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      ‘Water for Elephants’ Musical to Arrive on Broadway Next Spring

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      The show, with a group of circus artists as part of the cast, is adapted from Sara Gruen’s best-selling novel.“Water for Elephants,” Sara Gruen’s novel about a Depression-era veterinary student whose life is transformed when he joins a circus, became a surprise best seller after it was published in 2006. Five years later came a film adaptation, and next spring, a spectacle-rich stage musical version will open on Broadway.The musical, as befits a show set primarily at a circus, will feature seven circus performers, who make up about one-third of the onstage cast. As in the novel, the story is told through the recollections of the main character in his older years.“Most people think of the story as about this young man who jumps on a train and joins the circus, but I’m really compelled by his older self, looking back on the chapter that changed the course of his life forever,” said the musical’s director, Jessica Stone, who also directed “Kimberly Akimbo,” the winner of this year’s Tony for best musical. “The show is about the kind of person you are when you lose everything, and it’s also about chosen family, and the choices you make with the time that you have.”“Water for Elephants,” a big-budget musical that has been in development for about eight years, had an initial run in June and July at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. After some reworking aimed at strengthening the storytelling, it is scheduled to begin previews on Feb. 24 and to open March 21 at the Imperial Theater.The musical is set largely in 1931; its book is by Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys,” “Peter and the Starcatcher”) and the score is by PigPen Theater Co. The circus design is by Shana Carroll, who is an artistic director of The 7 Fingers, a prestigious Montreal-based circus collective; Carroll is also collaborating on the choreography with Jesse Robb.The show is being capitalized for up to $25 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which could make it the biggest-budget production of the current Broadway season.The producing team is being led by Peter Schneider, a former Disney animation executive who played a key role in bringing “The Lion King” to Broadway, and Jennifer Costello, a former executive at the John Gore Organization, where Schneider is the chairman of the board. The other lead producers are Grove Entertainment, Frank Marshall, Isaac Robert Hurwitz and Seth A. Goldstein. More

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      Rachel McAdams to Make Broadway Debut in ‘Mary Jane’

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      The play, by Amy Herzog, is about a mother caring for a chronically ill child.The film star Rachel McAdams will make her Broadway debut next spring in an acclaimed and heart-wrenching play about a mother caring for a small child with a serious illness.McAdams will star in “Mary Jane,” a drama by Amy Herzog that debuted at Yale Repertory Theater in 2017 and was followed by an Off Broadway run at New York Theater Workshop that same year. In The New York Times, the critic Jesse Green called the play “a heartbreaker for anyone human” and “the most profound and harrowing of Ms. Herzog’s many fine plays.”McAdams, who became famous playing Regina George in the 2004 movie “Mean Girls,” performed regularly onstage while growing up in Canada and studied theater at York University in Ontario. But she has not performed onstage professionally since she was a student. In a telephone interview, she said her initial career aspirations were to perform as a theater actor.“I had dreams of going to the Stratford Festival in Canada, and hadn’t really entertained Broadway — that was so far off, and even now I’m pinching myself,” she said. “I’ve been looking for a play forever, but kind of casually — not fully committed to it — and this came along, I read it, and I just was so taken with it.”She said she found the play “beautifully written” and “couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was already inside of me.”“It’s shedding light on the difficulties, but also the resiliency, of families with children with special needs,” she added. “There’s actually a lot of comedy to the piece as well — she’s drawn an amazingly positive, resilient character in Mary Jane, and really well-drawn, supporting characters around her.”McAdams was nominated for an Academy Award for the 2015 film “Spotlight.” She also starred in the 2004 film adaptation of “The Notebook”; a musical adaptation of that same story is scheduled to open on Broadway in March.McAdams said her decision to come to Broadway was not related to the dual strikes by screenwriters and actors that have largely idled Hollywood. She said she had committed to “Mary Jane” before the strikes began. And though apprehensive about returning to the stage, McAdams is also looking forward to it.“There’s no editor — you’re really so naked and vulnerable,” she said. “I hope my training will support me, but it was such a long time ago.”“I think it might be like riding a bike,” she added. However, she said, “there’s a little bit of the unknown about it. And I think also just having emotional stamina — you really don’t know until you’re there if you’re going to be able to fill your vessel up enough to keep you going. So it’s just all those ‘I won’t know until I get there’ things, but I’m excited to do the work.”The Off Broadway production won three Obie Awards, for Herzog’s playwriting, for direction by Anne Kauffman, and for a lead performance by Carrie Coon. There have since been several productions at regional theaters; one is now running in Santa Rosa, Calif.The nonprofit Manhattan Theater Club will present the Broadway production, also directed by Kauffman, at its Samuel J. Friedman Theater. Previews are scheduled to begin on April 2; an opening date and the names of the other cast members have not yet been announced.Herzog, whose play “4000 Miles” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2013, has recently turned her attention to revising classic works: She adapted Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” for a Broadway production starring Jessica Chastain and Arian Moayed that ran earlier this year, and she is adapting Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” for a Broadway production planning to open next spring with Jeremy Strong in the title role. More

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      A Guide to Musicals and Plays Coming This Fall and Spring

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      A starry Sondheim revival on Broadway, Alicia Keys’s new musical and John Turturro in a Philip Roth adaptation: a guide to this season’s theater.In a different reality, this list of show openings across the country might be longer. You’d see the world premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s “Fake It Until You Make It,” for example, one of many productions canceled or postponed because of the powerful economic headwinds that theaters are facing. Still, there’s hope: Exciting ideas are taking shape in regional theaters, where works like “Run Bambi Run,” “Illinois” and “The Salvagers” are being staged. In New York, “Swing State,” “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Sabbath’s Theater” are among the shows that remind us of theater’s promise. And Broadway, of course, with intriguing new shows like “Gutenberg! The Musical,” “I Need That” and “How to Dance in Ohio,” will always survive. (Dates are subject to change.)SeptemberDIG The owner of a dying plant shop forms an unlikely relationship with a woman carrying a lot of baggage in this play by Theresa Rebeck, who also directs the Primary Stages production. Developed at the Dorset Theater Festival, “Dig” had a well-received premiere there in 2019. (Sept. 2-Oct. 22, 59E59 Theaters)DRACULA: A COMEDY OF TERRORS Count Dracula is a pansexual Gen-Z type experiencing an existential crisis in this comedy, written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen and inspired by the Bram Stoker classic. Expect a gender-bending celebration of sex, goth and goofiness, directed by Greenberg. The cast features James Daly as Dracula and, all appearing in several roles, Jordan Boatman, Arnie Burton, Ellen Harvey and Andrew Keenan-Bolger. (Sept. 4-Jan. 7, New World Stages)PURLIE VICTORIOUS: A NON-CONFEDERATE ROMP THROUGH THE COTTON PATCH Leslie Odom Jr. stars as Purlie Victorious Judson in Ossie Davis’s 1961 comedy about a traveling preacher who returns to his hometown in Georgia to save the community church and stand up to the oppressive white plantation owner Ol’ Cap’n Cotchipee. Billy Eugene Jones (“Fat Ham”) and Kara Young (“Cost of Living”) also star. Kenny Leon directs. (Performances begin Sept. 7, Music Box Theater)SWING STATE The recently widowed Peg unintentionally sets off a small-town feud in this new play by Rebecca Gilman about the political polarization in America. In his rave review of its premiere last year at the Goodman Theater, The Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones called it “perhaps the first of the great American post-Covid plays.” Robert Falls directs this Audible Theater production, featuring the original Chicago cast, including Mary Beth Fisher as Peg. (Sept. 8-Oct. 21, Minetta Lane Theater)Rebecca Gilman’s new play, “Swing State,” arrives this month at the Minetta Lane Theater, with, from left, Anne E. Thompson, Kirsten Fitzgerald and Mary Beth Fisher.Liz LaurenMARY GETS HERS In plagued 10th-century Germany, an orphan named Mary is rescued by people desperate to protect her, and her chastity, at all costs in this new play by Emma Horwitz. The play is inspired by “Abraham, or the Rise and Repentance of Mary,” a comedy-drama written more than 1,000 years ago by Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, one of the earliest-known female poets in Germany. The show, directed by Josiah Davis, is being produced by The Playwrights Realm, which is in residence at MCC Theater. (Sept. 11-Oct. 7, MCC Theater)JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING A group of West African immigrant women working together in a Harlem hair salon share their secrets, dreams and doubts in this new play by Jocelyn Bioh (“School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play”), her Broadway playwriting debut. Whitney White (“Our Dear Dead Drug Lord”) directs this Manhattan Theater Club production. (Sept. 12-Oct. 29, Samuel J. Friedman Theater)RUN BAMBI RUN Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes and the playwright Eric Simonson (“Lombardi”) have collaborated on this new true crime saga in the form of a musical. With new songs from Gano, Simonson’s book is based on the story of Lawrencia Bembenek, a Milwaukee police officer who was convicted in 1981 of killing her husband’s ex-wife. Known as Bambi, Bembenek escaped from prison, was later caught and maintained her innocence until her death in 2010. Mark Clements directs. (Sept. 13-Oct. 22, Milwaukee Repertory Theater)MELISSA ETHERIDGE: MY WINDOW From her Kansas childhood to her years in the male-dominated rock business, Melissa Etheridge entertains with stories and many of her songs. Seen Off Broadway at New World Stages last year, Etheridge’s show has a lot of humor and a few gut punches too (her son died of a drug overdose). The almost-solo show (a roadie character is along for the ride) heads to Broadway with the same director, Amy Tinkham. (Sept. 14-Nov. 19, Circle in the Square Theater)Melissa Etheridge, the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, brings her memoir-style show to Broadway this fall after a run Off Broadway last year.Richard Termine for The New York TimesTHE REFUGE PLAYS This new epic tale by Nathan Alan Davis (“Nat Turner in Jerusalem”) follows a Black family over 70 years, beginning with a ghostly visit to a woman who is told she will die within 24 hours. This Roundabout Theater Company presentation is produced in association with New York Theater Workshop, whose new artistic director, Patricia McGregor, will direct a cast including Nicole Ari Parker, Daniel J. Watts, Ngozi Jane Anyanwu and Jon Michael Hill, among others. (Sept. 14-Nov. 12, Laura Pels Theater)GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL! I still remember how much my abs hurt — back in 2011 — from laughing at Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells in “The Book of Mormon.” So their reunion is a season highlight. This time, they play aspiring (and inept) musical theater creators doing a backer’s audition of their new play about the inventor of the printing press. If the subject sounds dry, don’t worry — they have injected plenty of wildly inaccurate history into their script to spice things up. The show, written by Scott Brown and Anthony King (“Beetlejuice”), started out at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and has run Off Broadway. Alex Timbers directs. (Sept. 15-Jan. 28, James Earl Jones Theater)BILLY STRAYHORN: SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR This new musical tells Strayhorn’s story, from his poor upbringing in Pittsburgh to fame as one of the greatest jazz composers, including his collaborations with Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday, and his life as an openly gay Black man living through the early days of the civil rights movement. The Broadway veteran Darius de Haas (who did the vocals for the Shy Baldwin character in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) stars as Strayhorn, with J.D. Mollison as Ellington. The book is by Rob Zellers and Kent Gash, who also directs. The music and lyrics are by Strayhorn, and Matthew Whitaker will conduct a nine-piece jazz band. (Sept. 19-Oct. 11, Pittsburgh Public Theater)MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff and Lindsay Mendez star in this Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical about three friends trying to make it in showbiz. The story is told in reverse chronological order, allowing us to see the broken ties of later life before the starry-eyed hopefulness of younger days. Maria Friedman directs. The 1981 Broadway debut was a flop, but this production, with a sold-out, well-reviewed run at New York Theater Workshop, might have the makings of a smash. (Sept. 19-March 24, Hudson Theater)ULYSSES Elevator Repair Service brings the epic and challenging James Joyce novel about one day in 1904 Dublin to the stage in this new production, commissioned by the Fisher Center at Bard College. While the company is not doing the entire text, as it had for “The Great Gatsby,” selections from each of the 18 episodes in the Joyce novel will be performed, using a fictional academic panel discussion as the jumping-off point. The cast features company regulars including Scott Shepherd, Vin Knight and Maggie Hoffman, with John Collins directing. (Sept. 21-Oct. 1, Fisher Center at Bard)THE WIZ This musical — an adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s book with an all-Black cast — was a hit in 1975 with André De Shields in the title role. The new production kicks off a national tour in Baltimore, starring Alan Mingo Jr. as the Wiz, Nichelle Lewis as Dorothy and Deborah Cox as Glinda. The show is intended to hit Broadway in spring 2024, with Wayne Brady stepping into the title role in time for appearances in San Francisco and Los Angeles. “The Wiz” features a book by William F. Brown, with additional material by Amber Ruffin and a score by Charlie Smalls (and others). Schele Williams (“The Notebook”) directs. (Tour begins Sept. 23, Hippodrome Theater)HERE WE ARE Stephen Sondheim fans will get to see one more new musical by the master, who died in 2021, when this long-gestating show, a collaboration with the playwright David Ives and the director Joe Mantello, has its world premiere. The musical is adapted from two Luis Buñuel films, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Exterminating Angel.” Sondheim was guarded about the exact story, telling The New York Times days before he died: “I don’t know if I should give the so-called plot away, but the first act is a group of people trying to find a place to have dinner, and they run into all kinds of strange and surreal things, and in the second act, they find a place to have dinner, but they can’t get out.” The talented cast includes Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Micaela Diamond, Amber Gray, Denis O’Hare, Steven Pasquale and David Hyde Pierce. (Sept. 28-Jan. 7, the Shed’s Griffin Theater)ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: HOW SHAKESPEARE INVENTED THE VILLAIN Patrick Page is no stranger to playing bad guys (Hades in “Hadestown” comes to mind), but he doesn’t often play a bunch of them in one show. In this solo creation, Page embodies more than a dozen of Shakespeare’s great villains — even Lady Macbeth — as he explores their motivations and Shakespeare’s interpretation of villainy. The show was presented at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, and The Times’s Maya Phillips wrote that seeing Page in action was “like watching a chameleon change hues before your eyes: stupefying, effortless.” Simon Godwin directs. (Sept. 29-Jan. 7, DR2 Theater)OctoberDRUIDO’CASEY The Irish playwright Sean O’Casey, who wrote about the Easter Rising of 1916 and Dublin’s working classes, is getting quite the celebration at the N.Y.U. Skirball Center. O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy — “The Plough and the Stars,” “The Shadow of a Gunman” and “Juno and the Paycock” — is being presented in this Druid Theater of Galway production, directed by Garry Hynes, Druid’s artistic director. The works, which audiences can watch as a marathon or single-play performances, are being produced in partnership with the Public Theater. (Oct. 4-14, N.Y.U. Skirball Center)Aaron Monaghan and Hilda Fay in Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock.” The Druid Theater of Galway production, in partnership with the Public Theater, will be at N.Y.U. Skirball Center.Ros KavanaghSTEREOPHONIC A rock band recording a new album in the mid-1970s is catapulted to stardom much quicker than its members could have imagined in this new play by David Adjmi (“Marie Antoinette”), featuring music by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire. Does the group make it, and stay together? Daniel Aukin directs. (Oct. 6-Nov. 19, Playwrights Horizons)I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE Santino Fontana stars in a revival of this 1962 musical about a shamelessly corrupt Depression-era shipping clerk. The original book, by Jerome Weidman, based on his 1937 novel, has been revised by his son, John Weidman, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome. Trip Cullman directs a cast that also includes Adam Chanler-Berat, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Judy Kuhn, Sarah Steele and Julia Lester. (Oct. 10-Dec. 3, Classic Stage Company)POOR YELLA REDNECKS The inventive playwright Qui Nguyen (“Vietgone”) is influenced as much by his Vietnamese background as by a love for comic books and action movies. His latest is about a Vietnamese family, with big dreams and small salaries, trying to adapt to a new life in Arkansas. There will be struggle and drama … and also Kung Fu and hip-hop. May Adrales directs the play, co-commissioned by South Coast Repertory and Manhattan Theater Club. (Oct. 10-Nov. 26, New York City Center Stage I)SABBATH’S THEATER Philip Roth’s raunchy, funny 1995 novel, about a debaucherous womanizer and retired puppeteer questioning the value of his life (and goaded toward suicide by his mother’s ghost), is being adapted for the stage by John Turturro and Ariel Levy. Turturro also stars as Mickey Sabbath, alongside Elizabeth Marvel and Jason Kravits. Jo Bonney (“Cost of Living”) directs this world premiere for the New Group. (Oct. 10-Dec. 3, Pershing Square Signature Center)MERRY ME Hansol Jung (“Wolf Play”) is inspired by restoration comedy and Greek theater for this new play about women on a Navy base seeking libidinous pleasure, while also trying to save the world. The show, directed by Leigh Silverman (“Hurricane Diane”), sounds unique, intriguing and naughty at the same time. (Oct. 11-Nov. 19, New York Theater Workshop)THE GREAT GATSBY The heartthrob Jeremy Jordan is the eccentric millionaire Jay Gatsby in this new musical based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, about a man on a mission to pursue the love of his life: Daisy Buchanan (Eva Noblezada of “Hadestown”). The book is by Kait Kerrigan (“The Mad Ones”), the score by the Tony Award nominees Nathan Tysen and Jason Howland (“Paradise Square”), with Marc Bruni (“Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”) directing. (Oct. 12-Nov. 12, Paper Mill Playhouse)HELEN. Caitlin George’s story about three sisters, which interweaves mythology and history, is being produced by the SuperGeographics and presented by La MaMa in association with En Garde Arts. (Oct. 13-29, La MaMa)I NEED THAT Danny DeVito stars as a hoarder facing eviction if he can’t clean up his act in Theresa Rebeck’s new comedy. DeVito’s daughter Lucy DeVito plays his fictional daughter in the play, also starring Ray Anthony Thomas. Rebeck teams up again with her “Bernhardt/Hamlet” director, Moritz von Stuelpnagel, for this Roundabout Theater Company production. (Oct. 13-Dec. 23, American Airlines Theater)HARMONY After many years of development, this musical by Barry Manilow (music) and Bruce Sussman (book and lyrics) is Broadway bound. And no, it’s not a Manilow jukebox musical (though I don’t hate that idea). Instead, “Harmony” is based on the true story of the Comedian Harmonists, a wildly successful singing group formed in Berlin in 1927, and follows them during the rise of Nazism. The ubiquitous Warren Carlyle directs a cast including Chip Zien, Julie Benko and Sierra Boggess. (Performances begin Oct. 18, Ethel Barrymore Theater)THE GARDENS OF ANUNCIA The adolescent years of the director and choreographer Graciela Daniele, who grew up in Argentina during the fascist regime of Juan Perón, form the basis for this musical featuring a book, music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa. The show had its premiere at the Old Globe Theater in 2021 and will be presented in New York by Lincoln Center Theater. Daniele, still working at 83, directs and co-choreographs with Alex Sanchez. (Oct. 19-Dec. 31, Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater)NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL Boundary-pushing theater tends to be the first to suffer from budget cuts (farewell, Under the Radar Festival), so it’s heartening that the Brooklyn Academy of Music is sticking with this annual event, even if it’s much smaller than in past years. “Food” (Nov. 2-18) stars the absurdist performer Geoff Sobelle, who gathers the audience at a massive table for a meditation on how and why we eat. Lee Sunday Evans co-directs with Sobelle, who cocreated the show with Steve Cuiffo. Also on the program is “How to Live (After You Die),” Dec. 7-9, a solo show by the Australian artist and filmmaker Lynette Wallworth, about her experience of being drawn into cultism and escaping through art. (The festival runs Oct. 19-Jan. 13, Brooklyn Academy of Music)In “Food,” Geoff Sobelle presents a dinner party that’s an absurdist theatrical spectacle. It will be presented at the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.Iain MastertonTHE FRIEL PROJECT The Irish Repertory Theater honors the great Irish playwright Brian Friel with three of his plays set in the fictional town of Ballybeg. First up is “Translations,” set in the 1830s, when British rule made efforts in Ireland to erase the Gaelic language; Doug Hughes directs (Oct. 20-Dec. 3). The Friel season continues with “Aristocrats,” directed by the theater’s artistic director, Charlotte Moore (Jan. 11-March 3); and “Philadelphia, Here I Come!,” with the theater’s producing director, Ciarán O’Reilly, directing (March 16-May 5). (Irish Repertory Theater)HELL’S KITCHEN Ali, a 17-year-old girl growing up in a tiny New York apartment with her single mother, has big dreams but feels trapped. When she hears a neighbor playing the piano, she sees a path out. This show features music and lyrics by Alicia Keys (some new music and some previous hits), and is loosely based on her experience growing up in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, surrounded by a community of artists. The project, more than a decade in the making, will now have its world premiere at the Public Theater. The book is by Kristoffer Diaz, choreography by Camille A. Brown, and Michael Greif directs. (Oct. 24-Dec. 10, Public Theater)SCENE PARTNERS Dianne Wiest stars in a neat twist on the “young wannabe starlet heads to Hollywood” story: Meryl, at 75 years old, decides to leave her Milwaukee home for Los Angeles, where she is determined to become a movie star. Who says it’s too late for her big break? Rachel Chavkin directs this new play by John J. Caswell Jr. (“Wet Brain”). (Oct. 26-Dec. 3, Vineyard Theater)DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA John Patrick Shanley’s 1984 Bronx-set drama about two outsiders circling the drain earned a young John Turturro his first rave in The Times. Aubrey Plaza (“The White Lotus”) makes her stage debut in this revival, alongside Christopher Abbott (“Girls”), with Jeff Ward directing. (Oct. 30-Jan. 7, Lucille Lortel Theater)SPAMALOT The over-the-top, delightfully goofy Monty Python musical set during the days of King Arthur (and the Knights Who Say ‘Ni!’) is returning to Broadway, where it first had us in stitches more than a decade ago. This new production, whose cast includes James Monroe Iglehart, Christopher Fitzgerald, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Michael Urie and Ethan Slater, had a well-received run in May, with Josh Rhodes directing and choreographing, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The book and lyrics are by Eric Idle, music by Idle and John Du Prez; Rhodes directs and choreographs again. (Performances begin Oct. 31, St. James Theater)“Spamalot” heads to the St. James Theater, with Nik Walker as Sir Galahad and Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer as the Lady of the Lake, after a brief run at the Kennedy Center in Washington in May.Jeremy DanielNovemberPAL JOEY The nightclub singer and cad Joey Evans is transformed into an ambitious (but more redeemable) Black jazz singer, played by Ephraim Sykes in this new version of the 1940 musical based on stories by John O’Hara, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Richard LaGravenese and Daniel Beaty are rewriting its book to include the original songs along with other Rodgers-Hart classics like “My Heart Stood Still.” Savion Glover and Tony Goldwyn direct this City Center gala presentation. (Nov. 1-5, City Center)WAITING FOR GODOT Some classics, like this 1953 Samuel Beckett tragicomedy, continue to attract actors and directors aiming to make their mark. Having (ahem) played Estragon in college, I confess the play has a long-lasting appeal to me and seeing Michael Shannon take on the role in this Theater for a New Audience production sounds especially exciting. Arin Arbus directs a cast that also includes Paul Sparks (Vladimir), Jeff Biehl (Lucky) and Ajay Naidu (Pozzo). (Nov. 4-Dec. 3, Theater for a New Audience)SPAIN A couple of filmmakers find an unlikely backer — the KGB — for their epic Spanish Civil War movie in Jen Silverman’s new comedy about the age of disinformation. The cast will include Marin Ireland (“Reasons to Be Pretty”), Zachary James (“The Addams Family”) and Erik Lochtefeld (“Metamorphoses”). Tyne Rafaeli directs. (Nov. 8-Dec. 17, Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater)HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO A group of young adults on the autism spectrum prepares for a spring dance, hoping to learn to better navigate social challenges in this musical that had its premiere at Syracuse Stage last year. It’s based on a 2015 documentary by Alexandra Shiva, and features a cast made up largely of autistic actors from the Syracuse production. The book and lyrics are by Rebekah Greer Melocik and music by Jacob Yandura, with Sammi Cannold directing. (Performances begin Nov. 15, Belasco Theater)MANAHATTA A Native American woman, also a promising businesswoman with an M.B.A. from Stanford, heads to Oklahoma for a banking job, connects with her Lenape ancestry and tries to straddle the worlds of finance and her family in this new play by Mary Kathryn Nagle. Laurie Woolery directs. (Nov. 16-Dec. 17, Public Theater)BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB A group of great talents from the golden age of Cuban music in the 1940s and 1950s gathered in Havana for a week in 1996 to record the album “Buena Vista Social Club.” This new musical, with a book by Marco Ramirez (“The Royale”), tells the story of these artists and the creation of the unlikely blockbuster album and a 1999 documentary. Saheem Ali (“Fat Ham”) directs the world premiere for Atlantic Theater Company, featuring music from the album. Musical direction by David Yazbek (“The Band’s Visit”) and choreography by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck. (Nov. 17-Dec. 31, Linda Gross Theater)THE SALVAGERS A father and son (only 14 years apart in age) have a tense enough relationship when possible romance opportunities come up for both and complicate their lives further in this new play by Harrison David Rivers (“The Bandaged Place”). Mikael Burke directs. (Nov. 24-Dec. 16, Yale Repertory Theater)SWEPT AWAY After a brutal storm sinks their whaling ship off the Massachusetts coast, four men struggle to survive in this new musical with a book by John Logan (“Red”) and music and lyrics by the Avett Brothers, based on their 2004 album “Mignonette” (which, in turn, was inspired by a 1884 shipwreck off the Cape of Good Hope). The show premiered at Berkeley Repertory Theater last year, and among the cast returning for this Arena State run are John Gallagher Jr., Stark Sands, Adrian Blake Enscoe and Wayne Duvall. Michael Mayer directs. (Nov. 25-Dec. 30, Arena Stage)APPROPRIATE When the Lafayette family returns to their dead father’s Arkansas home to settle his affairs in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Obie Award-winning play, a photo album of disturbing images creates tension and raises questions about the man they thought they knew. Jacobs-Jenkins’s works include the Pulitzer Prize finalists “Gloria” and “Everybody,” but this Second Stage production is the first play he has written to land on Broadway. Lila Neugebauer (“The Waverly Gallery”) directs a cast that includes Sarah Paulson. (Performances begin Nov. 29, Hayes Theater)Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s “Appropriate,” which ran Off Broadway in 2014, is getting a Broadway run this winter with a cast that includes Sarah Paulson.Richard Termine for The New York TimesDecemberREAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES Ana, full-figured and fresh out of high school, dreams of an education, but as a first-generation Mexican American in 1987 Los Angeles, she must battle her immigrant mother and the expectation she works in a sweatshop. This new musical is based on the 1990 play by Josefina López that inspired the 2002 film by López and George LaVoo. The new musical version features music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez and a book by Lisa Loomer, with the Tony winner Sergio Trujillo directing and choreographing. (Dec. 8-Jan. 21, American Repertory Theater)PRAYER FOR THE FRENCH REPUBLIC A Jewish family in 2016 Paris question their safety in an increasingly hostile world in this play by Joshua Harmon (“Bad Jews”), which had its premiere Off Broadway via Manhattan Theater Club last year. David Cromer returns to direct this Broadway transfer. The story, which moves between two time periods, also includes the family’s older relatives, who in 1944 managed to survive in occupied Paris. (Dec. 19-Feb. 4, Samuel J. Friedman Theater)From left, Nancy Robinette, Kenneth Tigar, Peyton Lusk and Ari Brand in “Prayer for the French Republic,” about a family grappling with antisemitism, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater in Manhattan. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJanuaryILLINOIS This new dance-theater hybrid is based on Sufjan Stevens’s 2005 concept album “Illinois,” about people, places and events in the Prairie State. With a story by Jackie Sibblies Drury (“Fairview”) and choreography and direction by Justin Peck, the show had a premiere at the Fisher Center at Bard this past summer. (Jan. 12-28, Chicago Shakespeare Theater)THE CONNECTOR A talented up-and-coming journalist faces off with a diligent copy editor in this new musical, conceived and directed by Daisy Prince. The book is by Jonathan Marc Sherman and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown (“Parade”), who also leads the band in this MCC Theater world premiere. (Jan. 12-Feb. 18, Newman Mills Theater)ENCORES! Don’t be fooled by the words “staged concert readings”; these productions, now in their 30th year, are more elaborate and moving than simple readings. This season includes “Once Upon a Mattress,” the 1959 musical comedy adapted from the fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” (Jan. 24-Feb. 4), directed by Lear deBessonet and starring Sutton Foster; “Jelly’s Last Jam,” the 1992 musical about the life of the jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton (Feb. 21-March 3), directed by Robert O’Hara; and “Titanic,” a 1997 musical recounting of the famous maritime disaster (June 12-23), directed by Anne Kauffman. (New York City Center)FebruaryDOUBT: A PARABLE Tyne Daly and Liev Schreiber star in a revival of John Patrick Shanley’s powerful Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about a Catholic school nun who suspects a priest of sexual abuse. Scott Ellis directs the Roundabout Theater Company production, the first Broadway revival of “Doubt” since the 2005 premiere. (Feb. 2-April 14, American Airlines Theater)THE NOTEBOOK Nicholas Sparks’s 1996 novel about romantic idealism and lifelong love comes to Broadway as a new musical (there was a screen adaptation in 2004 too, of course). The book is by Bekah Brunstetter, music and lyrics by Ingrid Michaelson, and Michael Greif and Schele Williams direct. “The Notebook” arrives in New York following a well-received premiere last year at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. (Performances begin Feb. 6, Gerald Schoenfeld Theater)REDWOOD Idina Menzel stars in a new musical about a seemingly successful businesswoman who suffers heartbreak and escapes her life and family to immerse herself in the redwoods of Northern California. Tina Landau wrote the book and directs this world premiere; the music is by Kate Diaz and lyrics by Diaz and Landau, with additional contributions from Menzel. (Feb. 13-March 17, La Jolla Playhouse)TEETH I can’t believe a team decided to adapt the 2007 cult classic film about a young woman with toothed genitalia. Talk about pushing boundaries. The film, about an evangelical Christian teenager whose body bites back, didn’t even get the greatest reviews, but I’m in. The book is by Anna K. Jacobs and Michael R. Jackson (“A Strange Loop”), with music by Jacobs and lyrics by Jackson. Sarah Benson (“Blasted”) directs. (Performances begin Feb. 21, Playwrights Horizons)MarchONE OF THE GOOD ONES A young Latina brings her boyfriend home to meet the parents in this new comedy by Gloria Calderón Kellett (“One Day at a Time” reboot); naturally biases come to the surface. The Pasadena Playhouse, winner of the 2023 regional theater Tony Award, commissioned this new play. (March 13-April 7, Pasadena Playhouse)PURPOSE A youngest son’s homecoming forces a politically powerful Black American family to grapple with some secrets, faith and radicalism in this new play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Phylicia Rashad directs the world premiere for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company, leading a cast including Alana Arenas, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill. (March 14-April 21, Steppenwolf Theater)THE OUTSIDERS It’s the poor Greasers vs. the rich Socs in this new musical about angsty teenagers in 1960s Tulsa based on the S.E. Hinton novel (as well as Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film starring C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon and a bunch of other now-famous actors). The show, which had its premiere at La Jolla Playhouse earlier this year, features a book by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine and music and lyrics by the folk duo Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Levine. Danya Taymor directs. (Performances begin March 16, Bernard B. Jacobs Theater)“The Outsiders” will make its way to Broadway in the spring, following its premiere earlier this year at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, Calif.Rich Soublet IISALLY & TOM A playwright and director (who are also a married couple) star in a play about the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson — that is the setup of Suzan-Lori Parks’s new play about history, consent and power. The show, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, is being presented in New York by the Public Theater in association with The Guthrie Theater, where it had its premiere last year. (March 28-April 28, Public Theater)April and beyondTHREE HOUSES A new musical by Dave Malloy (“Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812”) is always going to be a highlight. In his latest, Malloy employs book, music and lyrics to explore our post-pandemic world, bringing together three strangers after a long period of a time that was as communal as it was solitary. Annie Tippe directs. (April 30-June 9, Pershing Square Signature Center)MOTHER PLAY Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger star in this new play by Paula Vogel (“How I Learned to Drive”). Vogel’s latest, set outside Washington, D.C., in 1962, is a study of the power of family bonds, focusing on a mother (Lange) with firm ideas about what her two teenage kids need to do to be successful. Tina Landau directs this Second Stage Theater premiere. (Performances begin April 2, Hayes Theater)ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE The “Succession” star Jeremy Strong takes the stage in Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 classic about a small-town doctor who tries to speak truth to power when he discovers the community’s water is tainted, and nearly ruins his life in the process. Sam Gold will direct this new production, an adaptation by the playwright Amy Herzog, whose revision of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” ran on Broadway this year. (Performances dates and theater to be announced)CABARET Eddie Redmayne starred in a recent, lauded London revival of this 1966 Kander and Ebb musical that shows us the Nazi rise to power through the lives of people in a Berlin nightclub. Redmayne is expected to reclaim the role of the Emcee when this new production, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, opens on Broadway. The book is by Joe Masteroff, music by Kander and lyrics by Ebb. (Previews begin in the spring, August Wilson Theater)GATSBY American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., is planning its own musical adaptation of the Fitzgerald novel, directed by Rachel Chavkin. The A.R.T. production will feature a score by Florence Welch (Florence + the Machine) and Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) with a book by Martyna Majok (“Cost of Living”). (May 25-July 21, 2024, American Repertory Theater) More

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      Jessica Lange Leads Starry Cast in Paula Vogel’s ‘Mother Play’

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      “Mother Play,” set in the 1960s, will feature Lange as a mother raising two children, played by Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger.Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger will return to Broadway next spring to star in a new family drama by the acclaimed playwright Paula Vogel.The show, called “Mother Play,” begins outside Washington in 1962, and is about a strong-willed mother raising two children as the family relocates.Lange, 74, will play the mother. She is a two-time Oscar winner (for “Tootsie” and “Blue Sky”) who won a Tony Award in 2016 for playing another difficult mother — Mary Tyrone in a revival of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”Keenan-Bolger, 45, is a four-time Tony nominee who won the prize in 2019 for “To Kill a Mockingbird”; she will play the daughter. Parsons, 50, who last appeared on Broadway in a 2018 production of “The Boys in the Band,” will play the son.Vogel, who is considered one of the nation’s leading teachers of playwriting as well as a top practitioner of the craft, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for “How I Learned to Drive,” which was later staged on Broadway in 2022. She has had one other Broadway outing with the play “Indecent,” which was staged in 2017.“Mother Play” will be directed by Tina Landau (“SpongeBob SquarePants”) and presented on Broadway by Second Stage Theater, a nonprofit dedicated to work by living American writers. The play is scheduled to begin previews April 2 and to open April 25 at the Helen Hayes Theater, which is a small Broadway house owned by Second Stage.“Mother Play” will follow Second Stage’s Broadway production of “Appropriate,” a 2014 drama by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, also at the Hayes. That production will be directed by Lila Neugebauer and will star Sarah Paulson; previews begin Nov. 29 and the opening is scheduled for Dec. 18. More

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      Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad Tackle Another Book (Not Mormon)

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      Twelve years after opening “The Book of Mormon,” the two actors — and good friends — return with “Gutenberg! The Musical!”Josh Gad still remembers the first time he and Andrew Rannells met, in June 2010 in a Los Angeles audition suite. No matter what Gad did during their scenes together, Rannells didn’t laugh. Not once.Rannells was auditioning for “The Book of Mormon,” the new musical from the creators of “South Park.” Gad, then a correspondent on “The Daily Show,” had long been attached. The producers wanted a celebrity opposite him, and they’d invited several to these tryouts. Rannells, a replacement actor in “Hairspray” and “Jersey Boys,” was not remotely famous. Confronted with Gad’s cyclone energy, he chose stillness.“I was so intimidated. And it really upset me,” Gad said, over dinner at Chez Josephine, a theater district mainstay where Rannells, in younger days, used to work the coat check. Gad turned to Rannells. “I had that Tony locked until you walked in the door. And I still had a grudge because you beat me out for ‘Jersey Boys.’” (It was unclear if Gad was joking. Then again, Gad is almost always joking.)“The Book of Mormon” opened in 2011, to rapturous reviews, with Rannells as the strait-laced Mormon missionary Elder Price and Gad as his co-evangelist Elder Cunningham, whose laces are a lot looser. Both men were nominated for a Tony Award and both men lost out to Norbert Leo Butz for “Catch Me If You Can.” Somewhere along the way, they became close friends, which was apparent over dinner, a symphony of bits, riffs and callbacks between bites of tuna tartare and duck breast. They had ordered identical meals and identical Diet Cokes.Rannells, 45, has spent his post “Mormon” years in other Broadway shows and on television (“Girls,” “Black Monday,” “Girls5Eva”). Gad, 42, has since become a voice-over luminary (“Frozen,” Frozen 2,” “Central Park”). Now they are reuniting, one block south and one block east of their “Mormon” haunts, in “Gutenberg! The Musical!” which begins previews at the James Earl Jones Theater on Sept. 15.“Gutenberg!” directed by Alex Timbers and written by Scott Brown and Anthony King, is a farcical, largehearted duet about a pair of nursing home workers, Bud and Doug, bitten grievously by the Broadway bug. Using an inheritance and the proceeds from the sale of a home, they rent a Broadway theater for one night, hoping to find a producer for their deeply misguided and tragically under-researched original musical about Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of movable type and the publisher of the Gutenberg Bible.“The Book of Mormon” opened in 2011, to rapturous reviews, with Rannells as the strait-laced Mormon missionary Elder Price and Gad as his co-evangelist Elder Cunningham, whose laces are a lot looser.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTwo old friends finding a vehicle for a Broadway return has the whiff of a vanity project. But this deliriously silly show, in which the two actors play dozens of characters and wear a combined 107 baseball caps, demands that vanity be left at the stage door.Over dinner, Gad joked (probably!) that when Timbers had sent him a photo of those 107 hats, each inscribed with the name of one of the show’s characters, he’d tried to back out.“It was too late,” Rannells said.“I know,” Gad said. “I read my contract last night.”The day after dinner, at a rehearsal space at the Alvin Ailey Extension, Gad and Rannells were stumbling through (with an emphasis, perhaps, on stumbling) the second act of “Gutenberg!” In a scene at the top of the act, as Bud and Doug introduced themselves to the audience, Rannells hit Gad in the face, perhaps accidentally.“That’s assault,” Gad said.“You walked into it,” Rannells replied. Moments later they were standing cheek to cheek, singing spooky oo-oo-oos.Rannells was wearing a shirt and shorts in complementary greens, his wavy hair reliably perfect. Gad was all in black. He was also drinking an iced coffee. Given his typical energy levels, this seemed like a bad idea. He had burst into the rehearsal room after the lunch break singing “Unchained Melody” with heavy vibrato. He also riffed on a line from “Sunset Boulevard”: “We taught the world new ways to dream.”“No,” Rannells said. He hugged Gad. Or maybe he gave him a mild version of the Heimlich maneuver. This is more or less their way, with Gad as an avatar of chaos and Rannells in smirking control.Casey Nicholaw, the director of “The Book of Mormon,” had noted this contrast. “Josh’s comedy basically just says, ‘Watch me. Love me.’ Josh is just out there,” he said. “And Andrew’s is sneaky. Andrew knows how to just hold himself with grace and dignity and then just go for it.”Each has a different process, a different style, a different affect. Collaborators I spoke with compared them to famous comic duos — Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello. Gad cited “The Odd Couple.”“I definitely am more anxious than he is,” Gad said over dinner. “I’m a bundle of anxiety when it comes to learning dances. I’m a bundle of anxiety when it comes to getting lines right.” Gad said that he is also a hypochondriac and that sometimes, offstage during “The Book of Mormon,” Rannells would suggest possible diseases for him.“He’s got a mean streak,” Gad said. “I can say that now.” Rannells, sipping his Diet Coke, didn’t deny it.Despite that mean streak, a friendship endures. Nikki M. James, their “Mormon” co-star, recalled watching it begin. “Onstage, they played very different people who end up becoming each other’s best friends,” she said in a recent interview. “That camaraderie and friendship and love and sense of family, it was very clear offstage as well.”That show left them inextricably linked. “When I die, if I get an obituary in The New York Times, Josh’s name will also be in it,” Rannells said, somewhat darkly.And after they departed “The Book of Mormon,” each for a quickly canceled sitcom (“1600 Penn” for Gad, “The New Normal” for Rannells), they would often talk about how they might work together again. A revival of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” was mooted. So was a revival of “The Producers.” About four years ago Timbers (“Moulin Rouge,” “Beetlejuice”) had another idea.Brown and King (“Beetlejuice”) had first conceived “Gutenberg!” more than 20 years ago. Back then, King was a musical theater intern at Manhattan Theater Club. Tasked with sifting through the slush pile, he found himself listening to home-recorded tapes and CDs of new musicals, most of them sung through by the author or authors, most of them hopeless. King thought that he and Brown could write something just as bad. Worse even.“We tried to come up with, like, what’s a terrible idea for a musical?” King said.But what began as a way to prank King’s boss evolved into something just a little more sincere. As King put it, “We fell in love with our own dumb stuff.”In 2003, Brown and King performed a 45-minute version of the show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. It ran for about two years. With encouragement from a producer, they wrote a second act and took it to London. The show that emerged was never about the real Gutenberg — Bud and Doug have only the vaguest ideas of how movable type and medieval history work. Instead it was a loving lampoon of Broadway wishes and tropes.Gad and Rannells’s characters in “Gutenberg! The Musical!” hope to find a producer for their musical about the inventor of movable type.Adam Powell for The New York TimesBut for the Off Broadway premiere in 2006, directed by Timbers, the creators stepped out in favor of actual actors, Christopher Fitzgerald and Jeremy Shamos, which made it feel more like a real show and less like a goofball routine written by two starving artist roommates.There had been conversations about moving the show to Broadway. Those conversations had never been especially earnest. Then Timbers slipped Gad the script, hoping that he would share it in turn with Rannells. Which is exactly what happened.With Brown and King and Timbers, the actors met for a reading in workshop in Los Angeles in March 2020, an inauspicious moment for Broadway-bound musicals. The reading went well. To succeed, the friendship between Bud and Doug has to feel ardent, unbreakable. Gad and Rannells had that.So after a delay of about three years, conversations began again. A two-person show felt overwhelming, especially one in which the actors also had to serve as their own crew, moving each prop and set piece. Gad described it as “more intimate, and yet much more insane than even ‘Mormon.’” Still, he and Rannells agreed.In rehearsal, that insanity was in evidence. The two men were playing not only Bud (Gad), the composer, and Doug (Rannells), the book writer, but also every other baseball-capped character. And they had to play them with all the naïveté and enthusiasm that newbie writers would bring, but also with the necessary skills of a practiced musical theater performer, because bad acting and bad singing aren’t funny for long.“You have to commit to doing fully lived-in characters by performers who otherwise would not be on Broadway,” Gad said.“It’s literally a hat on a hat on a hat on a hat,” Rannells sighed.Hats aside, they seemed to be having a pretty good time, particularly during one sequence where Rannells reenacted an eagle attacking a sea gull, while Gad, playing a pubescent girl, did a sexy, scary skeleton dance.It wasn’t all skeletons and sea gulls. Opening a Broadway show is stressful. “I think our actual human sweat will give us away,” Rannells said. “I’m going to be a real mess 10 minutes into the show.” Opening a Broadway show with a best friend in accidental smacking distance is stressful in a different way. But it’s also pretty nice. “Gutenberg!” is about two characters supporting each other, through thick and thin and third reprise. And as Gad and Rannells tell it, that tracks for the actors, too.“There are times where I want to fall down and just cry at how tiring the show is,” Gad said. “Then I look at Rannells and I’m like, ‘OK, he’s going to keep me upright.’”He turned to Rannells, adding, “I’m so happy you got ‘Jersey Boys’ now. Now I actually think they made the right choice.” More

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      Lea Michele Ends ‘Funny Girl’ Run on Broadway

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      The Broadway revival saw an immediate change in its fortunes when the actress stepped into the production last September.“That was my dream come true,” Lea Michele gushed from the stage on Sunday after her final performance in “Funny Girl,” the Broadway revival that the actress breathed new life into when its future looked grim one year ago.Michele’s sudden addition to the production, which closed with its star’s exit, stretched its run to nearly 600 performances and allowed it to recoup its capitalization costs — far from a guarantee on Broadway. At Sunday’s matinee, the actress basked in the show’s success, and received seven standing ovations, including for the insistent barn burner “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and the reflective ballad “People.”“I was truly given the greatest gift that surpassed this dream and that was the unconditional true love and support from this cast, who has worked so, so, so hard,” Michele added. “I was embraced with open arms the minute I came in.”Just as Michele reversed the show’s fortunes, “Funny Girl” appeared to have reversed hers. Three years ago, Michele’s celebrity had been clouded by a wave of criticism over bullying behavior and a prima donna attitude. Since she stepped in as the show’s lead, Michele has reassumed the role of a celebrated Broadway star, announcing Tony nominees, performing on late-night shows and booking a solo concert this fall at Carnegie Hall.At her final show at the August Wilson Theater, Michele gave the audience an extra song: “My Man,” which includes lyrics from an original performed by Fanny Brice, the pioneering Jewish entertainer whose life is the basis for the musical.Although the song was not part of the score in either Broadway production, the show’s original star, Barbra Streisand, sang it at the end of her final performance in 1965 and then in the 1968 film adaptation.Michele has said that the song has been an important one to her since she sang it on the television series “Glee.” A belter about devotion to a man despite him being a constant disappointment, “My Man” was dedicated in the series to a character played by Cory Monteith, whom Michele dated both on TV and in real life. Monteith, who had struggled with substance abuse, died of a combination of heroin and alcohol in 2013.“The whole thing with life imitating art imitating life really gets me,” said Richard Gruber, who saw Michele in “Funny Girl” seven times and was seated in the theater’s second row at the performance on Sunday.Gruber, 69, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., flew in Sunday morning for the final performance and had a return flight Sunday night.“I just find her riveting,” Gruber said, clutching a white rose that the production gave audience members at the front of the house to toss at curtain call.The strength of a performance: Michele and “Funny Girl” cast members performed at the Tony Awards in June, though it wasn’t eligible for any awards.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOver the years, theater producers had trouble reviving “Funny Girl” because of its inextricable association with Streisand, who was 21 when the original production first opened on Broadway. (Streisand is not known to have attended any performances of the revival.)Streisand has long been an idol to Michele, who started as a child actress on Broadway, became a known entity as a lead in “Spring Awakening” and rose to become a household name in “Glee” as an uptight but talented high school glee club member. In a blending of TV and reality, Michele’s character, Rachel Berry, landed the role of Brice, and Michele performed several of the musical’s songs on the show.Michele had long been discussed as an option for a “Funny Girl” revival, but the show’s director, Michael Mayer, who has directed Michele in “Spring Awakening,” said last year that he had sensed that she was not ready to return to work after the birth of her child. The actress Beanie Feldstein was cast in the role, but she drew middling reviews when the show opened in spring 2022. It received one Tony nomination, for Jared Grimes, who portrays Brice’s dance coach and sidekick.When Feldstein bowed out of the show earlier than expected, Michele was tapped to replace her, fueling a flood of press attention, social media debate and, once she made her debut, rave reviews that bolstered ticket sales. A tour, featuring Katerina McCrimmon, starts on Saturday in Providence, R.I.With “Funny Girl,” Michele made her first appearance in a Broadway cast in 15 years. She has indicated that the next gap won’t be so significant. The actress told Variety that she has already booked her next job, hinting that it is a show she expects people will recognize, but that is very different from the one that drew her back to Broadway. More

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      Feminist Stories Are Being Set to a Pop Beat. But Are They Empowering?

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      Our critics debate how well shows like “Six,” “& Juliet” and “Once Upon a One More Time” engage with the inner worlds of women onstage.During the first act of “Once Upon a One More Time,” the Broadway jukebox musical that grooves to the Britney Spears oeuvre, a fairy godmother arrives with a present for Cinderella. A gown? No. Glass slippers? No. Cin has enough already. Instead, her godmother gifts her a copy of Betty Friedan’s 1963 best seller, “The Feminine Mystique.”It’s a clumsy gesture in the show, which plans to close next month. (Feminist thought has advanced in 60 years!) And arguably emblematic of a recent spate of Broadway musicals that set feminism to a pop beat, including “Six,” a zippy modern retelling of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives; “& Juliet,” whose protagonist, miraculously alive, embarks on a girls’ trip of self-discovery; and “Bad Cinderella” (now closed), a chaotic rejiggering of the classic fairy tale. Aimed at girls and women (historically the majority of Broadway ticket buyers), these shows may be sincere attempts to engage with women’s issues — or they’re hollow efforts to capitalize on calls for change. Empty political gestures on Broadway? To quote a song used in two of these shows: “Oops! … I did it again.”On a recent morning, Laura Collins-Hughes, contributing theater critic and reporter; Salamishah Tillet, critic at large; and Lindsay Zoladz, pop music critic, gathered to debate facts and fairy tales. They discussed how narrowly these shows define empowerment, if they define it at all, and why Prince Charming gets the best song. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The recent musicals “Six,” “& Juliet,” “Bad Cinderella” and “Once Upon a One More Time” take female empowerment as their central theme. Are these shows actually empowering or legibly feminist?LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES I wouldn’t say any of them are feminist.SALAMISHAH TILLET Some are empowering, others are not. “Six” is partly feminist, because it shows the impact of King Henry VIII’s misogyny. With the exception of Anne Boleyn, most of his wives have been relegated to the margins. My 11-year-old daughter really loved that these women finally reclaimed their stories and did it with style! But I felt like I was at a fun pop concert rather than at a big Broadway musical.COLLINS-HUGHES “Six” drives me completely up the wall. It wants to have a good time in the neighborhood of spousal murder and abandonment, singing “I don’t need your love.” As if Henry’s love had anything to do with it. As if abuse is what a man’s love for a woman looks like.Lauren Zakrin, second from left, as Little Mermaid gets her voice back upon reading “The Feminine Mystique” in “Once Upon a One More Time.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLINDSAY ZOLADZ I like “Six,” but probably for the reason Salamishah doesn’t — it’s basically a pop concert. I do think the overarching problem with these musicals is the way they fail to define terms, presenting “empowerment” and “feminism” as given, unexamined virtues. Instead of the marriage proposal that supposedly leads to the happily ever after, it’s … empowerment ever after? “Once Upon a One More Time” provided the clearest distillation of the trend. Cinderella’s “feminist awakening” is spurred by her fairy godmother giving her “The Feminine Mystique.” Seriously. The book is treated like a magical talisman throughout the rest of the show, but its actual content is never engaged with. That seems beyond the show’s grasp. Though the book is on sale for $20 in the lobby gift shop.TILLET I gasped when she discovered the book.ZOLADZ Not in a good way, I’m guessing.Doesn’t Cinderella know that women’s studies syllabuses have moved on?TILLET Or that Friedan was heavily criticized for her bourgeois feminism back in the day? Is it weird that we are still locating the beginnings of feminism exclusively in the sexual liberation of straight, white, middle-class, stay-at-home 1950s wives? But that’s an ongoing problem, not just on Broadway.Why do you think we’re seeing these shows now? Is it a cynical attempt to appeal to female ticket buyers or something more organic?TILLET These shows, despite their best intentions, seem limited by their source material. There was a lot of Cinderella this year! The publicity appeal of anything Cinderella is obvious, so for Broadway theaters struggling to get audiences back into the theater, of course it is a ploy.From left: Justin David Sullivan, Melanie La Barrie, Lorna Courtney and Betsy Wolfe in “& Juliet.” With its thoughtful casting of a Black Juliet and the nonbinary character May, the show enables us to see Shakespeare differently, one critic said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCOLLINS-HUGHES “Bad Cinderella” could have been so much more than it was. It is a messy show, it’s always been a messy show, but in London it was actually fun. It had a bit of substance to it. And magic. The feminism, which was so clear and so dramatically propulsive in the London version, was wiped away for Broadway.I took my daughter to “Bad Cinderella” and afterward we had a conversation about the show’s messaging, which was confused at best. Is it asking too much of a musical to also have great messages?COLLINS-HUGHES This question makes me think we all live in fear of that riposte that often greets girls and women who won’t laugh along at a joke that’s not funny: “Where’s your sense of humor?” It’s perfectly legitimate to recoil from a show whose message bugs you, and all the more if it’s at odds with its girl-power, you-be-you marketing.And yet if a show is successful enough in other ways, the messaging may not matter. That was my delighted experience of “& Juliet.”TILLET This was definitely my favorite pop feminist musical of the year. I was genuinely intrigued by the conceit of what happens if Juliet doesn’t die. What life does she make for herself beyond the formula prescribed for her? The musical opens up possibilities for her as a protagonist. And with its thoughtful casting of Lorna Courtney as a Black Juliet and Justin David Sullivan as the nonbinary character, May, it enables us to see Shakespeare differently, too.COLLINS-HUGHES When it has a top-notch cast, “& Juliet” is a blast. But I am baffled that people perceive it as feminist. It really is not.ZOLADZ Say more!COLLINS-HUGHES I don’t mean that it’s anti-feminist, but I don’t think it’s particularly female-centered — not on Juliet, nor on Anne Hathaway [Shakespeare’s wife], who gets one of the subplots.“Bad Cinderella,” starring Linedy Genao, had a brief run this spring. “The feminism, which was so clear and so dramatically propulsive in the London version, was wiped away for Broadway,” one critic said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWith the exception of “Six,” these shows are largely created by men. Does that explain anything?COLLINS-HUGHES Of course. It’s not that men can’t and don’t write women well or can’t imagine women’s lives. And it’s certainly not that artists should stick to writing only about people just like them. But they are writing from the outside. That can come with a lot of blind spots and a lot of misapprehensions.All of these musicals use a pop vernacular, “Bad Cinderella” somewhat less so. Is pop, particularly pop written and produced by men, a useful form for feminist discourse?ZOLADZ Something I’ve been thinking about regarding “Once Upon a One More Time” and especially “& Juliet,” which uses the songs of the massive millennial hitmaker Max Martin, is the lyrical limitation of a lot of modern pop music. Martin and the generation of pop architects who followed him treat lyrics almost as an afterthought. Martin has referred to his method of songwriting as “melodic math.” “& Juliet” was fun and more cleverly written than “Once Upon a One More Time,” but a lot of that had to do with the ironic distance between the lyrics themselves and the winking, metatextual way the characters employed them — like when “I Want It That Way,” by the Backstreet Boys, becomes not so much a love song as a narration of an argument between Shakespeare and his wife, who have conflicting opinions about how his latest play should end.TILLET I hated a lot of those pop songs and found them anti-feminist when they originally came out, but when I sang along with the “& Juliet” audience and my tween daughter, I found that they aged better than I had expected. Or maybe, because I’m now middle-age, I’m mistaking nostalgia for progress.COLLINS-HUGHES Inattention to lyrics is a limitation of jukebox musicals, but it doesn’t hold for original pop songs, which can be whatever the writer makes them. It would help, though, if more of the songwriters getting musicals produced were women.ZOLADZ I generally pay more attention to pop music than Broadway musicals, so I found the sound of these shows to be quite striking. Modern pop’s influence is everywhere, especially in a show like “Six,” which is full of electronic beats, hip-hop cadences and direct nods to artists like Beyoncé and Ariana Grande. Is that a trend you have observed over time? And given that this is such a golden age for female pop stars, do you think that crossover appeal has something to do with the rise of these empowerment musicals?COLLINS-HUGHES Musically, “Hamilton” changed Broadway, but it is very much a guy story. Having proved the hunger for modern pop musicals, it left a lot of room for female artists to fill.Do these shows do that filling?COLLINS-HUGHES Musically? Sometimes. But in terms of storytelling, generally no. There are such blinders on imagination, and there’s such an aversion to nuance. It’s a question of whom you’re trying to please. The perception of risk is about displeasing men, not the women and girls who might want to see smart, muscular new musicals.Megan Hilty, left, and Shoshana Bean in “Wicked,” which is partly about a girl learning to harness the power of her outrage to fight against injustice in the world.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDoes the success of the Barbie movie, directed and co-written by a woman, with its several song and dance numbers, point a way forward?COLLINS-HUGHES Absolutely, if the idea is to give the best numbers to the guys.ZOLADZ And the charisma! That’s what ultimately sank “Once Upon a One More Time” for me: Cinderella was often the least compelling character onstage. Juliet didn’t fare much better. I don’t know if blandly “empowered” female characters are the answer. Too often it just feels like a shortcut. Writing flawed, idiosyncratic and more interesting female characters seems like a worthier goal, but most of these shows don’t want to take the risk.TILLET If song choice in a musical is any indication of narrative priorities, “Once Upon a One More Time” had difficulty sustaining its attention on Cinderella and her awakening. Prince Charming got “Oops! … I Did It Again” and her stepmother had “Toxic.” When I watched “Barbie,” I realized how seductive patriarchy is onscreen or onstage, even when we say we are trying to smash it. Why do the Kens get that massive and amazing dance scene?COLLINS-HUGHES A story about or aimed at women is so seldom deemed interesting enough on its own. But Hollywood, like commercial theater, is often in the business of blandification. And who’s blander than Ken? I’d like to think audiences want more than that.These recent shows define empowerment narrowly, restricting it to questions of romantic and sexual relationships with men rather than any broader political awakenings. Why can’t these stories dream bigger or attempt something more intersectional?TILLET I do think a lot of these producers feel that they are being intersectional, simply through casting. But while I appreciate so much more diversity onstage, it is still not enough. The musicals would really have to try to dismantle various forms of oppression at once. That takes nuance, patience and a really radical imagination. An older musical, “The Color Purple,” was successful at this, which brings us back to the strength of the source material, Alice Walker’s novel, and then a sizable female team behind its Broadway staging. It is an understatement to say that the evolution of Celie, who endured such abuse and trauma, is far more compelling than Cinderella’s!ZOLADZ What I find missing from a lot of contemporary art about female empowerment is the way it focuses on the attainment of power and then stops there. What about stories about how easily power can corrupt those who have it? Yes, even women!COLLINS-HUGHES This is a thing that “Wicked” imagines. And two decades on, it’s still packing houses and making loads of money. That show is partly about a girl learning to harness the power of her outrage to fight against injustice in the world.TILLET I’ve seen “Wicked” twice recently. The depth of the storytelling — when the villain and heroine aren’t what they seem — it is just so good. Is it feminist? Maybe. Does it reveal the power and heartbreak of female friendship as the ultimate love story? Very much so. For that alone, it provides a wonderful model for how to really revel in the inner worlds of women onstage. More

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      ‘Once Upon a One More Time,’ the Britney Spears Musical, Is Closing

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      The show, which was capitalized for $20 million, will end its Broadway run on Sept. 3 after 123 performances. Its producers say they are planning a national tour.“Once Upon a One More Time,” a pop musical using the songs of Britney Spears, will close on Broadway on Sept. 3 after opening to mixed reviews and failing to find an audience.The musical was a costly misfire, capitalized for $20 million at a time when many Broadway shows have been struggling with rising costs and diminished attendance after a pandemic shutdown that made an always challenging industry even more difficult.“Once Upon a One More Time” is about a group of fairy tale heroines whose outlook on their familiar stories is shaken when the book club to which they belong encounters a feminist classic, “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan.The musical features some of Spears’s biggest hits, including “Baby One More Time,” “Toxic” and “Circus.” The songs have several writers but were originally performed and recorded by Spears; the musical’s book is by Jon Hartmere and it was directed and choreographed by Keone and Mari Madrid.The musical was first announced in 2019, with plans for an initial production in Chicago, but that production was delayed until the following spring and then canceled by the pandemic. Ultimately, the show started its first run in late 2021 at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, D.C., where reviews were weak but sales were strong.Spears’s relationship to the show was never clear. The show repeatedly described itself as “fully authorized and licensed post-conservatorship by Britney Spears,” and she wished the cast and crew well on Instagram in June, writing, “I’ve seen the show and it is so funny, smart and brilliant 🤩 !!!”But Spears did not attend a public performance, and her fan base never fully mobilized to see the production. The show’s grosses were soft from the get-go, peaking at $701,425 during the week of its opening, which is not nearly enough to sustain a musical of this scale. During the week that ended Aug. 13, the show played to houses that were only 47 percent full, and grossed just $512,008.The show began previews on May 13 and opened on June 22 at the Marquis Theater. At the time of its closing it will have played 123 performances.The lead producers are James L. Nederlander and Hunter Arnold; they said in a statement on Monday that they were planning a national tour as well as “multiple international productions.”The closing announcement comes at a difficult time for Spears. Last week her husband, Sam Asghari, filed for divorce just over a year after they got married. More