In July, there was a wave of outrage when season lineups from some major New York companies dropped. Programming this fall is weirdly heavy on male playwrights and directors. It’s one thing for a toxic, reactionary White House to try to roll back feminism, but the arts are expected to push forward and hold up women. With that in mind, I’m not just short-listing major Broadway shows (none, note, by authors of color), daring plays and musicals Off but also work by women artists I’m excited to see.
The Essentialisn’t at HERE Arts Center
September 10-28
A beloved writer (she co-wrote the Warriors concept album with Lin-Manuel Miranda) and Obie-winning actor (Passing Strange), the dazzling Eisa Davis returns to the stage for a performance-art piece about Black womanhood and theatrical exposure. Turning HERE into an immersive art gallery, Davis asks: Is there an essential self that survives the spotlight?
The Other Americans at the Public Theater
September 11 – October 12
Legendary writer-performer John Leguizamo takes us back to the 1990s to explore the family dynamics of a Colombian-American household in Queens. Leguizamo plays Nelson Castro, a laundromat mogul whose son has returned from a mental-wellness facility. The lies upon which Castro’s family and business are built start to unravel. Ruben Santiago-Hudson directs.
Waiting for Godot at the Hudson Theatre
Previews September 13; opens September 28
Superfan of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure? Never saw this absurdist drama by Samuel Beckett? Let those worlds collide. Director Jamie Lloyd (Sunset Boulevard) trains his brutalist x-ray vision on the 20th-century classic about two vagrants, a dead tree and a whole lot of waiting…by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. Incidentally, there’s a Beckett trifecta this fall, with Endgame presented by Druid at the Irish Arts Center (October 22–November 23) and Stephen Rea pratfalling down memory lane in Krapp’s Last Tape at the Skirball (October 8–19).
The Maenads at the Tank
September 18 – October 12
Five dudes climb a mountain to cosplay an ancient Greek Dionysiac ritual. They assume the personae of maenads, or female worshippers of the god of wine and drama, to exorcise their problematic masculinity. Deprived of cell reception, food,
WEER at the Cherry Lane Theatre
September 20 – November 9
If you streamed Natalie Palamides’s Nate on Netflix (highly recommended), you know what a gender-fluid chameleon she is. Now the L.A. clown plays both sides of a relationship we follow over three years, starting on New Year’s Eve, 1999. How can one performer play a man and a woman at the same time? “Mark” is costumed and made up on half her body, “Christina” on the other. Palamides should be flipping brilliant at the Cherry Lane, recently acquired by A24 Films.
Ragtime at the Vivian Beaumont Theater
Previews September 26; opens October 16
Director Lear deBessonet has recently taken over at Lincoln Center Theater, and one of her first acts as artistic director is to remount the beloved Stephen Flaherty/Lynn Ahrens musical based on the E.L. Doctorow novel about America at the turn of the 20th Century when hopeful immigrants sailed straight into the rocky realities of New York City circa 1920. A century ago, America was a different place in many ways, but corruption and prejudice have always danced to a jaunty rhythm on the piano.
Oratorio for Living Things at the Pershing Square Signature Center
September 30 – November 16
Returning after a 2022 run at Ars Nova, musical sorceress Heather Christian and director Lee Sunday Evans celebrate the mystery of life on earth through the ancient form of oratorio. Usually extolling sacred or mythical subjects, Christian takes the classical genre and infuses it with jazz, blues, soul and gospel. Her free-associative sung text is likewise wide-ranging—from the cosmic to the everyday.
Little Bear Ridge Road at the Booth Theatre
Previews October 7; opens October 30
While he’s been produced Off Broadway for years (recently with Grangeville), playwright Samuel D. Hunter finally makes his Broadway debut with this story of an acid-tongued aunt and her estranged nephew, who has returned to small-town Idaho to sell his late father’s house. Originally presented at Steppenwolf in Chicago, the play transfers with cast intact: the always stunning Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock, who reportedly holds his own.
Liberation at the James Earl Jones Theatre
Previews October 8; opens October 28
If you missed Bess Wohl’s wistful and heart-rending study of women learning the joy and cost of freedom last year Off Broadway, good news. This transfer from the Roundabout Theatre Company retains its top-shelf cast, led by a sensational Susannah Flood as a woman channeling her mother, who started a feminist consciousness-raising group in the 1970s. Whitney White directs the superb ensemble, which bares body and soul.
The Queen of Versailles at the St. James Theatre
Previews October 8; opens November 9
More than 20 years after Wicked opened on Broadway, Kristin Chenoweth reunites with composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz to play a different sort of princess. Based on the documentary about a timeshare billionaire and his wife who lost a fortune in the 2008 crash, the musical is a tale of riches to rags and the reality-warping power of wealth. As for the title? Refers to the couple’s 90,000-square-foot mansion inspired by the French megapalace. F. Murray Abraham shares the stage with the divine Chenoweth.
Chess at the Imperial Theatre
Previews October 15; opens November 16
The cult 1988 pop musical by ABBA tunesters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus gets its first Broadway revival with a dishy cast headed by Aaron Tveit, Lea Michele and Nicholas Christopher. Michele (following her blockbuster run in Funny Girl) plays a Hungarian woman caught between a Soviet chess master (Christopher) and a cynical, short-tempered American (Tveit). Cold war politics and hot international romance ensue.
The Burning Cauldron of Fiery Fire at the Vineyard Theater
October 23 – November 30
A new piece by Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play) always promises theatrical magic. Moody, brilliant and formally bold, her plays are eerie and riotously funny at the same time. Burning Cauldron follows a northern California “intentional community” (don’t say cult) whose faith in the land and nature is tested following a sudden death. Steve Cosson directs the world premiere at the Vineyard Theatre.
Meet the Cartozians at Second Stage Theater
October 29 – December 7
Andrea Martin gets to draw upon her Armenian-American heritage for Talene Monahan’s new comedy, set in the 1920s and a century later. In the earlier period, an Armenian immigrant fights for legal recognition. On the contemporary side, the man’s descendants are, shall we say, a bit more superficial in their goals, which run to social media and cosmetic enhancements. David Cromer directs the ethnic satire by a whip-smart rising writer.
Practice at Playwrights Horizons
October 30 – December 7
Last season, Nazareth Hassan’s Bowl EP was a sneaky delight at the Vineyard, a queer rom-com between skateboarders with trippy supernatural twists. Now Hassan turns their talent to theater itself, as we follow a company of actors in Brooklyn dominated by a charismatic director. Calling it a “shapeshifting psycho-comedy,” Hassan ponders what it means to belong.
Oedipus at Studio 54
Previews October 30; opens November 13
Ambitious writer-director Robert Icke is a house-flipper of classic literature. He takes Greek tragedy, Ibsen, Arthur Schnitzler, you name it, gives the script a top-down rewrite, then stages it as a contemporary tale with slick design. His gut renovation of Sophocles’ tale of a king who murdered his father and married his mother—by accident!—becomes a modern political drama starring Mark Strong and Leslie Manville.
Burnt Toast at the Skirball Center for the Arts
November 5-8
Norwegian performance group Susie Wang makes its American debut at the Skirball, currently bringing the best international work to NYC. Absurdist and noirish, the piece has gotten raves for bloody intensity and weirdness, as well as comparisons to Kubrick and David Lynch. A plush hotel lobby with functional elevators becomes the primal scene of cannibalism and other horrors.
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