And the Fall Broadway Openings Begin!

LONDON BRIDGE “The Height of the Storm,” which opens on Broadway this month, began its London run a year ago and was named best theater production of 2018 by The Guardian. (“Sunday Times” refers to The Times of London.)

IT IS A VERY “the British are coming” kind of fall, with at least four acclaimed London productions moving to New York between now and the end of the calendar year. One of them is even a musical.

Speaking of shows with singing and/or dancing, they come in many formats this season, from one straight-out one-man concert and one “theatrical concert” to at least three traditional-form book musicals.

We’re also getting new plays from Tracy Letts and Adam Rapp. And London isn’t the only source of fresh, exciting work. Thank you, Steppenwolf, Williamstown, ART and even Off Broadway for your latest contributions.

The dates at the beginning of the listings are opening nights. Previews generally begin a few weeks earlier and are noted  at the end of each item.

SEPTEMBER

Sept. 15  DERREN BROWN: SECRET  

It’s an evening of  “psychological magic.”. When Brown did his show Off Broadway (at the Atlantic) two years ago, The New York Times called it “enthrallingly baffling.” 

 Cort Theater, 138 West 48thStreet, derrenbrownsecret.com. 2 hours 30 minutes. Limited run (closes on Jan. 4) Previews begin on Sept. 6. 

 

THUNDER ONLY HAPPENS WHEN IT’S RAINING Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins, center, with fellow cast members at a curtain call for the London production of “The Height of the Storm.”

Sept. 24   THE HEIGHT OF THE STORM  

Who would not want to see Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins play out the tensions and dramas of a 50-year marriage, one that suddenly threatens to come apart when the couple’s daughters visit? The theme: “The subjectivity of truth.” Pryce and Atkins played the roles in the acclaimed London production too. Florian Zeller, the French playwright, gave us “The Father” (Frank Langella won a Tony for it when it came to Broadway).   

Samuel J. Friedman Theater, 261 West 47th Street, manhattantheatreclub.com. 1 hour 30 minutes (no intermission).  Limited run (closes on Nov. 17). Previews begin on Sept. 10.

 

OCTOBER

DOESN’T LOOK A THING LIKE LBJ! Brian Cox, who plays President Johnson in “The Great Society.” Come to think of it, Bryan Cranston didn’t particularly resemble Johnson either.

Oct. 1   THE GREAT SOCIETY   

You loved “All the Way,” the Tony-winning play with Bryan Cranston as LBJ? Here comes a sequel from the same people: Robert Schenkkan, playwright, and Bill Rauch, director. This time Johnson will be played by Brian Cox, the coldhearted mogul Logan Roy from “Succession.” A hell of a supporting cast too. Grantham Coleman, who was so charming in “Much Ado About Nothing” in the park this summer, plays MLK.  I’m also looking forward to seeing Bryce Pinkham as RFK, Marc Kudisch as Richard Daley (mayor of Chicago) and Richard Thomas , of all non-physically-resembling people, as Hubert Humphrey. 

Vivian Beaumont, Lincoln Center, lct.org.  2 hours 25 minutes. Limited run (closes on Nov. 30). Previews begin on Sept. 6.

Oct. 2   FREESTYLE LOVE SUPREME

O.K. Just focus for a minute. This is from Lin-Manuel Miranda (and I will add this for the three people in the universe who don’t know it: he is the creator of “Hamilton”) and two other producers.   The promotional materials call it. “a free-style hip-hop improvisational never-before-seen comedy ride,” Oh, let’s hope so. Let’s hope that “If you’re brilliant now, everything you’ve done in the past must be brilliant too.” But frankly it’s statistically questionable.

Booth Theater. 222 West 45th Street, freestylelovesupreme.com. 1 hour 20 minutes (no intermission). Limited run (closes on Jan. 5). Previews begin on Sept. 13. 

 

 

PLANTATION PROLOGUE Joaquina Kalukango and Paul Alexander Nolan in an early scene of “Slave Play,” which takes place in the antebellum South. The rest of the play is set in the present day.

Oct. 6   SLAVE PLAY  

 It made quite an impression at the Public Theater this summer. In fact, Wesley Morris of The Times called it “the single most daring thing I’ve seen in theater in a long time.” In this thought-provoking (to say the least) drama, a 21st-century black man reacts to an eye-opening racist incident by going high-dudgeon psychodrama. He asks his best friend (a white man, naturally) to buy him. And – oh, you know how things tend to get out of hand. 

Golden Theater, 252 West 45th Street, slaveplaybroadway.com. 2 hours (no intermission). Previews begin on Sept. 10.

 

STARTING OVER Ian Barford, left, as a newly divorced man with personality flaws, and Tim Hopper, in the Steppenwolf production of Tracy Letts’s comedy “Linda Vista.”

Oct. 10   LINDA VISTA

Tracy Letts is back – as a playwright, that is. This, his first play since the everything-winning “August: Osage County,” is about a 50-year-old divorcé starting out on his own. Unfortunately, as The Chicago Tribune wrote, the protagonist is “both the smartest guy in the room and a misanthropic grump.” Nobody likes. This comedy began as a Steppenwolf production, of course, and now it comes to New York audiences via Second Stage.  When it had its Chicago world premiere in 2017, the Tribune review called it, referring to Letts, “as personal and self-examining a piece as he has written.”

 Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street, 2st.com. 2 hours 50 minutes. Limited run (closes on Nov. 10). Previews begin on Sept. 19.

 

IF ONLY I COULD MEET A CUTE TRUCK DRIVER Marisa Tomei in the Williamstown Theater Festival production of “The Rose Tattoo” in summer 2016.

Oct. 15   THE ROSE TATTOO 

Marisa Tomei stars in Tennessee Williams’s 1950s classic about a sexually repressed Italian widow living in the American South and withdrawing into her own grief. Until she meets a very desirable truck driver. Tomei did this at the Williamstown Theater in Massachusetts, and Rex Reed wrote in The Observer that she “lights up the stage with a one-woman fireworks display.”  Trip Cullman is the director.  

 American Airlines Theater, 227 West 42nd Street, roundabouttheatre.org. 2 hours 20 minutes. Limited run (closes on Dec. 8).  Previews begin on Sept. 19. 

 

MONSTER VS. DEMIGOD James Hayden Rodriguez in a scene from “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical.” Rodriguez also plays a human.

Oct. 16   THE LIGHTNING THIEF

With the help of a rock music score, Poseidon’s son (Chris McCarrell), a dyslexic teenage demigod who has just found out who his father is, tries to stop Greek gods from going to war.   Monsters try to kill him.

 Longacre Theater, 220 West 48th Street, lightningthiefmusical.com. 2 hours. Limited run (closes on Jan. 5). Previews begin on Sept. 20.  

THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR Will Hochman and Mary-Louise Parker as student and teacher in Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside.”

Oct. 17    THE SOUND INSIDE. This dark new work of Adam Rapp’s started at Williamstown too, last summer. The New York Times made that production a Critic’s Pick. Mary-Louise Parker plays an author-teacher dying of stomach cancer. She bonds with a talented writing student (Will Hochman in Williamstown and here) and asks him to help her commit suicide with a series of injections. Things do not go as planned. Like a Tennessee Williams character, Bella narrates the story itself as she acts it. David Cromer directs, and he’s accustomed to looking at traditional works in untraditional ways.

Studio 54, 254 West 54th Street, soundinsidebroadway.com.  1 hour 30 minutes (no intermission). Limited run (closes on Jan. 12). Previews began on Aug. 17.

FIFTY SHADES OF BAREFOOT After a sold-out world tour, David Byrne and his musicians bring their “theatrical concert” to New York audiences at the Hudson.

Oct. 20    AMERICAN UTOPIA

The Chicago Tribune called it “a marvel of staging and motion.” The Atlantic pronounced it “captivatingly bizarre.”  David Byrne himself calls this production a theatrical concert, and it’s toured the world as that, ever since Byrne’s first solo album in 14 years (also named “American Utopia”) was released in 2018. The show’s first number, “I Dance Like This,” makes its very Byrneian point. Throughout the show, the musicians all move — with their instruments, as if this group were a new kind of marching band. Annie-B Parson, who did the choreography, calls it essentially “a non-narrative piece,” but that doesn’t mean there’s not an eleven o’clock number. Wait for “Everybody’s Coming to My House.”

Hudson Theater, 141 West 44th Street. americanutopiabroadway.com. 1 hour 40 minutes (no intermission). Limited run (closes on Jan. 19). Previews begin on Oct. 4.

 

NOVEMBER

 

GET A DRINK AROUND HERE The London cast of “The Inheritance,” which asks: How much do present-day gay men owe to the generations before them?

Nov. 7    THE INHERITANCE.

Someone has already called Matthew Lopez’s new two-part play   “ ‘Angels in America’ meets ‘Howards End.’ ” The London production won four Olivier Awards, including best new play, best direction and best actor (Kyle Soller). Most of the London cast is coming over, including New York’s own John Benjamin Hickey, but Lois Smith is replacing Vanessa Redgrave as the story’s lone woman (a grieving AIDS mother). Let’s just say it’s about some glamorous gay male New Yorkers, a spacious Upper West Side apartment and a house upstate. And the director is Stephan Daldry. The burning philosophical question is: How much does today’s generation owe to its forebears? The Times of London called it “a glorious saga of modern life in New York,” You’ll have to book two nights for this. Like “Angels,” it’s a two-parter.

 Ethel Barrymore Theater, 243 West 47th Street, theinheritanceplay.com. 7 hours or so (two parts). Limited run (closes on March 1).  Previews begin on Sept. 27.

 

IKE’S EX Adrienne Warren as the title character in “Tina,” which was a critical hit in London.

Nov. 7     TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL  

Adrienne Warren, who earned a 2016 Tony nomination for “Shuffle Along,” plays Turner, the queen of rock ‘n’ roll, in this bio-musical. Daniel J. Watts is her Ike. The West End production was nominated for the Olivier, London’s most important theater award. Katori Hall wrote the book. The choreographer is Anthony van Laast.   Phyllida Lloyd is directing. The music, from “Proud Mary” to “What’s Love Got to Do With It?,” you already know. 

 Lunt-Fontanne Theater, 205 West 46th Street, ticketmaster.com. 2 hours 45 minutes. Open run. Previews begin Oct. 12.

 

Nov. 19  THE ILLUSIONISTS – MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS   

This production is frrom Magic Space Entertainment, a company whose other traveling shows include “Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles” and “The Bachelor: Live On Stage.” The show has gotten some positive reviews. But remember when you get home with that Playbill in your hand : You haven’t seen a Broadway show; you’ve just caught a magic show passing through town.  (Oh, and it was here before, during the 2014-15 holiday season.)

Neil Simon Theater, 250 West 52nd Street, ticketmaster.com. 2 hours 15 minutes. Limited run (closes on Jan. 3). No previews.

 

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON George C. Scott (in black-and-white photo with the Spirit of Christmas Present) played Scrooge in a 1984 television movie. Campbell Scott (color photo), his son, takes on the role on Broadway this holiday season.

Nov. 20   A CHRISTMAS CAROL  

Campbell Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge, that crabby old Victorian miser who’s always sneering and saying “Humbug”? Yes, this boyish star of “Royal Pains,” “House of Cards,” “Longtime Companion” and “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle,” is old enough. He’s 58, and his father, George C. Scott, was 57 when he played the role in a 1984 British-American television-movie version. Plot: Very bad man has very bad dream (starring three very different ghosts) on Christmas Eve, realizes he should be nice to other people during the holidays — and all year round — and give lots of money to charity.

Lyceum Theater, 149 West 45th Street, telecharge.com.  2 hours 15 minutes. Through Jan. 5. Previews begin Nov. 7.

 

 

DECEMBER

’AND I’M HERE TO REMIND YOU’ A midshow standing ovation at the Cambridge, Mass., production of “Jagged Little Pill.” It reportedly happened at every performance, right after the number “You Oughta Know.”

Dec. 5      JAGGED LITTLE PILL 

Back in 1995, it was Alanis Morissette’s third studio album; at the Grammys, it won album of the year. Now it’s a musical (with extra songs written just for the show), which began at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. And the original cast, including the star Kathryn Gallagher, is moving with it to New York. The book for the stage version is by Diablo Cody, who made her reputation by writing the film “Juno.” Here, she’s created a troubled family, the Healys. Diane Paulus is the director, because of course she is. 

Broadhurst Theater, 235 West 44th Street,  jaggedlittlepill.com.  2 hours 40 minutes. Previews begin Nov. 3.

 

December    HARRY CONNICK JR. – A CELEBRATION OF COLE PORTER   

The new album, “True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter,” drops in late October, and Connick arrives live on Broadway for this solo concert just in time for the Rockefeller Center tree crowds. (Right now, the official word is only that performances begin in December. And all they’ll tell us at this point is that we’ll hear “Anything Goes” and “You Do Something to Me.” Apparently, it’s all a huge secret. But we do know that they’re doing it for a couple of nights in Durham, N.C., in September.)

Nederlander Theater, 208 West 41st Street, nederlander.com. Limited run. (They haven’t yet announced exactly  when previews begin, when the show closes or what the running time is. We’ll let you know.)

 

AFTER THE NEW YEAR 

There are more than a dozen other Broadway openings this season, all scheduled between Jan. 1 and the end of the spring season. We’ll tell you about those in a future post. Meanwhile, here are quick glimpses of a few:

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE  Paula Vogel’s two-hander memory play about sexual abuse, transferring from Off Broadway to Broadway 22 years later — and with the original cas!! Mary-Louise Parker is 55 now; she was 33 the first time she took on this role. David Morse, who plays her manipulative uncle, is still a decade older. Funny how that works.

MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON  Laura Linney in a solo show. A severely ill woman confined to her hospital bed looks back on her life. They loved it in London.

WEST SIDE STORY  The last revival of this Bernstein-Sondheim-Robbins-Laurents super-classic about Tony and Maria and street gangs closed just eight years ago. But when Steven Spielberg is releasing a movie remake next Christmas (12-18-2020), how can you not take advantage?

WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? This is the way it works. When a stage actress has impressed New York audiences the way Laurie Metcalf has (back-to-back Tonys for “A Doll’s House, Part 2” and “Three Tall Women”), you’ve got to let her play Edward Albee’s shrewish, agonized, heartbroken Martha, the unhappiest faculty wife in America. Eddie Izzard will be her George.