The nine shows opening on Broadway in the month of April include four musicals and five plays – the old ones among the most beloved (Carousel, My Fair Lady) or respected (by Eugene O’Neill, George Bernard Shaw, Tom Stoppard), the new ones among the most anticipated (Harry Potter, Mean Girls.).
But Off-Broadway is generating excitement this month too — with, for example, a one-two punch at the Public, of a new musical by Quiara Alegria Hudes (In The Heights) and a new play by Lynn Nottage (Ruined, Sweat.) and the debut of new plays at Playwrights Horizons by up-and-comers Lindsey Ferrentino and Clare Barron
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, Black or Blue. Off Off Broadway: Green.
To look at the Spring season as a whole, check out Broadway Spring 2018 and Off-Broadway Spring 2018
April 2
Ms. Estrada (The Flea)
A Hip-Hop remix of Aristophanes’ sex comedy, brought to life by the Q Brothers Collective.
April 3
Feeding the Dragon (Primary Stages)
In this solo show written and performed by Sharon Washington, she revisits her time growing up in an apartment on the top floor inside the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library, where her father served as the building’s custodian, and how her love of the written word has helped her battle dragons.
Bobbie Clearly (Roundabout)
Something unspeakable happened in the middle of a cornfield two years ago. Now, at last, the upstanding residents of Milton, Nebraska—from the cop and the nurse to the co-captains of the dance team, and even Bobbie himself—are ready to tell you their sides of the story.
April 5
Goldstein (The Actor’s Temple)
A musical: Louis Goldstein has written a tell-all family memoir. The book is a best-seller. But is it true? F
April 8
Mean Girls
Theater: August Wilson
Authors: Tina Fey (book), Jeff Richmond (music), Nell Benjamin (lyrics)
Director and choreographer: Casey Nicholas
Cast: Erika Henningsen, Taylor Louderman, Ashley Park, and Kate Rockwell
Based on Tina Fey’s 2004 movie, this new musical (which will try out in Washington D.C.’s National Theatre in the Fall), pits a newcomer to high school against a triumvirate of classmates who are, well, mean girls, labeled the Plastics.
April 9
This Flat Earth (Playwrights Horizons)
Written by Lindsey Ferrentino (“Ugly Lies The Bone“ and “Amy and the Orphans“) and directed by Rebecca Taichman (“Indecent“) At a middle school in this seaside town, the unthinkable has happened, placing a bewildered community in the national spotlight. Stuck at home in a state of shocked limbo, Julie and Zander, two thirteen-year-olds, try to make sense of the chaos they witnessed, their awkward crushes, and an infinitely more complicated future
April 10
Miss You Like Hell (The Public)
Book and lyrics by Quiara Alegria Hudes (In The Heights, Water by the Spoonful), music & lyrics by Erin McKeown. Directed by Trip Cullman. Daphne Rubin-Vega is Beatriz, flawed mom to 16 year-old Olivia, and an undocumented immigrant on the verge of deportation. They take a road trip together.
April 11
Children of a Lesser God
Theater: Roundabout’s Studio 54
Author: Mark Medoff
Director: Kenny Leon
Cast: Joshua Jackson, Lauren Ridloff
A revival of the Tony-winning play about the romance between a hearing man and deaf woman
April 12
Dutch Masters (The Wild Project)
In 1992, a black kid and a white kid meet in a chance encounter on an uptown D train, one kid taking the other “to a place neither imagined possible.” Written by Greg Keller, directed by Andre Holland (actor in Moonlight)
Carousel
Theater: Imperial
Author: Rodgers and Hammerstein
Director: Jack O’Brien
Cast: Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Renee Fleming, Betsy Wolfe, Margaret Colin and Alexander Gemignani
A revival of the second musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, this 1945 work is adapted from the 1909 play Liliom, transplanted to the Maine coastline. Carnival barker Billy Bigelow’s romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs
April 13
King Lear (RSC at BAM)
Shakespeare’s tragedy, starring Antony Sher.
April 15
One Thousand Nights and One Day (Prospect at ART/NY)
A musical, adapted from Jason Grote’s play 1001, reinvents “The Arabian Nights.” In modern-day New York, a Jewish man and Palestinian woman fight to find love in a fractured world.
Mlima’s Tale (The Public)
The play written by Lynn Nottage (Ruined, Sweat) tells the story of a magnificent elephant trapped in the clandestine international ivory market.
April 18
The Seafarer (Irish Rep)
Matthew Broderick as Mr. Lockhart, a mysterious visitor to Dublin whose arrival turns a game of poker into a perilous gamble for one player’s soul.
April 19
Mangled Beams (Amerinda at ART/NY)
My Fair Lady
Theater: Vivian Beaumont
Authors: Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe
Director: Bartlett Sher.
Cast:Lauren Ambrose, Harry Hadden-Paton, Norbert Leo Butz, and Diana Rigg lead a cast of 37.
The fourth revival of the 1956 adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, about a linguist who takes on the task of transforming in just a few months an uneducated flower girl into somebody who could pass as a Duchess at a garden party.
April 22
The Metromaniacs (Red Bull at The Duke)
Scheming servants, verbal acrobatics, and mistaken identities launch a breathless series of twists and turns in this breezy “transladaptation” of a French farce by David Ives (‘The Liar,’ ‘Venus in Fur’).
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Theater: Lyric
Author: Jack Thorne
Director: John Tiffany.
Cast: Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger, Jamie Parker
as Harry Potter, Paul Thornley as Ron Weasley, Anthony Boyle
as Scorpius Malfoy, Sam Clemmett
as Albus Potter, Poppy Miller
as Ginny Potter, Alex Price as Draco Malfoy
Harry Potter is all grown up in this two-part story that picks up with Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermoine nineteen years after the events of the final book. It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted.
April 23
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
Theater: Lunt-Fontanne
Director: Des McAnuff
Cast: LaChanze, Ariana DeBose, Storm Lever lead a cast of 32
Randy Writes A Novel (Theatre Row)
Randy, Australia’s most celebrated puppet comedian, teams up with a typewriter for an hour of spoken word and gratuitous arm movements. Written, directed an starring Heath McIvor.
Transfers (MCC at Lortel)
Lucy Thurber’s play about two gifted students from the South Bronx, competing for a life-changing scholarship at an elite northeast university.
April 24
Travesties
Theater: Roundabout’s American Airlines
Author: Tom Stoppard
Director: Patrick Marber
Closing Date: Jun 17, 2018
Cast: Tom Hollander
A revival of Tom Stoppard’s play from Great Britain’s Chocolate Factory. In 1917 Zurich, an artist, Tristan Tzara; a writer, James Joyce; and a revolutionary, Lenin, collide
April 25
Saint Joan
Theater: MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Director: Daniel Sullivan
Cast: Condola Rashad, Walter Bobbie, Adam Chanler-Berat, Jack Davenport, John Glover, Patrick Page, Daniel Sunjata
Revival of Shaw’s play about the 15th century martyr.
April 26
The Iceman Cometh
Author: Eugene O’Neill
Director: George C. Wolfe
First Preview: March 22
Opening: April 26
Cast: Denzel Washington leads a cast that includes David Morse, Bill Irwin, Tammy Blanchard, Dakin Matthews, Michael Potts
The fifth Broadway production of Eugene O’Neill’s play about dead-end alcoholics and prostitutes hanging out in a saloon and rooming house in Greenwich Village in 1912.
