Entertainment

Broadway Shows to See This Winter and Spring

April 28, 2024
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A guide to new productions, including “Stereophonic” and “Hell’s Kitchen,” and long-running hits like “Hadestown.”

And suddenly, Broadway is packed again. After an autumn that wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with openings, spring is absolutely jammed, with the Tony Awards coming right up on June 16. Nominations first, though: Those will be announced on April 30.

The Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter who gave the world “Sweet Caroline” gets the biomusical treatment in this show, starring Nick Fradiani (“American Idol”) in the title role. Directed by Michael Mayer, it has a book by Anthony McCarten, choreography by Steven Hoggett and a well-stocked catalog of hits to draw on. Expect “Cracklin’ Rosie,” “Holly Holy” and more. (Through June 30 at the Broadhurst Theater.) Read the review.

Huey Lewis and the News have been a presence on Broadway lately, ever since a couple of the band’s infectious ’80s singles emerged as highlights of the musical “Back to the Future.” Now comes a jukebox musical comedy of their own. Long in the making, and built around hits like “Do You Believe in Love,” “Hip to Be Square” and “If This Is It,” it’s the story of two 20-something co-workers in 1987, one of whom has rock ’n’ roll dreams. (At the James Earl Jones Theater.) Read the review.

Alicia Keys’s own coming-of-age is the inspiration for this jukebox musical stocked with her songs, which played to packed houses during its world-premiere production last fall at the Public Theater. Studded with musical numbers including “Girl on Fire,” “Fallin’” and “Empire State of Mind,” it’s the story of a 17-year-old girl in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, growing into an artist. Directed by Michael Greif, the show has a book by Kristoffer Diaz and choreography by Camille A. Brown. (At the Shubert Theater.) Read the review.

Directed by the choreographer Justin Peck, this dance-theater hybrid is based on Sufjan Stevens’s beloved 2005 indie-pop concept album (“Illinois”). The show, which has a story by Jackie Sibblies Drury though no dialogue is spoken, is making an unusually fast transfer to Broadway, with an opening date just 29 days after it wraps up a run at the Park Avenue Armory. In his review, Jesse Green called it “mysterious and deeply moving.” (At the St. James Theater. Limited run ends Aug. 10.) Read the review.

Tamara de Lempicka, the Polish-born bisexual Art Deco painter, is the voracious historical figure at the center of this sort-of biomusical by Carson Kreitzer and Matt Gould, starring Eden Espinosa in the title role. Directed by Rachel Chavkin, with choreography by Raja Feather Kelly, the show, Jesse Green wrote in his review, “argues, with streamlined efficiency, that in her groundbreaking portraits of the 1920s and ’30s, Lempicka forever changed the representation of women in art, and thus changed women themselves.” (At the Longacre Theater.) Read the review.

Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez, a Tony winner for “Carousel,” star in Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s backward-spooling, decades-spanning, comical and heart-bruised musical about three artists who once were the best of friends. A flop on its premiere in 1981 despite a score that includes “Not a Day Goes By,” it’s notoriously tough to pull off — but the director Maria Friedman has done so, marvelously, with this production. (Through July 7 at the Hudson Theater.) Read the review.

Twenty years after Nicholas Sparks’s debut novel became a silver-screen romance, its latest incarnation is this musical. The story of a couple, Allie and Noah, it spans the decades from their adolescence to old age, when she has dementia and he reads to her, hoping to rouse her memory. Directed by Michael Greif and Schele Williams, the show has a book by Bekah Brunstetter (“This Is Us”) and a score by the singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. (Onstage at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.) Read the review.

Shaina Taub is nothing if not a politically minded artist, so it’s apt that she is making her Broadway debut during a presidential election year, with a musical about American women’s fight for the right to vote. With a cast that includes Jenn Colella, Nikki M. James, Grace McLean and Emily Skinner, the show has a book, music and lyrics by Taub, who reprises her role as the suffragist leader Alice Paul, whom she portrayed in the 2022 premiere at the Public Theater. Joined by a new choreographer, Mayte Natalio, and a new design team, Leigh Silverman directs. (At the Music Box Theater.) Read the review.

Aaron Tveit has returned to Broadway as the vengeful, throat-slitting barber opposite Sutton Foster as the human-meat-pie-baking Mrs. Lovett in Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim’s blood-smeared operetta from 1979. Directed by Thomas Kail (“Hamilton”), with a superb orchestra, the cast includes Ruthie Ann Miles as the Beggar Woman and Joe Locke, of the Netflix series “Heartstopper,” as Tobias. Natasha Katz won her eighth Tony for the shadowy lighting here. (Through May 5 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.) Read the review.

The world of the circus springs into three dimensions in this musical adaptation of Sara Gruen’s best-selling 2006 novel about a young man who joins a traveling circus during the Great Depression and bonds with an elephant named Rosie. Directed by Jessica Stone (“Kimberly Akimbo”), who has called it a memory play, this is a spectacle, incorporating circus design by Shana Carroll of the 7 Fingers and circus performers among the cast. With a book by Rick Elice (“Peter and the Starcatcher”) and a score by PigPen Theater Co., it has puppet design by Ray Wetmore, JR Goodman and Camille Labarre. (Onstage at the Imperial Theater.) Read the review.

The plot of Pete Townshend’s 1969 rock opera has always been peculiar, but the director Des McAnuff, who wrote the book of this musical adaptation with Townshend, describes the story as a fable: traumatized child stops seeing, hearing and speaking, becomes pinball wizard, leads cult. The show was a smash on Broadway three decades ago, winning Tonys for McAnuff’s direction and Townshend’s thrilling score, including Who songs like “See Me, Feel Me” and “I’m Free.” This new production, also directed by McAnuff, features choreography by Lorin Latarro (“Waitress”). (Onstage at the Nederlander Theater.) Read the review.

This musical re-envisioning of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was a juggernaut of Black fabulousness when it opened on Broadway in 1975, won a clutch of Tonys and stayed for four years. In Schele Williams’s new production, Wayne Brady plays the title role and Nichelle Lewis makes her Broadway debut as Dorothy. Amber Ruffin (“Some Like It Hot”) contributes additional material to the script, which has a book by William F. Brown and score by Charlie Smalls. (At the Marquis Theater. Limited run ends Aug. 18.) Read the review.

Jeremy Strong, known for his Method-like acting on the HBO series “Succession,” slips into a role once played by Stanislavsky himself: Thomas Stockmann, a doctor whose effort to warn his hometown about a poison in its midst gets him branded an enemy. With Michael Imperioli (“The White Lotus”) as Thomas’s rivalrous brother, this new version of Ibsen’s 19th-century drama is written by Amy Herzog, author of last season’s stellar spin on “A Doll’s House,” and directed by Sam Gold, her Tony Award-winning husband. (Through June 23 at Circle in the Square Theater.) Read the review.

Eva Noblezada, who was such a captivating Eurydice in “Hadestown,” stars as Daisy opposite Jeremy Jordan (“Newsies”) as Gatsby in this musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age novel. Transferring from its world-premiere run at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, it has a book by Kait Kerrigan (“The Mad Ones”), with music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Nathan Tysen, both Tony nominees for “Paradise Square.” Marc Bruni (“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”) directs. (At the Broadway Theater.) Read the review.

In this new Chekhov adaptation by Heidi Schreck (“What the Constitution Means to Me”), Steve Carell makes his Broadway debut as a man who has squandered his life, dutifully working to support his pampered brother-in-law (Alfred Molina). Also starring Alison Pill as Sonia, Vanya’s niece; William Jackson Harper as Astrov, the house-call-making doctor she loves; and Anika Noni Rose as Elena, the married beauty he adores, it’s directed by Lila Neugebauer. (At the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Limited run ends June 16.) Read the review.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (“An Octoroon”) has long been one of the most provocative and exciting playwrights around, so it’s about time he has an original play on Broadway. In this Obie Award-winning, decade-old ensemble drama, Sarah Paulson and Corey Stoll star as siblings in a white family returning to clean out their dead father’s house on a former plantation in Arkansas, where they find an album filled with photos of Black people who have been lynched. Lila Neugebauer directs. As for the play’s title? It works equally well as either an adjective or a verb. (Through June 23 at the Belasco Theater.) Read the review.

The Negro Ensemble Company was the original producer, in 1979, of this play by Samm-Art Williams, which opened on Broadway the following year. With the Roundabout Theater Company, the director Kenny Leon brings it back for the first time. Praised as a “folk ballad” and “a wish for a better world” by the critic Mel Gussow, it’s a three-actor, myriad-character tale about a Southerner named Cephus Miles whose sweet life on the farm he loves is disrupted when he resists the draft. (Starts previews May 17 at the American Airlines Theater; opens June 5. Limited run ends July 21.)

Rachel McAdams makes her Broadway debut in the title role of Amy Herzog’s quiet, anxiety-shadowed drama about the determinedly optimistic mother of a small child whose health has been precarious all his life. Anne Kauffman, who staged an acclaimed Off Broadway production of the play several seasons ago, directs here as well. (At the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. Limited run ends June 16.) Read the review.

Some of Paula Vogel’s most daring playwriting comes when she ventures close to home — like “How I Learned to Drive,” which has autobiographical elements and won her the Pulitzer Prize, and “The Baltimore Waltz,” an AIDS play about a sister and brother, which is a memorial to her own brother, Carl. This new Vogel play, which begins in the 1960s near Washington, D.C., where she grew up, is about a matriarch, Phyllis (Jessica Lange), who shares a name with Vogel’s mother, and her two adolescent children: Carl (Jim Parsons) and Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger). Tina Landau directs. (At the Helen Hayes Theater. Limited run ends June 16.) Read the review.

David Adjmi’s riveting rock drama with songs by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire, was the hands-down golden ticket this fall during its Off Broadway run at Playwrights Horizons. Set in the mid-1970s inside a pair of California recording studios, it follows a British-American band on the cusp of fame through the delicate, drawn-out, drug- and sex-fueled process of making their new album. At just over three hours, the play is practically epic length, but every moment of Daniel Aukin’s drum-tight production, transferring with its impeccable original cast, is worth the time. (At the John Golden Theater. Limited run ends Aug. 18.) Read the review.

Spoiler alert: At the end of “Romeo and Juliet,” both lovers die. Not so in this musical comedy, which imagines — with an assist from Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife — what happens when Juliet goes on living sans her Romeo. With a book by David West Read (“Schitt’s Creek”), it has a song list full of pop hits by Max Martin (“… Baby One More Time”). (Onstage at the Stephen Sondheim Theater.) Read the review.

Eddie Redmayne was a sensation as the Emcee when Rebecca Frecknall’s darkly seductive take on the Kander and Ebb classic made it a nearly impossible ticket in London’s West End. Now he reprises the role for Broadway, where Tom Scutt’s design for the immersive production turns the ordinarily staid August Wilson Theater into the Weimar-era Kit Kat Club. With Gayle Rankin as Sally Bowles, the cast also includes Bebe Neuwirth as Fraulein Schneider, Ato Blankson-Wood as Clifford Bradshaw and Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz. (At the August Wilson Theater.) Read the review.

The DeLorean is the star attraction in this Olivier Award-winning adaptation of the 1985 comedy about a teenager who time-travels to the 1950s and meets his parents when they were his age. With the Tony winner Roger Bart as the eccentric inventor Doc Brown — a.k.a. the Christopher Lloyd role — and Casey Likes (“Almost Famous”) in the Michael J. Fox role of Marty McFly, John Rando’s production boasts scenic design by Tim Hatley, one of the Tony-winning wow-factor wizards responsible for the recent Broadway show “Life of Pi.” (Onstage at the Winter Garden Theater.) Read the review.

Rival gangs in a musical who aren’t the Sharks and the Jets? Here they’re the Greasers and the Socs, driven by class enmity just as they were in S.E. Hinton’s 1967 young adult novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film. Set in a version of Tulsa, Okla., where guys have names like Ponyboy and Sodapop, this new adaptation has a book by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine, and music and lyrics by Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Levine. Danya Taymor directs. (At the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater.) Read the review.

Song, dance and extravagant design buoy Aladdin, Jasmine and the Genie in this winking stage adaptation of Disney’s 1992 animated film, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw. (Onstage at the New Amsterdam Theater.) Read the review.

A pair of Mormon missionaries seek converts in Uganda in this gleefully profane musical comedy, which returned from the pandemic shutdown altered by its creators — Trey Parker and Matt Stone (“South Park”) and Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q”) — to address cast members’ objections to its depiction of the Ugandan characters. (Onstage at the Eugene O’Neill Theater.) Read the review.

The 1996 revival, Broadway’s longest-running show, has far outpaced the original production of Bob Fosse, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s dark vaudeville about Roxie Hart, Velma Kelly and all that jazz. (Onstage at the Ambassador Theater.) Read the review.

Anaïs Mitchell’s jazz-folk musical about the mythic young lovers Eurydice and Orpheus won eight Tonys in 2019, including best musical, and picked up a cult following along the way. With Jon Jon Briones’s Hermes as our guide, and Ani DiFranco as Persephone through June 30, Rachel Chavkin’s splendidly designed production takes audiences on a glorious road to hell. (Onstage at the Walter Kerr Theater.) Read the review.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s game-changing musical-theater phenomenon raps its tale of “the 10-dollar founding father without a father.” Ticket prices are no longer swoon-inducing, but the show’s digital lottery — for $10 seats at each performance — offers hope of a truly inexpensive way in. (Onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theater.) Read the review.

The saga of the grown-up Harry and his Hogwarts friends continues with the next generation, but now in slimmed-down form. Initially a bulky, two-part marathon experience, John Tiffany’s Tony-winning production has become a shorter, one-part play yet still boasts stagecraft that will astound Potter fans. (Onstage at the Lyric Theater.) Read the review.

Lush with masks and puppetry, Julie Taymor’s visually extravagant retelling of the Disney animated classic is that rare beast: a high-art spectacle that’s also an enduring commercial blockbuster — 26 years and counting. With a score by Elton John and Tim Rice, additional music by the South African composer Lebo M., and choreography by Garth Fagan. (Onstage at the Minskoff Theater.) Read the review.

Elijah Rhea Johnson makes his Broadway debut in the title role of this dance-infused Michael Jackson jukebox musical, whose 2022 Tony Awards include the choreography prize for Christopher Wheeldon, who also directs. Lynn Nottage wrote the book for the show, which is produced “by special arrangement with” Jackson’s estate. (Onstage at the Neil Simon Theater.) Read the review.

For those to whom a Broadway show means spare-no-expense spectacle, this lavishly designed adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie musical is just the ticket. Directed by Alex Timbers — and the winner of 10 Tonys, including best musical — this is a doomed Parisian romance showered with confetti and fireworks, and sung to snippets of no fewer than 70 pop songs. (Onstage at the Al Hirschfeld Theater.) Read the review.

The half-dozen wives of Henry VIII recount their marriages pop-concert style — divorces, beheadings and all — in Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s upbeat musical, which has an all-female cast and an all-female band. It also has a 2022 Tony Award for best original score, and another for Gabriella Slade’s instantly iconic costumes. (Onstage at the Lena Horne Theater.) Read the review.

Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s musical spin on “The Wizard of Oz” has remained a strong draw since 2003. It’s the smash that woke up Broadway producers to the voraciousness of girls as a demographic. A captivatingly designed, impeccably maintained production, it’s for teens, tweens and “Oz” fans of all ages. (Onstage at the Gershwin Theater.) Read the review.

If you’re looking for a deal on a hot-ticket show, you will search in vain. The shows offering discounts may be in previews (which means critics haven’t yet weighed in) or, having been around a while, are running low on fuel. Still, some excellent productions might be in the mix.

To guard against the heartbreak of counterfeit tickets, the safest bet is to buy through the show’s website or at the box office. The box office in particular has its advantages — including that you don’t have to pay hefty service fees. And if you have a discount code, like the ones sometimes offered on theatermania.com or broadwaybox.com, it should work in person, too. But do check on the box office hours before heading out.

The TodayTix app is a trustworthy source for often-discounted Broadway tickets, which users buy online. For some shows, you can choose your exact seats; for others, you pick the general section where you want to sit, and TodayTix assigns your seats. Whether you get barcoded electronic tickets delivered to your device or physical tickets that you pick up at the theater box office depends on the show. The app can also be used for entering some shows’ digital lotteries, which offer the chance to buy cheap tickets if you win, or for finding digital same-day rush tickets.

TKTS, that discount-ticket mainstay of Times Square, sells same-day matinee and evening tickets, as well as next-day matinee tickets, at up to 50 percent off. The satellite booth at Lincoln Center is back open now, too. On the TKTS app, or online, you can see in real time which shows are on sale at which location, and what tickets cost. But that doesn’t mean there will be any seats left for the show you want by the time you get up to the window, and you have to buy them in person. (For a few Off Broadway shows, sales are cash only.) Options are most plentiful right after the booths open, but new tickets are released all day, even as curtain time nears, so going later can be lucky, too.

Many shows, though not the monster hits, offer same-day rush tickets — either at the box office or online — for much less than full price. Some also sell standing-room tickets if a show is sold out. Don’t count on lucking into these, because availability varies — but it’s worth a shot. Conveniently, Playbill keeps a running online tab of individual shows’ policies on digital lotteries, rush tickets (sometimes just for students, often for everyone), standing room and other discounts.

Don’t bet on them. In the early stages of its reopening, Broadway was eager to reassure ticket buyers with flexible policies on exchanges and cancellations. That is not the case anymore. Buyer beware.

Is it cascading from the heavens? That may be your chance to snap up some suddenly available seats at the box office, though be prepared to pay face value. Your odds of winning a ticket lottery are better on days like that, too.

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