Six shows are opening on Broadway in March, more than a dozen Off-Broadway, and plenty Off-Off Broadway as well, with a mix of exciting new work — by John Leguizamo, Lynn Nottage, and David Byrne, among others — and plays and musicals familiar enough to be called classics — by Sondheim, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and two each by William Inge and Eugene O’Neill, as well as a timely adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People. Indeed, there are several starkly relevant plays about issues — an oil spill, an economically challenged community, a community responding to tragedy, a politician in trouble, a martyr, and a dictator.
Fan favorites such as Sally Field, Danny DeVito, Bobby Cannavale, Abigail Breslin and Lindsay Mendez are gracing New York stages in shows opening in March.
Below is a list, organized chronologically by opening date, with descriptions. 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 Spring season as a whole, check out my Broadway Spring 2017 Preview Guide and my Off Broadway Spring 2017 Preview Guide
March 1
Sweeney Todd (Barrow Street)
This intimate staging of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s gory musical originated in Harrington’s, London’s oldest working pie and mash shop. The Barrow Street Theatre has been transformed to replicate the pie shop – theatergoers can even order a meal before the show.
All the Fine Boys (New Group at Signature)
Fourteen-year-old best friends Jenny (Abigail Breslin) and Emily (Isabelle Fuhrman) are hungry for knowledge and experience, and in suburban South Carolina in the late ’80s, experience is readily found with older boys
Bull in a China Shop (LCT)
A comedy by Bryna Turner that follows Mary Woolley and her partner Jeannette Marks through 40 years in a New England seminary as they reform and revolutionize women’s education at the height of the suffrage movement.
Dolphins and Sharks (Labyrinth Theater at Bank Street)
Pernell Walker of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” stars in this play by James Anthony Tyler about a group of workers in a Harlem print shop struggling for a living wage and a dignified life.
March 2
Significant Other (Booth)
Gideon Glick, Barbara Barrie and Lindsay Mendez star in this transfer of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2015 Off-Broadway hit about a gay bachelor looking for love in the big city, watching as one (female) friend after another gets married.
March 8
The Outer Space (The Public Theater)
At Joe’s Pub. Ethan Lipton tells the musical story of two human beings who buy an old spaceship, leaving the noise, pollution and overpriced rents of Earth for the vast beauty and treacherous terrain of the final frontier.
March 9
The Glass Menagerie (Belasco)
Sally Field, Joe Mantello, Finn Witrock, Madison Ferris star in the eighth production of Tennessee Williams play on Broadway.
The Moors (Playwrights Realm at The Duke)
Jen Silverman’s new play about 19th-century novel-writing sisters.
March 12
Come from Away (Schoenfeld)
A new musical that explores the lasting connection forged between a group of travelers whose planes were diverted to a small Newfoundland town on Sept. 11, 2001.
The Emperor Jones (Irish Rep)
Eugene O’Neill’s play about Brutus Jones, who, following a prison break in the United States, sets himself up as monarch of a Caribbean island. When the Natives rebel after years of exploitation, Jones journeys into darkness.
March 13
The Light Years (Playwrights Horizons)
From the theater company The Debate Society: “Behold The Spectatorium: an audacious, visionary 12,000-seat theater designed for the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 by Steele MacKaye, the now-forgotten theatrical impresario around whom this haunted, 40-year love story spins.”
Enemy of the People (The Barrow Group)
This adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic gains new currency thanks to the president’s recent remarks. The play is about a scientist who discovers an environmental catastrophe in his town that nobody wants to hear about.
March 14
Sundown, Yellow Moon (Ars Nova/WP at McGinn/Cazale)
While navigating the unsettling waters of young adulthood, twin sisters return home to find their father in a moment of crisis. Featuring songs by Brooklyn indie-rock duo The Bengsons.
March 15
Joan of Arc: Into the Fire (Public)
A rock concert version of the French heroine by David Byrne, directed by Alex Timbers, the team that put together Here Lies Love.
March 16
The Price (Roundabout at AA)
A revival of Arthur Miller’ 1968 drama about two estranged brothers who reunite to sell their the remainder of their parents’ estate. Danny DeVito makes his Broadway debut in a four-member cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Jessica Hecht and Tony Shalhoub
Spill (Ensemble Studio Theater)
A theatrical exploration of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest oil spill in history, based on over 200 hours of interviews
March 19
Cry Havoc (Bedlam at New Ohio)
A solo performance piece by Stephan Wolfert, whorecounts his own experiences of military service, weaving his personal narrative with lines from some of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches.
March 20
How to Transcend a Happy Marriage (LCT/Mitzi Newhouse)
A new play by Sarah Ruhl: Two married couples discuss a younger acquaintance–a polyamorous woman who also hunts her own meat. Fascinated, they invite this mysterious woman and her two live-in boyfriends to a New Year’s Eve party, which alters the course of their lives.
Church and State (New World Stages)
A “serious comedy” by Jason Odell Williams: Three days before his bid for re-election in North Carolina, a Republican US senator makes an off-the-cuff comment to a blogger that calls into question the politico’s belief in God
March 23
Miss Saigon (Broadway)
The first Broadway revival of the 1991 musical.An American soldier named Chris marries Kim in Vietnam before departing for the US. Three years later, he returns to find Kim still alive and raising Tam, a boy he fathered. With the Viet Cong closing in on the city and two women wanting the only place in his heart, Chris has big decisions to make.
Angry Young Man (Urban Stages)
A British comedy by Ben Woolf about a Middle Eastern surgeon who immigrates to London, running afoul of both white nationalists and liberal hypocrites.
March 26
Sweat (Studio 54)
Broadway transfer of the hit Public Theatre production of Nottage’s drama about blue-collar workers facing economic meltdown in Reading, Pennsylvania
Come Back, Little Sheba/Picnic (Transport Group at The Gym at Judson)
Two plays by William Inge in repertory
Picnic: When a gorgeous drifter Hal arrives in a small Kansas town, no one is prepared. He brings with him the possibilities and promises — some true some false — of a life with real options.
Come Back, Little Sheba In an old and cluttered house in the middle west in their middle age, a couple lives one day to the next: Lola, breathless with fear of silence and solitude, and Doc a recovering alcoholic. Into their tired lives comes Marie, their boarder, so flush with the riches of her youth that they can no longer deny how they spent their own.
March 27
Latin History for Morons (Public)
Inspired by the near total absence of Latinos in his son’s American history class, John Leguizamo embarks on a frenzied search through 3,000 years of history to find a Latin hero for his son’s school project
March 30
The Hairy Ape (Park Avenue Armory)
Bobby Cannavale stars as Yank in this 1921 play written by Eugene O’Neill.
