Staying Fit
Wendell Pierce (left) as Willy Loman and Sharon D. Clarke as Linda Loman in the Young Vic production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" at The Piccadilly Theatre in London, England.
Gary Mitchell/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Last season, Broadway’s big return got off to a tentative (and somewhat bumpy) start, with stars often sidelined by COVID-19 diagnoses and ticket sales failing to match pre-pandemic levels. Looking ahead to the fall, the curtain will be coming down on some longtime favorites — including Come From Away and Dear Evan Hansen — but in their places will be a slew of exciting openings for all stripes of theater lovers: new works by legendary playwrights (Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt), revivals featuring major Hollywood stars (Samuel L. Jackson in The Piano Lesson), jukebox musicals to sing along to (A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical), screen-to-stage adaptations (Some Like It Hot, Almost Famous) and buzzy off-Broadway hits that are getting their time to shine on the Great White Way (Kimberly Akimbo). Planning a culture-filled getaway to New York this fall? Here, 15 new shows to add to your lineup.
AARP Membership— $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal
Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.
Performances beginning in September
The show: Cost of Living
The premise: Polish-born playwright Martyna Majok won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this gripping play about people living with disabilities and their caretakers. It’s an often gritty, frequently funny drama about tough realities, populated with realistically complicated characters, without a hint of sentimentality. Reprising the roles they originated off-Broadway are Gregg Mozgala, who has cerebral palsy and plays a graduate student with the same condition, and Katy Sullivan, a bilateral above-knee amputee who is not only an actress but also a track and field star who set records in the 2012 Paralympics.
Why you should book a ticket: Majok is one of the most exciting young playwrights working in New York theater today — you won’t want to miss her first show on Broadway.
See it: Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, from Sept. 13
The show: Leopoldstadt
The premise: This sprawling (yet intimate) historical epic by Sir Tom Stoppard, 85, follows the lives of one prosperous Jewish family in Vienna from 1899 through the first half of the 20th century, as they discuss topics like Zionism, the impact of World War I, the rise of Bolshevism, assimilation, antisemitism and the Holocaust. During the play’s run in London, when it won best new play at the 2020 Olivier Awards, Nick Curtis of The Evening Standard summed the show up as “a late masterwork,” while Lloyd Evans of The Spectator called it “Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List.”
Why you should book a ticket: Stoppard has said this very well may be his last play, so it’s a must-see for any serious theater lover.
See it: Longacre Theatre, from Sept. 14
The show: 1776
The premise: Lin-Manuel Miranda revolutionized our understanding of the Revolutionary War era with his hop-hop musical Hamilton. This season, directors Diane Paulus (56) and Jeffrey L. Page are similarly blowing the dust off an old Broadway chestnut, 1776, which charts the efforts of John Adams and his compatriots to declare American independence. In this new revival by Roundabout Theatre Company, the Founding Fathers will be played by a gender-swapped cast of performers who all identify as female, non-binary or trans.
Why you should book a ticket: During the show’s out-of-town tryouts at Cambridge’s American Repertory Theater, critics singled out Crystal Lucas-Perry, who stars as John Adams, with Theatermania critic Sandy MacDonald writing that she “has a voice as clarion and commanding as the Liberty Bell.”
See it: American Airlines Theatre, from Sept. 16
The show: Death of a Salesman
The premise: The Arthur Miller tragedy has been revived on Broadway four times since its original 1949 production, most recently in 2012 with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman starring as the past-his-prime traveling salesman Willy Loman. This latest production started life at London’s Young Vic, before transferring to the West End, where it won two Olivier Awards for best actress (Sharon D. Clarke, 55, who earned a Tony nod last year for Caroline, or Change) and best director (Marianne Elliott, 55, and Miranda Cromwell). The Broadway transfer features London cast members Wendell Pierce, 58, (The Wire) as Willy and Clarke as his long-suffering wife, Linda, alongside newcomer André De Shields, 76 — a recent Tony winner for Hadestown— as Willy’s dead brother, Ben.
Why you should book a ticket: Pierce earned raves for his performance in London, with Stephen Dalton writing in The Hollywood Reporter, “He may be a brawny bear of a man onstage, but Pierce dances and weaves through his dialogue like a jazz musician, breathing life and levity into creaky old lines that might otherwise sound didactic and leaden.”
More on entertainment
11 Broadway Shows That Are Streaming Right Now
Welcome to the ultimate at-home watchlist for theater lovers11 Great Broadway Shows and Musicals to Stream Now
Broadway has gone dark, but you can watch hit plays at home10 Fabulous TV Shows for People Who Love Musicals
Fall in love with all of these tune-filled series