TheaterMania’s Editor-in-Chief Picks Must-See Broadway and Off-Broadway Shows This Fall

This fall, New York City’s stages are filled with stories that span continents, centuries, and genres — from a world-premiere opera inspired by Michael Chabon novel to a long-overdue Broadway debut for one of America’s most acclaimed contemporary playwrights. Revivals of rarely seen musicals sit alongside new works that grapple with history, identity, politics, and family. Together, these shows offer a reminder of theater’s ability to reimagine the past, interrogate the present, and dream a different future. Here are the shows I’m most looking forward to seeing before the year is out.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Metropolitan Opera
Opens September 21

Spanning several decades, in locales ranging from Prague to New York to Antarctica, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay deals with fascism, loss, homosexuality, magic, comic books, unrequited love, and Jewish mysticism in it’s nearly 700 Pulitzer Prize-winning pages. Opera and I don’t have a great history, but I’m very curious to see how composer Mason Bates and librettist Gene Scheer distill this sprawling novel about a pair of cousins who create an anti-Nazi superhero at the dawn of World War II into a comparatively slim 2 hours and 50 minutes. Bartlett Sher’s world premiere production promises towering sets, a score brimming with electronic music, and stage-filling projections by 59 Studio that are fit for the funny pages.

Ragtime
Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont Theater
Previews begin September 26

Lear deBessonet begins her tenure as artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater with a revival of this beloved musical by Terrence McNally, Lynn Ahrens, and Stephen Flaherty. Inspired by her concert staging at New York City Center, Ragtime reunites much of that cast, led by stars Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, and Brandon Uranowitz, backed by a suitably massive orchestra. There is no better time for this heartbreaking musical about the search for the American dream at the dawn of the 20th Century, and it will no doubt deliver.

Oh Happy Day!
Public Theater
Previews begin October 2

Jordan E. Cooper burst onto the scene with his sensational play Ain’t No Mo’, becoming the youngest Black American playwright to be nominated for a Tony in the process. He returns to the Public with Oh Happy Day!, a riff on Noah’s Arc set at a family birthday party in Mississippi. It begins when God tells young gay man Keyshawn (played by the author) that he can only save himself from an impending flood by also saving his estranged family. Can he forgive the people who hurt him the most?

Little Bear Ridge Road
Booth Theatre
Previews begin October 7

It had us at Laurie Metcalf and Joe Mantello, but the real excitement here (for me, anyway) is the long-awaited Broadway debut of playwright Samuel D. Hunter. Hunter’s been an off-Broadway mainstay for years, continually topping early works like The Whale and A Bright New Boise with dramas like Greater Clements, Clarkston, A Case for the Existence of God, and Grangeville. All of those plays deserve a Broadway spotlight, so there must be something really special about Little Bear Ridge Road, the play that finally managed to get there.

Kyoto
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater
Previews begin October 8

This is cheating, because I saw Kyoto already, but I can’t wait to see it again. In this new play from the creators of the international hit The Jungle, we go behind-the-scenes at the historic climate conferences of the 1990s, guided by an unexpected figure: a lobbyist for Big Oil. Steven Kunken plays our anti-hero protagonist, reprising an incredible performance he originated last year in London, and he’s joined by fellow UK cast members Ferdy Roberts as British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Jorge Bosch, who earned an Olivier nomination for portraying conference leader Raul Estrada-Oyuela.

Chess
Imperial Theatre
Previews begin October 15

Chess returns to Broadway at its original home, the Imperial Theatre, where Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice’s musical about a chess match during the Cold War famously flopped in 1988. This production promises to run way longer than 68 performances, if only because of it’s top-line cast: Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, and Nicholas Christopher. An added bonus is the great score, which includes the theatrical power ballad “Nobody’s Side” and the storied pop hit “One Night in Bangkok.”

Hannah Senesh
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene at Theatre Row
Previews begin October 19

Jennifer Apple (The Band’s Visit) stars in this solo play-with-music about the life of Hannah Senesh, a resistance fighter who was executed by the Nazis during a mission to rescue fellow Jews during the Holocaust. Based on Senesh’s own diaries, it’s written by David Schechter, with contributions from the late  Elizabeth Swados and Steven Lutvak, and is fittingly presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, which launched the popular Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish several years ago.

The Baker’s Wife
Classic Stage Company
Previews begin October 23

You might not know anything about The Baker’s Wife (the original production closed out-of-town), but I guarantee that you’ve heard at least one song from it: the cabaret standard “Meadowlark.” Stephen Schwartz and Joseph Stein’s musical comes to Classic Stage Company by way of London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, where director Gordon Greenberg’s new staging debuted last year (something of a passion project, he previously helmed the show at Paper Mill Playhouse in 2005). Leading the cast are two stars: Scott Bakula as the Baker and Oscar winner Ariana DeBose as his titular spouse.

Meet the Cartozians
Second Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center
Previews begin October 29

Playwright Talene Monahon has been on my radar ever since How to Load a Musket, a play about Revolutionary and Civil War reenactors. Now, she’s focused on a personal story focusing on two sets of Armenian Americans a century apart. David Cromer has compiled an all-star cast, led by Andrea Martin, Monahon’s real-life partner Will Brill, Raffi Barsoumian, Nael Nacer, Susan Pourfar, and Tamara Sevunts.

Bug
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Previews begin December 17

Back in 2020, Carrie Coon told me she was a little afraid of starring in Bug, written by her husband, Tracy Letts. When David Cromer’s revival premiered at Steppenwolf five years ago, it was a big hit — big enough that it was brought back after the Covid shutdown. Now, it’s coming to Broadway via Manhattan Theatre Club, where Coon and Namir Smallwood will once again confront the nudity, the drug use, the blood, and, of course, the bugs. It’s the kind of in-your-face theater that doesn’t really exist on Broadway, and I absolutely cannot wait.