Broadway Week, a two-for-one ticket discount to current Broadway shows, begins today, the start of a busy month and a starry season. In September alone, three Broadway shows are opening, and five more starting previews.
Broadway 2024-2025 Season Preview
And there’s much beyond Broadway.
September 2024 New York Theater Openings
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
48 Hours in Harlem: 6 Plays Inspired by Black Leaders’ Bold Speeches
As in past years, participating writers, directors and actors were given just 48 hours to conceive, rehearse and mount a half dozen short plays, each inspired by a specific prompt. For the first time this year, the inspirations were not classic plays or other literary works, but memorable speeches by Black leaders.
It would be silly to dismiss “Hurricane Season” just because the production has no curtain call, and the cast is made to work during the entire intermission, performing a kind of robotic conga line ceaselessly back and forth across the stage…Still, these manifestly artsy touches served as a tip-off – or a tipping point – that led me to a question I had about the play as a whole: How much of it springs organically from an original artistic vision, and how much of it is a self-conscious effort to join the pantheon of the avant-garde?
John Patrick Shanley and the Art of the 15-minute Play, at Chain Summer One Act Festival
Following up on the recent Broadway revival of his Tony and Pulitzer-winning play “Doubt” and his new Off-Broadway hit “Brooklyn Laundry,” John Patrick Shanley has written another new play this year, “Banshee,” that’s getting considerably less attention. This is not surprising, since it’s running Off-Off Broadway…. for only four performances (the last one on Saturday)… on a program with four other plays…which is one of fourteen such programs (a total of some fifty new plays), as part of the annual Chain Summer One Act Festival.
The Week in New York Theater News
The Notebook will close on Broadway December 15 , after 35 previews and 317 regular performances
Full cast for “Tammy Faye,” opening November 19 at the Palace, Katie Brayben as Tammy Faye Bakker, Christian Borle as Jim Bakker and Michael Cerveris as the Rev Jerry Falwell will be joing by Autumn Hurlbert, Nick Bailey, Charl Brown, Mark Evans, Allison Guinn, Ian Lassiter, Raymond J. Lee, Max Gordon Moore, Alana Pollard, Andy Taylor, Amanda Clement, Michael Di Liberto, Jonathan Duvelson, Lily Kaufmann, Denis Lambert, Elliott Mattox, Brittany Nicholas, Kevin Quillon, Aveena Sawyer, Allysa Shorte, TJ Tapp, Daniel Torres, and Dana Wilton
Broadway theater artists Zoom for Harris
Broadway Advocacy Coalition will present A Night of Artivism September 16 at the Playhouse Theater at Abrons Theater in Manhattan.
The Bushwick Starr celebrates its new permanent home Saturday, September 7 (rain or shine)
from 4-8pm
The State of the Labor Play on Labor Day 2024. Q & A with Working Theater’s Colm Summers
“Some of my favorite playwrights in the American theater — like Martyna Majok [Ironbound, Cost of Living, Sanctuary City] and Lynn Nottage [Sweat, Clyde’s], and even more contemporary playwrights like Alex Lin [“Chinese Republicans”] — are examples I point to of labor-related theater being alive and well.
But it’s true that we are an underrepresented genre. And while we may tell labor stories on stage, we have created a theater economy in which folks who are from working class backgrounds, or lower income, don’t have the same access as people who can get MFAs and Conservatory training, which limits the kind of artists whose work we see on American stages.”
Was 45 Years Leading Second Stage Enough? Not for Carole Rothman. (NY Times)
Discussions abound about the long tenures of artistic directors in New York. You stayed 45 years. André Bishop has led Lincoln Center Theater for 32 years. Lynne Meadow has been at Manhattan Theater Club for over 50 years. Todd Haimes was at Roundabout for 40 years.
Do you think that we all did a good job? Do you think that we all brought success to the theater? Do you think our experience, our knowledge, our good taste is valuable?
Todd took a theater that was bankrupt and brought it back. The stability that André has given to Lincoln Center has been crucial. Lynne had three plays this year that were nominated for Tonys, and two of them were written by women. I took a theater that didn’t exist and made it successful.
Any advice to your successor?
No.
