Deaf West’s revival of “Spring Awakening” is the only Broadway show opening in September.
Other New York theater that looks promising this month: Desire, an evening of plays adapted from Tennessee Williams short stories
The Christians by Lucas Hnath
the musical Daddy Long Legs
and new work by Matthew Lopez (The Whipping Man), Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns), Thomas Bradshaw (Job), and The Elevator Repair Service (Gatz), as well as the New York City debut of a work by the Neo-Political Cowgirls.
But you can’t know for sure until you see the show, which is why I review.
Below is a selection of the plays, musicals and “immersive” theater pieces opening in September, organized chronologically by opening date. Each title is linked to a relevant website.
Color key: Broadway: Red. Off Broadway: Purple or Blue. Off Off Broadway: Green.
To look at the Fall season as a whole, check out Broadway Fall 2015 Preview and Off-Broadway Fall 2015 Preview.
September 2
In Bed With Roy Cohen (Theatre Row)
At the end of his life, Roy Cohen is visited by people from his past making him account for his deeds, including Julius Rosenberg, Ronald Reagan, Barbara Walters, Roy’s lover Serge, his mother Dora, and his own youthful self.
September 3
Where Was I? (Theatre 54)
Actress Karen Ludwig’s autobiographical solo show.
September 8
Little Thing, Big Thing (59e59)
An Irish ex-con and a nun are thrust into the world of international oil skullduggery, awakening passions they thought were dead. Part of New York’s seventh annual First Irish Theatre Festival.
September 9
The Legend of Georgia McBride (MCC at Lucille Lortel)
How can an Elvis impersonator become a winning drag queen in the Florida Panhandle? With an empty bank account and pregnant wife, Casey’s going to have to answer that question fast in this music-filled comedy written by Matthew Lopez (“The Whipping Man.”)
Laugh It Up, Stare It Down (Cherry Lane)
“This is a story of Cleo and Joe — the meeting of their minds, the entwining of their hearts, and their life-long search for a meaningful point in a universe too random to have one.”
September 10
Desire (59E59 )
An evening of plays based on six short stories by Tennessee Williams, adapted by Elizabeth Egloff, Marcus Gardley, Rebecca Gilman, David Grimm, John Guare, and Beth Henley.
Stoopdreamer (The Cell)
Presented as part of the 1st Irish Theatre Festival, the play suggests the lingering effects of gentrification as three locals meet in the last remaining Irish saloon in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Windsor Terrace, and reveal secrets from their past that may have ultimately stunted their futures.
Isolde (Theatre for a New Audience)
Inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, the play is written and directed by Richard Maxwell. The marriage of Patrick and Isolde appears to be happy, but then Isolde hires architect Maximo to build her dream house.
Judy (New Ohio Theatre)
“It’s the winter of 2040, and the world has changed – but maybe not by much. Timothy’s wife has just left him, and he isn’t taking it well..What happens when technology fails and communication breaks down.” A comedy by Max Posner produced by Page 73.
EVE (Gym at Judson)
An immersive dance theater experience by the Neo-Political Cowgirls (“exploring and celebrating the female voice”),where the audience wanders at will through the expanse of an 11-room set, swaddled by music and art.
September 13
The Black Book (Sargent Theatre)
A college student disguises his suicide note in a poem and leaves it in his poetry professor’s classroom. The apprehensive professor, is compelled to delve into his student’s past and unravel the clues within his poem in attempt to save him
Pondling (59E59)
Genevieve Hulme-Beaman’s one-woman play presents a “strange lonely child who lives life in the grip of her own vivid imagination.”
September 17
The Christians (Playwrights Horizons)
In this play by Lucas Hnath, Pastor Paul, who has built a megachurch, ” is about to preach a sermon that will shake the foundation of his congregation’s beliefs.”
Iphigenia in Aulis (Classic Stage Company)
As part of CSC’s inaugural Greek Festival, Playwright Anne Washburn (Mr. Burns, a post-electric play) and director Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) team up in this dynamic imagining of Euripides’ rarely-seen final play. A father is challenged to sacrifice his daughter in order to appease the gods.
Hamlet In Bed (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
Michael Laurence and Annette O’Toole star in Laurence’s play about a neurotic actor and adoptee tracks down a woman who might be his birth mother and asks her to star with him in Hamlet.
September 18
Boys in the Club (Regeneration at Access Theater)
Meet Hector. Hector used to go out with Alan who is now going out with Eddie who just met Gucci, the house boy, and Pippin, the Drama Queen. And yes, Hector’s the one in the bad drag…In the course of the evening, they reveal hopes, fears, and how they are still coming to terms with HIV.
September 21
The New Morality (Mint Theater)
A revival of the play by Harold Chapin, who died on the battlefield in 1915 at the age of 29. Aboard a houseboat on a fashionable reach of the Thames in 1911, “Betty Jones has been simmering for weeks, watching her husband make an ass of himself by paying excessive attention to their neighbor, Muriel Wister. Betty finally boils over and tells Muriel exactly what she thinks of her”
Fulfillment (The Flea)
Thomas Bradshaw’s new play about a man who has a new girlfriend and a new apartment, but is about to enter hell. The play “tackles the question: what makes us happy?” As in many of Bradshaw’s plays, this one includes violence, nudity and sexual situations.
September 24
Conversations with My Molester: A Journey of Faith (The Bridge Theatre)
A one-man show by Michael Mack about meeting 40 years laters with the priest who molested him at age 11.
Sommerfugl (InViolet at Fourth Street Theater)
A new play Inspired by the true story of Lili Elbe, the first person to have gender reassignment surgery in 1930.
September 26
Off The Desk: Tales of a Mediocre Stockbroker (C.O.W.)
Chris Foley looks at the humorous side of his nearly 15-year career in finance, before he switched to stand-up comedy.
September 27
Spring Awakening (Brooks Atkinson)
An 18-week run of this revival of the 2006 Broadway musical, based on Frank Wedekind’s 19th century German play about the coming-of-age, and coming-to-rebellion, of a dozen young people. This production, originally mounted in Los Angeles, is in English and American Sign Language, features a large cast of relative newcomers, as well as Camryn Manheim, Krysta Rodriguez and Andy Mientus, and marks the Broadway debut of Marlee Matlin.
Antigone (BAM)
Juliette Binoche plays stubborn heroine in this feminist version of Sophocles’s tragedy, with a new translation by Anne Carson, directed by Ivo van Hove. Part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s New Wave Festival.
September 28
Daddy Long Legs (Davenport Theatre)
Based on the 1912 novel by Jean Webster, the musical tells the story of Jerusha Abbott, the oldest orphan in the John Grier Home and the mysterious benefactor who sends her to college to be a writer. Required to write him a letter once a month, Jerusha is never to know the benefactor’s identity—so she invents one for him: Daddy Long Legs.
Fondly, Collette Richland (New York Theatre Workshop)
“When Mr. and Mrs. “Fritz” Fitzhubert are summoned through a wee little secret door in their living room, they enter into a phantasmagorical world of Alpen hotels, mysterious employees, perilous hikes, and ancient deities, that will leave their lives forever altered.” A collaboration between the Elevator Repair Service (The Gatz) and their first living writer, playwright Sibyl Kempson.
Have a play or musical opening in New York in September that I didn’t mention — or one in October you want to make sure I mention in next month’s calendar? E-mail me at NewYorkTheater.me@gmail.com
