, this time stemming from the loss of his California home in the Palisades Fire of early 2025, with Broadway veteran Scott Ellis helming. (October 1, October 21)“A Few Good Men” The bracing study of a military trial and cover-up that marked Aaron Sorkin’s Broadway bow, and later became a movie starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, gets its first revival here, with a company led by Bradley Whitford and Tom Blyth. Michael Arden, a two-time Tony winner who has earned wide praise in recent years guiding musicals such as “Maybe Happy Ending” and “The Lost Boys,” directs. (October 8, October 29)“WANTED” Solea Pfeiffer and Liisi LaFontaine star in a new musical tracing the “mostly true” story of Mary and Martha Clarke, black twin sisters who in late 19th-century century Texas defied legal and racial boundaries (passing as white) to settle a debt and save their home. Solea Pfeiffer and Liisi LaFontaine play the siblings, R&B and stage veteran Ledisi is cast as their mother, and Stevie Walker-Webb directs, with music by Ross Baum and a book and lyrics by Angelica Chéri. (October 15, November 8)“The Fantasticks” Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s musical following a pair of fathers who scheme to make a love match between one’s son and the other’s daughter enjoyed more than 17,000 performances off-Broadway between 1960 and 2002, and produced such enduring gems as “Try to Remember” and “Soon It’s Gonna Rain.” Now it’s finally making its Broadway debut, with a twist: Mr. Jones’s has revised the libretto and lyrics so that the parents are now moms, trying to get their sons together. Christopher Gattelli, fresh from “Schmigadoon!,” directs and choreographs. (October 22, November 16)‘The 30th anniversary national tour of ‘The Fantasticks’ in 1990. Wikimedia Commons“Much Ado About Nothing” British director Jamie Lloyd, who seems to have never met a classic play or musical he couldn’t simultaneously strip down and puff up, brushes up on his Shakespeare in a production, starring Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell, that has already, predictably, drawn raves across the Atlantic. (Fans will have to wait until spring to see Mr. Lloyd’s similarly praised “Evita.”) (October 31, November 19)“Here There Are Blueberries” What were the everyday lives of Hitler’s collaborators in genocide like? Inspired by the discovery, nearly 20 years ago, of photos documenting workers at Auschwitz, playwright and director Moisés Kaufman and co-writer Amanda Gronich explore the banality of evil in this Pulitzer finalist, which premiered off-Broadway two years ago. (November 2, November 9)“Inter Alia” Suzie Miller, an Australian attorney-turned-playwright who gained fame with the she-said legal drama “Prima Facie,” returns to court, with a story about a female judge who confronts sexual assault from a very different angle. Rosamund Pike, known for her compelling portraits of complicated women on screen, makes her Broadway bow in the production, another London transport—it won Ms. Pike an Olivier Award for best actress—directed by Justin Martin. (November 10, December 1)“Galileo” Like Brecht before them, playwright and screenwriter (and actor) Danny Strong and composer/lyricists Zoe Sarnak and Michael Weiner saw dramatic potential in the life of the Italian scientist and polymath. They apparently also thought he should sing, and were able to enlist one of our more charismatic musical actors, Raúl Esparza, and A-list musical director Michael Mayer for this production, which premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. (November 10, December 6)“Dolly: A True Original Musical” This much-anticipated bio-musical drawing on the story and music of the recently deceased Dolly Parton, a truly original and universally adored star, won’t officially open until next year, on what would have been Parton’s 81st birthday. But with Bartlett Sher on board—a director who has adroitly and lovingly guided the work of other American icons, from Rogers and Hammerstein to August Wilson—there’s extra reason to be excited, or at least intrigued. (December 7, January 19)

Broadway’s New Season: ‘A Few Good Men,’ a Singing Galileo, and a Dolly Parton Musical

Broadway’s New Season: ‘A Few Good Men,’ a Singing Galileo, and a Dolly Parton Musical

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