Below is my preview guide of Broadway openings in the 2024-2025 season. Robert Downey Jr, George Clooney, and Cole Escola are set to make their Broadway debuts, in new plays by Ayad Akhtar, George Clooney and Cole Escola. Returning stars include Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga in a Sondheim revue,Audra McDonald in a Sondheim revival, Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone in Jen Silverman’s first Broadway play, Christian Boyle in Elton John’s latest musical, James Monroe Iglehart as Louis Armstrong, Darren Criss as a robot, Sutton Foster, Daniel Dae Kim, Jim Parsons…the list will grow.
The shows are listed chronologically by opening date* (not by first preview), with the title linked to the show’s official website.
l This guide was continually updated.
MAY, 2024
BEN PLATT: LIVE AT THE PALACE
Theater: Palace
Opening: May 28, 2024
Closing: June 15
Starring: Ben Platt
Director: Michael Arden
About: Ben Platt will reopen the Palace Theatre with an 18-performance residency celebrating the release of his new album “Honeymind”.
JUNE
HOME
Theater:Roundabout’s Todd Haimes
First Preview: May 17, 2024
Opening: June 5, 2024
Closing: July 21
Starring: Tory Kittles, Brittany Inge, Stori Ayers
Writer: Sam-Art Williams
Director: Kenny Leon
About: A revival of the Tony Award-nominated coming-of-age story originally staged by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1979.
My review of Home
JULY
OH, MARY!
Theater: Lyceum
First Preview: June 26, 2024
Opening: July 11, 2024
Closing: September 15
Starring: Cole Escola, Conrad Ricamora, James Scully, Bianca Leigh, Tony Macht
Writer: Cole Escola
Director: Sam Pinkleton
About: The campy Off-Broadway hit about Mary Todd Lincoln is transferring to Broadway.
My review of Oh, Mary
Job
Theater: Hayes
First preview: July 15
Opening: July 30
Closing: September 29
Written by by Max Wolf Friedlich
Directed by Michael Herwitz
Starring: Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon.
Jane (Lemmon), an employee at a big tech company (you know the one), has been placed on leave after becoming the subject of a viral video. She arrives in the office of a crisis therapist – Loyd (Friedman) – determined to be reinstated to the job that gives her life meaning. My review of “Job” Off Broadway.
My review of Job on Broadway
AUGUST
ONCE UPON A MATTRESS
Theater: Hudson
First Preview: July 31, 2024
Opening: August 12, 2024
Closing: November 30
Starring: Sutton Foster
Writers: Mary Rodgers (music), Marshall Barer (book and lyrics), Jay Thompson (book), Dean Fuller (book), Amy Sherman-Palladino (adaptation)
Director: Lear deBessonet
The Encores! production of the beloved fairy tale musical will come to Broadway. My review of the Encores productions
SEPTEMBER
THE ROOMMATE
Theater: Booth
First Preview: August 29, 2024
Opening: September 12, 2024
Starring: Mia Farrow, Patti LuPone
Writer: Jen Silverman
Director: Jack O’Brien
Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone will return to Broadway in Jen Silverman’s comedy about identity, morality, and the promise of reinvention.
My review of The Roommate
THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA
Theater: Broadhurst
First Preview: September 11, 2024
Opening: September 29, 2024
Writer: Jez Butterworth
Director: Sam Mendes
In the sweltering heat of a 1970s summer, the Webb sisters return to their childhood home in Blackpool, an English seaside town where back in the 1950s they rehearsed their singing act and had a shot of fame, which cost them all dearly. The new play by Butterworth (Jerusalem, The Ferryman) comes to Broadway following an acclaimed run in London’s West End.
My review of The Hills of California
MCNEAL
Theater: Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont
First Preview: September 5, 2024
Opening: September 30, 2024
Closing: November 24
Starring: Robert Downey Jr.
Writer: Ayad Akhtar
Director: Bartlett Sher
About: Academy Award-winner Robert Downey Jr. will make his Broadway debut in Ayad Akhtar’s new play about a great writer, his estranged son, and his unhealthy fascination with Artificial Intelligence.
My review of McNeal
OCTOBER
YELLOW FACE
Theater: Roundabout’s Todd Haimes
First preview: September 13
Opening: October 1, 2024
Starring: Daniel Dae Kim
Writer: David Henry Hwang
Director: Leigh Silverman
About: David Henry Hwang’s 2007 comedy, which finally makes it to Broadway, is a semi-fictionalized dramatization of three events in the playwright’s life: his protest against the performance of a non-Asian actor as an Asian character (a practice referred to as yellowface) in Miss Saigon; the failure of his 1993 play, “Face Value”; and a Senate investigation that targeted Asian Americans including his father.
My review of Yellow Face
OUR TOWN
Theater: Ethel Barrymore
First Preview: September 17, 2024
Opening: October 10, 2024
Closing: January 19, 2025
Starring: Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, Katie Holmes, Billy Eugene Jones, Ephraim Sykes, Richard Thomas, Michelle Wilson, Julie Halston, Donald Webber Jr.
Writer: Thornton Wilder
Director: Kenny Leon
About: The sixth Broadway production of one of America’s best-known plays.
SUNSET BOULEVARD
Theater: St. James
First Preview: September 28, 2024
Opening: October 20, 2024
Starring: Nicole Scherzinger, Tom Francis, Grace Hodgett-Young, David Thaxton
Writers: Andrew Lloyd Webber (music), Don Black & Christopher Hampton (book and lyrics)
Director: Jamie Lloyd
About: This third Broadway production of the musical, which is an adaptation of the 1950 classic film that starred Gloria Swanson as an aging silent film queen, is a transfer from the West End. It marks the return of Andrew Lloyd Webber to Broadway after more than a year (the first such gap in more than four decades)
LEFT ON TENTH
Theater: James Earl Jones
First preview: September 26
Opening: October 23
Written by Delia Ephron
Directed by Susan Stroman
Cast: Juliana Margulies, Peter Gallagher
Based on Ephron’s memoir of finding new love
ROMEO + JULIET
Theater: Circle in the Square
First preview: September 26
Opening: October 24
Starring: Kit Connor, Rachel Zegler
Director: Sam Gold
About: Shakespeare’s tragedy with music by Jack Antonoff and movement by Sonya Tayeh, featuring Kit Connor (“Heartstopper”) and Rachel Zegler (Spielberg’s West Side Story) both making their Broadway debuts.
NOVEMBER
A WONDERFUL WORLD
Theater: Studio 54
First Preview: October 16, 2024
Opening: November 11, 2024
Starring: James Monroe Iglehart
Writer: Aurin Squire
Director: Christopher Renshaw
About: A musical about the life of legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong. The musical premiered in Miami Beach in 2021 and played a pre-Broadway run in New Orleans in Fall 2023.
MAYBE HAPPY ENDING
Theater: Belasco
First Preview: October 16, 2024
Opening: November 12, 2024
Starring: Darren Criss, Helen J Shen, Dez Duron
Writers: Will Aronson (book and music), Hue Park (book and lyrics)
Director: Michael Arden
About: A new science-fiction musical about the developing relationship between two robots. It previously played in South Korea and at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre.
TAMMY FAYE
Theater: Palace
First Preview: October 19, 2024
Opening: November 14, 2024
Starring: Katie Brayben, Christian Borle
Writers: Elton John (music), Jake Shears (lyrics), James Graham (book)
Director: Rupert Goold
About: A musical about the life and career of televangelist Tammy Faye, which premiered in London in Fall 2022.
ELF
Theater: Marquis
First preview: November 9
Opening: November 17
Closing: January 4
Book by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin, songs by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin
Directed by Philip Wm. McKinley
Starring: Grey Henson
A second Broadway revival of the musical adapted from the 2003 movie, this time with Grey Henson (Mean Girls, Shucked) starring as Buddy, a human raised by Santa’s elves, who learns about his origins and heads to New York City to meet his biological father.
SWEPT AWAY
Theater: Longacre
First preview: October 29
Opening: November 19
Book by John Logan
Music and lyrics by The Avett Brothers,
Directed by Michael Mayer
The musical tells the story of the crew of a whaling ship doing all they can to survive a shipwreck. Much of the score will be from the 2004 album “Mignonette,” whose songs about a 1884 shipwreck were composed by the Avett Brothers, a folk-rock band from North Carolina led by Scott Avett and Seth Avett
DEATH BECOMES HER
Theater: Lunt-Fontanne
First Preview: October 23, 2024
Opening: November 21, 2024
Starring: Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard, Christopher Sieber, Michelle Williams
Writers: Julia Mattison and Noel Carey (music and lyrics), Marco Pennette (book)
Director: Christopher Gattelli
About: A musical based on the 1992 darkly comic movie that starred Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn.and Isabella Rossellini. in which two long-time frenemies fight for the affections of the same man and drink a magic potion that promises eternal youth.
DECEMBER
CULT OF LOVE
Theater: Hayes
First preview: November 20
Opening: December 12
Writer: Leslye Headland
Director: Trip Cullman
It’s the holiday season for the Dahl family, but the return of the four adult children and their partners to their childhood home is anything but harmonious.
EUREKA DAY
Theater: MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman
First Preview: November 25, 2024
Opening night: December 16
Writer: Jonathan Spector
Director: Anna D. Shapiro
About: The Broadway premiere of Jonathan Spector’s comedy: Eureka Day is a private California elementary school with a Board of Directors that values inclusion above all else – that is, until an outbreak of the mumps forces everyone in the community to reconsider the school’s liberal vaccine policy.
GYPSY
Theater: Majestic
First Preview: November 21
Opening: December 19
Book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Directed by George C. Wolfe, choreographed by Camille A Brown
Starring Audra McDonald, Danny Burstein
Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald returns to Broadway to portray the most famous stage mother of all time (Gypsy Rose Lee’s) in this sixth Broadway production of this much beloved 1959 musical.
All in: Comedy About Love
Hudson Theater
First preview: December 11
Opening date: December 22
Closing date: February 16, 2025
Writer: Simon Rich
Director: Alex Timbers
Cast: For the first 5 weeks, John Mulaney will lead the cast and be joined by Fred Armisen, Renée Elise Goldsberry (12/11 – 12/30), Chloe Fineman (1/2 – 1/12), and Richard Kind.
Stories about dating, heartbreak, and marriage adapted from the short stories of Simon Rich, and performed by a rotating cast.
JANUARY, 2025
ENGLISH
Theater: Roundabout’s Todd Haimes
Opening: January 23, 2025
Writer: Sanaz Toossi
Director: Knud Adams
About: Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play about an English-language class in Iran. My review of it Off-Broadway.
FEBRUARY
REDWOOD
Theater: Nederlander
First preview: January 24
Opening: February 13
Librettists, co-lyricist and director: Tina Landau
Composer and co-lyricist: Kate Diazali
Starring: Idina Menzel
Menzel (who co-conceived the show) portrays a woman experiencing a life altering event that drives her far from everyone and everything she knows — winding up at the foot of the redwoods in Northern California.
MARCH
PURPOSE
Helen Hayes Theater
First preview: February 25
Opening: March 17
Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Phylicia Rashad
Cast: LaTanya Richardson, Kara Young and Alana Arenas join 3 who were in original Steppenwolf production:Harry Lennix, Glenn Davis, and Jon Michael Hill
For decades, the influential Jasper family has been a pillar of Black American Politics: civil rights leaders, pastors and congressmen. But like all families, there are cracks and secrets just under the surface. When the youngest son Nazareth returns home to Illinois with an uninvited friend in tow, the family is forced into a reckoning. “Purposae” had its world premiere in March 2024 at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater.
BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Theater: Schoenfeld
First Preview: February 21
Opening: March 19
Book by Marco Ramirez
Developed and Directed by Saheem Ali
Starring: Natalie Venetia Belcon, Julio Monge, Mel Semé, Isa Antonetta
A musical inspired by the 1996 album with fifteen classic Cuban songs performed in Spanish. My review of the production when it was Off-Broadway in 2023.
OPERATION MINCEMEAT
John Golden Theater
First preview: February 15
Opening: March 20
Written and composed by the comedy group, SpitLip (David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts)
Directed by Robert Hastie
The Olivier Award winning musical is based on the improbable true story of a successful British operation in World War II to deceive the Germans before the Allied invasion of Sicily by dressing up a corpse as if it had been an officer of the Royal Marines and planting a fake letter between two generals that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia.
OTHELLO
Barrymore Theater
First Preview: February 24, 2025
Opening: March 23, 2025
Closing: June 8, 2025
Starring: Denzel Washington, Jake Gyllenhaal, Molly Osborne
Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Kenny Leon
Denzel Washington will play Othello and Jake Gyllenhaal will play Iago in Shakespeare’s tragedy of jealousy and deception. A production of the play was last on Broadway four decades ago starring James Earl Jones.
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
Music Box Theater
First preview: March 10
Opening: March 27
Adapted and directed by Kip Williams
Starring Sarah Snook
The star of the HBO series “Succession” takes on all 26 roles in this adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel about a man who stays looking young, while his portrait turns evil and ugly.
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS
The Palace
First preview: March 10
Opening: March 31
Closing: May 31
Written by David Mamet
Directed by Patrick Marber
Cast: Kieran Culkin, Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean
The fourth Broadway production of Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about cutthroat Chicago real estate office where four salespeople compete to keep their jobs selling mostly worthless properties to unwitting customers.
APRIL
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Winter Garden
First preview: March 12
Opening: April 3
Starring: George Clooney
Writers: George Clooney and Grant Heslov
Director: David Cromer
About: George Clooney will make his Broadway debut in a stage adaptation of his 2005 film, about Edward R. Murrow’s television crusade against Senator Joseph McCarthy.
STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S OLD FRIENDS
Theater: MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman
First Preview: March 25, 2025
Opening: April 8
Starring: Bernadette Peters, Lea Salonga
Writers: Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics), Cameron Mackintosh (devisor)
Directors: Matthew Bourne, Julia McKenzie
About: The hit West End tribute to the late Stephen Sondheim comes to Broadway starring Broadway’s Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga.
BOOP! THE BETTY BOOP MUSICAL
Theater: Broadhurst
First preview: March 11
Opening: April 5
Book by Bob Martin
Music by David Foster and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead
Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell
A musical about the cartoon flapper from the 1930s: Betty’s dream of an ordinary day off from the super-celebrity in her black-and-white world leads to an extraordinary adventure of color, music, and finding love in New York City
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Theater: Hudson
First preview: March 18
Opening: April 6
Book, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Directed by Whitney White
Cast: Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren
Two New Yorkers fall in and out of love over the course of five years.
SMASH
Imperial Theater
First preview: March 11
Opening: April 10
Music by Marc Shaiman; Lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman
Book by Rick Elice & Bob Martin
Choreography by Joshua Bergasse
Direction by Susan Stroman
A musical inspired by the TV series, which ran in 2012 and 2013 about the making of a Marilyn Monroe musical called Bombshell.
JOHN PROCTOR IS THE VILLAIN
Booth Theater
First preview: March 20
Opening: April 14
Written by Kimberly Belflower
Directed by Danya Taymor
Starring: Sadie Sink
At a high school in a rural town in Georgia, an English class is studying The Crucible, where the students begin to question the play’s perspective and the validity of naming John Proctor the show’s hero.
FLOYD COLLINS
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
First Preview: March 27, 2025
Opening: April 21, 2025
Writers: Adam Guettel (music & lyrics), Tina Landau (book)
Director: Tina Landau
The Broadway debut of the award-winning musical based on the true story of a man trapped in a cave in the 1920s, igniting one of the first media storms of the modern era.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Theater: Marquis
First preview: March 28
Opening: April 22
Written by Kate Trefry; Original Story by The Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne & Kate Trefry
Directed by Stephen Daldry, Co-Directed by Justin Martin
A prequels to the goings-on in the Netflix TV horror series “Stranger Things.” It opened last year in London.
JUST IN TIME
Circle in the Square Theater
First preview: March 28
Opening: April 23
Starring: Jonathan Groff
Developed and directed by Alex Timbers
Written by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver
Groff portrays singer Bobby Darin as if performing in a night club, featuring a cast of 16 and a live on-stage big band performing such Bobby Darin hits as “Beyond the Sea,” “Splish Splash,” “Dream Lover,” and “Mack the Knife.”
THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE
Theater: Roundabout’s Todd Haimes
Opening: April 24, 2025
Starring: Ramin Karimloo, David Hyde Pierce
Writers: Arthur Sullivan (music), W.S. Gilbert (libretto), Rupert Holmes (adaptation)
Director: Scott Ellis
About: In the 27th Broadway production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic operetta (the first in four decades), the pirate ship docks in jazzy-bluesy New Orleans.
REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES
Theater: James Earl Jones
First preview: April 1
Opening: April 27
Music and lyrics by Joy Huerta and Benjamin Velez
Book by Lisa Loomer with Nell Benjamin
Directed and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo
A musical adapted from the 2002 movie and 1990 play by Josefina López, which had a brief run at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge earlier this year, tells the story of a L.A. teenager, who dreams of college and a career in New York City, but her family’s expects her to stay home and work at their garment factory.
DEAD OUTLAW
Longacre
First preview: April 12
Opening: April 27
Book by Itamar Moses
Music by David Yazbek
Directed by David Cromer
A musical about the bizarre true story of outlaw-turned-corpse-turned-celebrity Elmer McCurdy. My review of Dead Outlaw Off-Broadway, which was an outlier opinion.
*Opening Night
Opening night is usually not the same as the first performance on Broadway. There is usually a preview period, of anywhere from a few days to a few weeks (sometimes a few months), where the creative team tries out the show before an audience. One of the few things opening night still means is that’s when the reviews come out. I organize this calendar by opening night rather than first performance, as a way to support the continuing relevance of theater reviewing. Check out my essay: Broadway Opening Night. What It Means. How It’s Changed. 7 Facts to Clear Up The Confusion and Crystallize the Outrage.
