What To Watch For With Theater Season Set to Really Take Off
Broadway alone is expected to welcome 16 new productions before year’s end. Here are some of the shows we’re especially looking forward to seeing.
The 2022-23 theater season kicks into high gear after Labor Day, with no fewer than 16 new productions set to open on Broadway alone before the year ends. They include, naturally, a new jukebox outing, “A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical” — set to begin previews November 2 and open December 4 — and a pair of musicals adapted from films: “Some Like It Hot” (November 1, December 11) and “Almost Famous” (October 3, November 3), which received bullish notices during a pre-Covid run at San Diego.
There’s also the usual crop of British imports, from “& Juliet” (October 28, November 17), which aims to carry the post-feminist torch from the musical “SIX” with a pop-infused new spin on the fate of Shakespeare’s previously doomed ingénue, to an acclaimed revival of “Death of a Salesman” (September 17, October 9) that revisits Arthur Miller’s tragedy from a Black family’s perspective.
Diversity and social justice remain prominent concerns, with other new offerings including director Diane Paulus’s revival of the musical “1776” (September 16, October 6), featuring a multi-racial collection of female and non-binary performers; the off-Broadway transfer “KPOP” (Ocober 13, November 20), a multimedia celebration of South Korea’s contribution to global pop culture; Kenny Leon’s 20th-anniversary staging of Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Topdog/Underdog” (September 27, October 20), the first play by a black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize; and “Ohio State Murders”(November 11, December 8), the Broadway debut of another revered black female playwright — Adrienne Kennedy, who turns 91 in September. This is also helmed by Mr. Leon and stars a six-time Tony Award winner, Audra McDonald.
Below are other shows, on Broadway and off, that this critic is especially looking forward to, in order of arrival:
‘Cost of Living‘
A Polish-born playwright who has examined immigrants’ struggles in piercing works such as “Ironbound” and “Sanctuary City,” Martyna Majok makes her Broadway bow with this beautifully unsettling account of physical and emotional disability, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for drama after its off-Broadway premiere. An Obie Award winner, Jo Bonney, directs. (Previews begin September 13, opens October 3)
‘Leopoldstadt‘
Sir Tom Stoppard drew on personal history for his latest play — arriving on Broadway after an Olivier Award-winning West End run — which follows a Jewish family in Vienna over the first half of the 20th century. Expect something brilliant and soulful. (September 14, October 2)
‘The Piano Lesson‘
Latanya Richardson Jackson becomes the first woman to direct an August Wilson play on Broadway with a revival of this Pulitzer winner from Wilson’s indispensable cycle tracing black American life through the 20th century, set in 1936. The director’s husband, Samuel L. Jackson, stars with Danielle Brooks and John David Washington. (September 19, October 13)
‘The Winter’s Tale’/‘Hedda Gabler’
The theater company Bedlam, known for its intimate and invigorating takes on classics, continues its 10th anniversary season presenting Shakespeare and Ibsen in repertory, at Brooklyn’s Irondale Center. (October 5, October 15)
‘Only Gold‘
Choreographer and director Andy Blankenbuehler, a triple Tony winner and “Hamilton” alum, adds librettist to his resume with a new musical tracing a royal family’s sojourn in Paris, featuring music and lyrics by British singer/songwriter and actress Kate Nash, who also stars in MCC Theatre’s world premiere production. (October 5, November 7)
‘A Man of No Importance’
Inventive director John Doyle returns to Classic Stage Company with a production of Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty, and Lynn Ahrens’s musical adaptation of a film about love, shame, and intolerance in 1960s Dublin, with Jim Parsons cast as the leader of an amateur theater troupe. (October 11, October 30)
‘Kimberly Akimbo‘
David Lindsay-Abaire’s heart-wrenching but exuberant musical adaptation of his own play about a teenage girl trapped in a rapidly aging body, with music by Jeanine Tesori, transfers to Broadway after winning a bevy of awards downtown. (October 12, November 10)
‘Wuthering Heights’
A former Shakespeare’s Globe artistic director, Emma Rice, and her company, Wise Children, earned strong notices across the pond for their retelling of Emily Brontë’s gothic romance, now due at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. (October 14, October 18)
‘You Will Get Sick‘
The fabulous Linda Lavin returns to the New York stage in Roundabout Theatre Company’s world premiere of Noah Diaz’s new play, as an older woman hired by a young man to inform family and friends of his transformative diagnosis. (October 14, November 6)
‘Walking With Ghosts’
Following runs in Dublin, Edinburgh, and (this month) London, Gabriel Byrne brings to Broadway a solo show adapted from his autobiography, under theater vet Lonny Brice’s direction. (October 18, October 27)
‘My Broken Language’
Pulitzer winner Quiara Alegria Hudes has adapted her lyrical memoir of growing up in a Puerto Rican family in Philadelphia for the stage. She’ll also direct this world premiere, which opens Signature Theatre’s 2022-23 season. (October 18, November 6)
‘Straight Line Crazy‘
A quartet of distinguished British artists remember American visionary Robert Moses in this U.K. import, written by David Hare and starring Ralph Fiennes as Moses, with Nicholas Hytner and Jamie Armitage directing, at The Shed. (October 18, October 26)
‘The Unbelieving’
A downtown theater company, The Civilians, presents a new play by Marin Gazzaniga, based on interviews conducted for the book “Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind,” looking at clergy members from various faiths who have stopped believing in God, at 59E59 Theaters. (October 20, October 27)
‘The Year of Magical Thinking‘
Beloved stage veteran Kathleen Chalfant will tackle Joan Didion’s account of mourning, adapted from Didion’s memoir, in intimate community spaces (including living rooms and libraries) across New York City in this Keen Company revival. (October 19, October 23)
‘Ain’t No Mo’‘
In his Broadway debut, a provocative satire that earned kudos at the Public Theater in 2019, rising playwright and performer Jordan E. Cooper asks what would happen if our government offered to send Black citizens to Africa — with one-way tickets. (November 3, December 1)
‘The Far Country‘
Atlantic Theater Company presents a world premiere by Guggenheim fellow and “The Chinese Lady” playwright Lloyd Suh, tracing a family’s journey to California from Taishan following 1882’s Chinese Exclusion Act. (November 17, December 5)
‘Merrily We Roll Along‘
The latest stab at Stephen Sondheim’s most vexing musical casts Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez as old friends whose paths are charted in reverse, from jaded middle age to starry-eyed youth, at New York Theatre Workshop. (November 21, December 12)
‘Des Moines‘
Author Denis Johnson looked death and life squarely in the eye for his final play, scheduled to make its New York debut at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience, with resident director Arin Arbus — a forward-thinking interpreter of Shakespeare and other classics — helming. (November 29, December 8)
‘The Collaboration‘
Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope reprise their roles as, respectively, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat in Anthony McCarten’s study of the creative partnership between the pop-art icon and the tragic prodigy, arriving on Broadway via London’s Young Vic. (November 29, December 20)
‘Between Riverside and Crazy‘
Seven years after scoring the Pulitzer and other prizes, Stephen Adly Guirgis’s crackling dark comedy finally makes it to Broadway, with the great Austin Pendleton directing, as he did the 2014 off-Broadway staging; hopefully the great Stephen McKinley Henderson will also return to star. (November 30, December 19)