Below is a selection of theater opening* in New York in August, including one show on Broadway: “Once Upon A Mattress,” starring Sutton Foster, which originated as an Encores! concert earlier this year. In keeping with August tradition, there are also three theater festivals offering a total of some 75 new works. Little Island continues its season of hard-to-categorize outdoor offerings, half of them free.
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.
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 🇺🇸
Free of charge (or “pay what you can”) 🆓
August 1
🟧The Little Shakespeare Festival (Frigid NY at Under St. Marks)
The fourth annual edition features seven plays inspired by the works of William Shakespeare, riffing this year on the theme of Camaraderie and Community. Opening tonight: “When My Cue Comes,” presented by a company called Hamlet Isn’t Dead (“In Waiting Room Z, Shakespeare’s most often forgotten characters find themselves antsy, excited, and lost. “) and “My Own Private Shakespeare,” written and performed by Justin Hay, in which a Shakespearean actor whose world is collapsing tries to find solace in some of Shakespeare’s greatest passages.
August 1 – 17
August 4
🟦The Meeting: The Interpreter (Theater at St. Clements)
A play by Catherine Gropper starring by Frank Wood and Kelley Curran inspired by true events about a Russian-American interpreter who was a witness to a meeting with Paul Manafort and Donald Trump Jr at Trump Tower before the 2016 election.
July 29- August 25
August 8
🟧Summer One Act Festival (Chain Theater)
The festival features some 50 very short plays, grouped together in 14 different programs, including John Patrick Shanley’s very short new play “Banshee,” described as a mystical comedy about a banshee (a fantastical Irish spirit) who pays an ailing teacher a visit and makes him an otherworldly proposal. August 8 – September 1
🟦Fowl Play (AMT Theater)
A new musical comedy about two unsuspecting, unemployed queers who are tasked with writing an apology musical for a notoriously homophobic global fried chicken chain
August 8 – 17
August 9
🟩Orion and the Goatman (The Flea)
In this campfire story reimagined, two half-brothers go on the annual camping trip they’d normally take with dad. This time, they scatter his ashes.
August 9-17
August 12
🟥ONCE UPON A MATTRESS (Hudson)
Sutton Foster and Michael Urie star in Mary Rodgers’ whimsical take on the fairy tale the Princess and the Pea (the Broadway musical that made Carol Burnett a star), which ran earlier this year an Encores! concert with a somewhat different cast. . My review of the Encores productions
July 31 – November 30
August 14
🆓Language City: Five Nights, Five Boroughs (Little Island)
A series of performances about the past, present, and future of the world’s most linguistically diverse city, led by speakers of endangered, Indigenous, and minority languages. It’s hard to understand exactly what this is, but it’s free, and that’s a universal language.
Aug 14-18
August 22
🟩Sex and the Abbey (The Brick)
Inspired by the first woman playwright in Europe, Diana Ly’s play concerns the effort by the canonesses of an Abbey to save – by performing a play by Hrotsvit to impress Emperor Otto
August 22 – September 7
August 25
🟧Dream Up Festival (Theater for a New City)
The twelfth annual edition features 17 new works. Of the five that begin tonight, the one with the most intriguing title is: Matt, James and Ben in Lord Finnington Bus in The Positively Puzzling Case of the Perloined Pelvis at Vicar’s Gate
August 25 – September 15
🟦Hurricane Season (Theatre Row)
A “highly physical production” from Vernal & Sere Theatre of Atlanta centers on a middle-aged couple who begin extra-marital affairs with younger partners eerily resembling their own likeness. This chance encounter leads them to opposite ends of the earth
August 23 – Sept 7
August 30
🟪The Marriage of Figaro (Little Island)
A new and radical take on Mozart’s classic about class and gender, all in one voice. Anthony Roth Costanzo plays every leading role in The Marriage of Figaro.
August 30 – September 22
*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 (although it is the same for festivals and most Off-Off Broadway shows ) For 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 August but don’t officially open until September 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 100 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.)
