High-Profile Talent — Including Alicia Keys and the Late Stephen Sondheim — Boosts Excitement for Off-Broadway’s Upcoming Season

Although the theater season technically begins after awards are handed out in May and June, its crop starts blooming in earnest in the fall, and not just on Broadway. The months ahead are set to bring high-profile talent to off-Broadway venues as well, with a vast lineup including new works by artists ranging from pop star Alicia Keys to the late Stephen Sondheim. Here are some of the productions we’re most excited or curious about, with preview and opening dates listed when available — though, like other details, they’re subject to change.‘Infinite Life’Playwright Annie Baker, a Pulitzer Prize winner, returns with an account of five women grappling with physical pain and longing while sitting around in Northern California. An Obie Award winner, James MacDonald, directs a cast that includes such inimitable talents as Marylouise Burke and Kristine Nielsen. (Previews begin August 18, opens September 12)‘Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors’Director Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen co-wrote this comic tour de force, which earned kudos in a starry radio production three years ago. Arnie Burton, Ellen Harvey, and Andrew Keenan-Bolger are among the facile troupers in the new company. (September 4, September 18)‘Job’ Ace character actor Peter Friedman, fresh off his run in “Succession,” plays a “crisis therapist” whose client, portrayed by Sydney Lemmon, has been placed on leave by her big-tech employer after a social media scandal in this new play by Max Wolf Friedlich. (September 6, September 18) Mary Beth Fisher and Bubba Weiler in ‘Swing State.’ Liz Lauren‘Swing State’Rebecca Gilman, who took New York by storm more than 20 years ago with the fearless and prophetic “Spinning into Butter,” visits our contemporary heartland in a new work, hailed by the Chicago Tribune upon its premiere as “perhaps the first of the great American post-COVID plays.” Celebrated veteran Robert Falls, Ms. Gilman’s longtime collaborator, directs. (September 8, September 17)‘The Refuge Plays’ New York Theatre Workshop’s artistic director, Patricia McGregor, directs a world-premiere work by acclaimed playwright Nathan Alan Davis (“Nat Turner in Jerusalem,” “The Wind and the Breeze”), following a Black family over the course of 70 years. (September 14, October 4)‘Here We Are’Sondheim’s swan song, inspired by a pair of Luis Buñuel films and featuring a book by David Ives, will be helmed by the venerated director Joe Mantello, whose company includes theater luminaries such as Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Amber Gray, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale, and David Hyde Pierce. (September 28, October 22)‘All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain’In previous Broadway outings, Patrick Page has lent his imposing presence and basso voice to notorious heavies ranging from Comte de Guiche in “Cyrano de Bergerac” to Scar in “The Lion King.” Mr. Page’s own reflection on the Bard’s bad guys arrives on Broadway, under Simon Godwin’s direction, following a successful run at Washington, D.C. (September 29, October 16) ‘Covenant’ Roundabout Underground has helped launch the careers of such noted playwrights as Joshua Harmon, Stephen Karam, and Steven Levenson; this season, it introduces a new work by York Walker, winner of Vineyard Theatre’s Colman Domingo Award and the John Singleton Short Film Competition, in which rumors swirl around a blues guitar hero returning to his native Georgia. (October 5, October 26)‘I Can Get It For You Wholesale’Julia Lester, who delighted audiences as a piquant Little Red Riding Hood in last season’s revival of “Into the Woods,” inherits the role that brought buzz to a young Barbra Streisand in this revival of the 1962 musical, which also stars musical theater favorites Santino Fontana, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Judy Kuhn, and Sarah Steele. Revisions to Jerome Weidman’s book have been made by his son, John Weidman, a Sondheim collaborator. (October 10, October 30)‘Poor Yella Rednecks’ A Marvel and Disney screenwriter and the “Vietgone” playwright, Qui Nguyen, will reunite with director May Adrales and several actors from the 2016 production of that zesty comedy in a study of a Vietnamese family seeking to start a new life in Arkansas. (October 10, November 1) ‘Merry Me’ South Korea-born playwright Hansol Jung, whose notable credits range from the stunning “Wolf Play” to an irreverent adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet,” presents her latest, described in a press release as “an intoxicating queer cocktail of restoration comedy and the Greeks, served with a heavy garnish of ridiculous.” New York theater stalwart Leigh Silverman directs. (October 11, October 31)John Turturro will star in ‘Sabbath’s Theater.’ Maarten de Boer‘Sabbath’s Theater’ Actor and director John Turturro and a New Yorker staff writer, Ariel Levy, have adapted Philip Roth’s National Book Award-winning novel about a dissolute puppeteer for the stage. Jo Bonney helms a cast that includes Mr. Turturro alongside fellow stage and screen star Elizabeth Marvel and Jason Kravits, an alum of TV’s “The Practice.” (October 10, November 2)‘The Gardens of Anuncia’ Theater and dance icon Graciela Daniele directs and co-choreographs, with Alex Sanchez, a musical by Michael John LaChiusa (“The Wild Party,” Marie Christine”) that was inspired by her own journey and Argentinian roots. An original star of “A Chorus Line,” Priscilla Lopez, seems ideally cast in the title role; Enrique Acevedo, Andréa Burns, Eden Espinosa, and Mary Testa join her. (October 19, November 20)‘Translations’Irish Repertory Theatre kicks off its 35th season, devoted to celebrating the work of Brian Friel — often described as his nation’s Chekhov — with this 1980 play, in which languages and cultures collide in 19th century Donegal. The director is Doug Hughes, whose many Broadway successes have involved playwrights of Irish stock from Shaw to Shanley. (October 20, October 29)‘Hell’s Kitchen’ Alicia Keys joins the ever-growing list of pop stars venturing into musical theater with this tale of a teenage New Yorker chasing a big dream, just as the young Ms. Keys did. Pulitzer finalist Kristoffer Diaz wrote the book to accompany her music and lyrics; a veteran Broadway director, Michael Greif, and a red-hot choreographer, Camille A. Brown, are also on board. (October 24, November 19)‘Danny and the Deep Blue Sea’Screen favorite Aubrey Plaza makes her stage debut opposite indie film star Christopher Abbott in a revival of Oscar and Pulitzer winner John Patrick Shanley’s 1983 play, as a troubled man and woman who meet in a Bronx bar. (October 30, November 13)‘Waiting for Godot’Many high-profile names have brought Beckett’s hobos to New York through the years. In Theatre for A New Audience’s new production at Brooklyn, Michael Shannon and Paul Sparks will respectively tackle Estragon and Vladimir, under the direction of Arin Arbus, noted for her fresh takes on assorted classics. (Performances begin November 4)‘Spain’Marin Ireland, Zachary James, and Erik Lochtefeld star in a new play by Jen Silverman, set in 1936 and focused on filmmakers whose latest project involves the Spanish Civil War — and is being bankrolled by the KGB. (November 8, November 30)Gavin Creel performs at New York City, November 25, 2019. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Princess Grace Foundation – USA‘Walk On Through: Confessions of A Museum Novice’The thoroughly charming musical theater star Gavin Creel wrote and performs in this new musical, his theatrical songwriting debut, informed by his many hours spent discovering and reflecting on collections at the Met. (Performances begin November 13)‘Manahatta’The Public Theater presents the New York premiere of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s play about a Native American woman with an MBA from Stanford who finds herself caught between a budding Wall Street career and the personal and historical struggles of her family and tribe, with the 17th century fur trade woven into the story. (November 16, December 5)‘Buena Vista Social Club’ Saheem Ali, who made his Broadway bow as lead director with last season’s sublime “Fat Ham,” steers a new musical inspired by the titular Cuban ensemble’s 1997 album and featuring its music, with choreography by married ballet stars Justin Peck and Patricia Delgado, who also collaborated on Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story.” (November 17, December 12)

High-Profile Talent — Including Alicia Keys and the Late Stephen Sondheim — Boosts Excitement for Off-Broadway’s Upcoming Season

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