Below is a selection of New York theater opening* in June, presented in a day-by-day calendar, including the first Broadway revival of Samm-Art Williams’ play “Home,” and a radical reimagining far from Broadway of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Cats,” one of a range of queer-oriented works marking LGBTQ Pride Month, including two queer theater festivals.
Savion Glover and Twyla Tharp are both presenting new works, Holland Taylor and Ana Villafañe are facing off against one another in a political power play, Tony Shalhoub and BD Wong perform in the same show (but at different times), and there are a whole boatload of Broadway stars in the Encores! concert version of “Titanic.” June also means outdoor, immersive and puppet theater.
The calendar is organized chronologically by opening date*, or (if no official opening) first performance, but we must consider the dates subject to change, because, yes, COVID-19 is still around, and both it and theater are unpredictable.M
Each title below is linked to a relevant website.
Color key: Broadway: Red 🟥.
Off Broadway: Blue 🟦.
Off Off Broadway: Green 🟩.
Digital or Hybrid Theater: Yellow 🟨
Theater festival: Orange 🟧.
Immersive and/or Site Specific: Silver ⬜️ .
Puppetry: Brown 🟫
Opera: Purple🟪
Concert: 🎶
Out of town 🇺🇸
June 1
🟫Why?? (Five Myles)
A life-size puppet with a sidekick child puppet delivers a lecture that asks the question: “What has the human species done to its males?” Throughout history, humans have consistently dealt with conflicts and confrontations by sending men into battle.. An installation of large prints on the gallery walls shows the stages of propaganda and indoctrination that have allowed many civilizations to take this mutual massacre of the men for granted.
May 25 – June 30
June 4
🟦Breaking the Story (Second Stage)
Maggie Siff stars in Alexis Scheer’s drama examining the cost of war and the boldness of frontline journalists.
May 15 – June 23.
🟦What Became of Us (Atlantic)
May 17 – June 29
This play by Shayan Lotfi about two siblings – one born here, one born there – will feature two different casts: Rosalind Chao and BD Wong May 17 – June 15,, and Shohreh Aghdashloo and Tony Shalhoub June 10 – June 29.
June 5
🟥Home (Roundabout’s Todd Haimes Theater)
A revival of Samm-Art Williams’ Tony Award-nominated coming-of-age story originally staged by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1979. Reeling from the loss of both his North Carolina farm and his childhood sweetheart, Cephus heads to the big city to find something new to give his life meaning.
May 17 – July 21
June 6
⬜️🟧Tribeca Festival Immersive (Mercer Labs Museum of Art & Technology)
A collection of visual and sonic artwork that redefines the relationship between art and technology,as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.
🟦How Long Blues (Little Island)
A full-length dance piece conceived, choreographed, and directed by Twyla Tharp. “ an epic narrative on the theme of resiliency inspired by American Jazz and the writing of Albert Camus.”
June 1 – 23
🟫Kayfabe (Dixon Place)
A puppet wrestling entertainment spectacular!
June 6 and 7
June 7
🟧Squirts (La MaMa)
The 11th annual intergenerational queer performance festival. “Over three nights, queer visionaries blur the lines between teacher and student, sister and mother, daddy and lover, stranger and friend”
June 7 – 9
June 12
🟧Downtown Urban Arts Festival (Theatre Row and Joe’s Pub)
The 22nd annual festival highlights contemporary urban culture through 16 short plays, including ones by Savion Glover (SoUNdZ.SaCRoSaNCt, June 21 and 22) and Reg E. Gaines.(“Tiers,” June 14 and 15)
June 12-29
⬜️Party Killer (Asylum NYC)
An Immersive whodunnit comedy adventure,
June 12 – 15
🟦The Welkin (Atlantic)
In this play by Lucy Kirkwood, it is 1759 in rural England and a young woman sentenced to death tries to stop her execution by claiming she is pregnant. Twelve ordinary women are gathered to decide whether she is telling the truth.
May 16 – June 30
🟧Rehearsal For Truth International Theater Festival
A FREE annual showcase of contemporary Central and Eastern European Theater. The festival begins tonight with stage adaptations of two Franz Kafka short stories, in honor of the 100th anniversary of his death, A Report for an Academy, and A Message from the Emperor.
🎶Titanic (Encores! at City Center)
A concert version of Maury Yeston and Peter Stone musical focusing on the individuals whose dreams of America were dashed in the Atlantic, with a starry Broadway cast, from Chuck Cooper to Chip Zien.
June 12 – 23
June 13
🟧🟨2024 Queerly Festival (Under St. Marks and livestreamed)
Seventeen new plays at this tenth annual celebration of LGBTQA+ artists. It begins tonight with The Goblin Woman, which explores gender, queerness, desire, and identity through the lens of Christina Rossetti’s poem, “The Goblin Market.”
June 13- July 3
🟦If These Wigs Could Talk (Irish Arts Center)
After a lifetime of accidental activism, far-fetched shenanigans and making a full time show of herself, notorious drag queen Panti Bliss—the “Queen of Ireland”—is now taking a moment to question her purpose and place in this changing world.
June 13-23
June 14
🟦A Man Among Ye (spit&vigor at Players Theater)
A dark “semi-true” comedy recounting the adventures of pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read.
June 13 – July 14
June 17
🟦Dark Noon (St Ann’s Warehouse)
This hit from the Edinburgh Fringe retells the Hollywood story of a High Noon Western through an outsider’s lens: Native Americans, cowboys, missionaries, enslaved Africans, Chinese workers, prostitutes, and Confederates. Africans, Chinese workers, European settlers, prostitutes, and Confederates.
June 7 – July 7
June 18
🟩Pre-existing Condition (Connelly Theater Upstairs)
A play written by Marin Ireland and directed by Maria Dizzia (two theater artists best known as actors) that explores life after a harmful relationship, with a starry cast in rotation.
June 7 – August 3
June 20
🟦Cats The Jellicle Ball (PACNYC)
A radical reimagining, inspired by Black queer Ballroom culture, of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s dance musical Cats based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot.
June 13 – July 14
June 21
🟩Relics and their Humans (La MaMa)
Written and performed by Ain Gordon and Josh Quillen, the play reimagines a story from Quillen’s Ohio family: their three-year odyssey following Quillen’s father Jerry’s 2006 ALS diagnosis.
June 21 – June 30
June 27
🟦N/A (Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse)
Holland Taylor and Ana Villafañe star as two congresswomen, generations apart, one the first woman Speaker of the House, the other the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Written by former Congressional aide, Mario Correa, it doesn’t take a newshound to figure out the inspiration for the play is Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
June 11 – August 4
🟦Robeson (Little Island)
Opera singer Davóne Tines grapples with the legacy of Paul Robeson, from the stage of Carnegie Hall to a Moscow hotel room, in an attempt to understand an icon through his own words.
June 26 – 29
June 29
🟦From Here (Renaissance at Signature)
In this musical, residents of Orlando, Florida reflect on the aftermath of the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub
June 27 – August 11
⬜️Great Gotham Challenge: Terminal Time Trial (Grand Central Terminal)
“Assemble your dream team of two to four sleuths and prepare to unravel a web of clues that will lead you through some of the most iconic places within New York City.”
This is just one adventure this summer by Great Gotham Challenge
June 30
🟦Clowns Like Me (DR2 Theater)
Scott Ehrenpreis’s one-man show about living with mental illness.
June 21 – August 18
*Opening Night
This selection of plays in this month is organized chronologically by opening night, but includes the dates when a show’s run starts and ends (when available.)
Opening night is usually not the same as the first performance on Broadway and Off-Broadway. There is usually a “preview period” that can last days or weeks, sometimes months. But professional reviews are forbidden from being published until opening night, which is why I organize this calendar by opening night (when it exists and when I can find it) rather than first performance, as a way to support the continuing relevance of theater reviewing. (Shows that begin previews in June but don’t officially open until July will be featured in next month’s calendar.) Check out my essay: Broadway Opening Night. What It Means. How It’s Changed. 7 Facts to Clear Urp The Confusion and Crystallize the Outrage.
What Is Broadway 🟥, Off Broadway 🟦 and Off-Off Broadway🟩?
Off-Broadway theaters, by definition, have anywhere from 99 to 499 seats. If a theater has more seats than that, it’s a Broadway house. If it has fewer, it’s Off-Off Broadway. (There is a more sophisticated definition, having to do with contracts, and more elaborate distinctions, having to do with ticket prices, number and location of theaters, length of runs, willingness to take artistic risks, etc.)
(Several performing arts venues in New York City, such as The Shed, Little Island, Park Avenue Armory, NYU Skirball and the Perelman Performing Arts Center, technically exist outside these classifications; I list them as Off-Broadway, even though, for most shows, they have more than 500 seats.)
