These are the shows you wanna see...but do know that not all shows are on Broadway alone. Some might be even closer to you. See what's here.
Long-Running Crowd-Pleasers
This production, which won the 2017 Tony Award for best musical, seemed almost inseparable from Ben Platt, who received a Tony of his own for his tear-drenched turn as the troubled teenager Evan. But Taylor Trensch has firmly made the title role his own since taking over this year, fresh from playing Barnaby Tucker in “Hello, Dolly!” Happily, Rachel Bay Jones, also a Tony winner, has stuck around as Evan’s mother. Get tickets now
This gleefully profane musical comedy about a pair of Mormon missionaries seeking converts in Uganda is not for the prim. But if you’ve loved other irreverent hits by the team that hatched this one – Trey Parker and Matt Stone (“South Park”) and Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q”) – it’s an excellent bet. Get tickets now
Ronald Reagan was in the White House when this Andrew Lloyd Webber gothic romance opened on Broadway and became a gargantuan hit. The masked phantom has been haunting the Paris Opera House, smitten with his Christine, ever since. If you’re a Lloyd Webber devotee, see it if the touring production isn’t coming soon to a theater near you – though chances are it is. Order your tickets
Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel bowed out long ago as Glinda and her nemesis, Elphaba, but Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s musical spin on “The Wizard of Oz” has remained a strong draw for more than 14 years. It’s the smash that woke Broadway producers up to the voraciousness of girls as a demographic. For teens, tweens and “Oz” fans of all ages. Let's get wicked!
Critics’ Darlings
Starring Andrew Garfield as Prior Walter and Nathan Lane as the viciously combative lawyer Roy Cohn, Tony Kushner’s sprawling AIDS drama returns in a 25th-anniversary Broadway revival by way of the National Theater in London, where this production ran last year. Directed by Marianne Elliott, this “Angels” remains energizing even, and maybe especially, if you see its two parts — “Millennium Approaches,” which won the Pulitzer Prize, and “Perestroika” — all in one day, as a marathon. Order your tickets here.
Glenda Jackson, now 85, makes a formidable return to Broadway in Joe Mantello’s fresh and nimble staging of Edward Albee’s acerbic comedy, in which three actresses — including Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill, none of them especially tall — play the same woman at different ages. The chemistry between Ms. Jackson, with her imperious chill, and Ms. Metcalf, with her cajoling humor, is thrilling to behold. So is Miriam Buether’s extraordinarily clever set. Order your tickets
Bartlett Sher’s lush and savvy revival of Lerner and Loewe’s classic Shaw adaptation stars Lauren Ambrose as the cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle and Harry Hadden-Paton as Professor Henry Higgins, with Norbert Leo Butz as Eliza’s father and Diana Rigg (a former Eliza herself, in “Pygmalion”) as Higgins’s mother. It’s a statement-making production, aimed straight at our time. Order here
Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk star in David Yazbek and Itamar Moses’s musical about a bumbling Egyptian police band’s arrival in an Israeli desert town. An Off Broadway hit last season, it’s directed by David Cromer and based on the charming film of the same name. Poignant and bittersweet, this is a gentle comic romance, free of politics and full of gorgeous music. Order your tickets
There are no stars in this bighearted musicalabout the generosity that greeted a group of airline passengers stranded in Newfoundland in the days after the 9/11 attacks. A feel-good show based on a true story, it taps into a nostalgia for that not-so-distant time when this country and much of the rest of the world got along.
For Kids and Their Grown-Ups
For superfans of the Disney animated movie, or children with princess fantasies, this musical adaptation is likely to be a good time. The royal sisters Elsa and Anna are here, along with the carrot-nosed snowman, Olaf; the iceman, Kristoff; and his sweet reindeer, Sven. With a score by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who also wrote the movie’s music, it’s very faithful to the original. Still, the chilliness onstage has nothing to do with ice. Get tickets today
Tina Fey, who wrote the screenplay for the 2004 movie “Mean Girls,” makes her Broadway debut with this musical adaptation, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw. Rest assured: The Plastics, the tyrannical teenage rulers of an Illinois high school, are as shallow as ever — and oblivious to the plot that their enemies, the school’s outsiders, have hatched against them. But there’s an unexpected sweetness to the musical, and ultimately a kindheartedness, too. Get tickets now.
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. With a score by Elton John and Tim Rice, additional music by the South African composer Lebo M., and choreography by Garth Fagan, this musical is still going strong after two decades. Get your tickets to a show here
You don’t need to know anything about SpongeBob and his pals. You don’t need to find a child to take along. With its eye-popping Rube Goldberg design and its infectious score (by Sara Bareilles, the Flaming Lips, Panic! at the Disco and others), this musical is just sheer fun. Directed by Tina Landau, it leads with joy — and it should be drawing bigger crowds. That’s your cue to take advantage. Grab a discount and go.
Starry Night
Renée Fleming crosses over from opera to sing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s famous score in this revival by Jack O’Brien, and she’s not the only luminary from another medium on bright display. Justin Peck, the resident choreographer at New York City Ballet, is making his Broadway debut, staging the plentiful dance. Musical theater stars, though, are in the principal roles, with Jessie Mueller as Julie Jordan and Joshua Henry as Billy Bigelow, batting his “Soliloquy” right out of the park. Get tickets
Want to entice a Broadway audience to a nearly four-hour Eugene O’Neill drama, set in a downscale bar where the clientele is a herd of depressive drunks? Just promise that Denzel Washington will be stopping by. In George C. Wolfe’s talent-stuffed production, he plays Hickey, the willfully cheery traveling salesman whose annual drop-ins at Harry Hope’s saloon provide a much-anticipated infusion of fun. This time in particular, he’s really livening up the joint. Order your tickets here
Bette Midler, who made this revival a scorching-hot ticket when it opened with her in the title role last year, returns for a victory lap, alongside her Horace Vandergelder, David Hyde Pierce. Until then, Bernadette Peters and Victor Garber are the show’s glittering stars. Get your tickets now
(Nearly) Impossible Tickets
It’s not that there’s no chance of buying your way in to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s game-changing musical-theater phenomenon. But when the Ticketmaster website asks, “What’s your budget per ticket?,” then suggests a range from, say, $500 to $1,400, it may give you pause. The show has a digital lottery for $10 orchestra seats, though — 46 at every performance. Slim odds, but people win them every day.
Bruce Springsteen has become a Broadway kind of guy since making his ecstatically received debut last fall in this up-close, almost-solo show. (His wife, Patti Scialfa, provides occasional harmony.) The house is sold out nightly, but a digital lottery dangles the chance of $75 tickets — 26 for each show. So maybe?
If you know your Harry Potter, you will be expecting the dementors, swooping down from the sky to suck out souls. That doesn’t make the stagecraft any less astonishing in the American premiere of this West End behemoth, directed by John Tiffany — a two-part play that can be seen as a marathon. What is surprising, as the saga of the grown-up Harry and his friends continues with the next generation, is how thoroughly Draco Malfoy’s boy, Scorpius, will melt your heart. Don’t have tickets yet? In an online lottery every Friday, the production releases a small number of good seats for each performance the following week, at just $20 for each part. It’s worth a shot. Order your tickets
No comments:
Post a Comment