The current Broadway season is about to rev up, with 18 shows scheduled to open in its final six weeks, but next season is already starting to come into focus:
Jean Smart (“Hacks”) returns to Broadway after 25 years this summer in the one-woman show “Call Me Izzy” by Jamie Wax, “a dark comedy about a rural Louisiana woman’ with a secret. May 24-Aug 17, Opening June 12 at Studio 54
“Mamma Mia” is returning to Broadway after a decade. The Abba jukebox musical, which ran for 14 years at the Winter Garden, is returning there in August, opening August 14, and running at least until February 2026.
Kristin Chenoweth and F. Murray Abraham will star in “The Queen of Versailles,” opening at the St. James Theater on November 10. The musical by Stephen Schwartz (Wicked) is based on the 2012 documentary film about David and Jackie Siegel and their plan to build the largest private home in America, a $100 million house in Orlando, Florida, inspired by the Palace of Versailles. with the Great Recession of 2008 looming
“Punch,” a play by James Graham, will open at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater sometime in Fall 2025. Based on Jacob Dunne’s memoir Right from Wrong, it tells the true story of a teenager caught up in a whirlwind of drugs, girls and bar fights, who winds up killing a boy – and finding redemption after meeting the boy’s parents.
Mark Strong and Lesley Manville will star in experimental director Robert Icke’s transformation of Sophocles’ “Oedipus” into a political thriller. The transfer of the West End production to Roundabout’s Studio 54 will open sometime in the Fall.
In Spring 2026, Roundabout’s Broadway theaters will present “The Rocky Horror Show” at Studio 54 with Sam Pinkleton directing, and Rose Byrne and Kelli O’Hara in a production of Noel Coward’s “Fallen Angels” at the Todd Haimes Theater.
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
five talented, well-known young Broadway veterans and a live band performing one vividly staged musical number after another out of chronological order and without any patter in-between the songs. Rather, the context for the 20 songs is written out on a page inserted into the playbill. To me, this page was essential; it’s the context of Larson’s songs that makes the evening feel especially worthwhile.
The Week in New York Theater News
New Broadway lotteries announced
Boop: $49
Good Night and Good Luck: $49
The Picture of Dorian Gray: $49
Smash: $49
For details, check out Broadway Rush and Lottery Policies
Atlantic Theater Company and The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) announced a tentative agreement which would cover nearly one-hundred production workers employed by the company. (Joint statement.) The agreement, which still needs to be ratified, comes after the theater workers went on strike starting January 12, which led to the cancellation of two planned productions.
“The agreement will be closely scrutinized by New York’s other Off Broadway theaters because the union, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, has undertaken a major drive to organize those stage crews. The crews include the stage hands who move scenery and the people working in audio, video, hair, makeup, wardrobe, props, carpentry and lighting.” (NYTimes)
U.S. playwright a.k. payne has won the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for their play Furlough’s Paradise. Awarded annually since 1978, the prestigious international Prize is the largest and oldest award recognizing women+ who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theater. Payne received $25,000 for the play, which tells the story of two cousins and their intertwined yet wildly divergent lives.
Finalists for the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, each of whom received $5,000 are:
Chris Bush (UK) Otherland, submitted by the Almeida Theatre (London)
Carys Coburn (Ireland) BÁN, submitted by the Abbey Theatre (Dublin)
Keiko Green (US) You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World, submitted by the UC San Diego MFA Playwriting Program (San Diego)
Isobel McArthur (UK-Scotland) The Fair Maid of the West, submitted by the Royal Shakespeare Company, (Stratford-Upon-Avon/London)
Suzie Miller (Australia-UK) Inter Alia, submitted by the National Theatre (London)
Anna Ziegler (US) The Janeiad, submitted by the Alley Theatre (Houston)
Hamilton’ Cancels Kennedy Center Run Over Trump’s Takeover (NY Times)
“Since Mr. Trump’s moves to take control of the Kennedy Center, a handful of artists have canceled shows there, including the musician Rhiannon Giddens and the actress Issa Rae. The soprano Renée Fleming and the singer-songwriter Ben Folds stepped down from advisory positions with the center and its affiliated organizations.”
Bated Breath, the site-specific immersive theater company (that most memorably produced Voyeur outdoors during the pandemic) announces the New York Center for Immersive Theater, NYCIT. at 205 East 42nd St, offering classes, readings, etc.
In Memoriam
Athol Fugard, 92, the South African playwright whose portrayals of intimate relationships burdened by oppressive racial separatism exposed the cruel psychological torment of apartheid to an international audience.
Among his noted plays staged in New York over the past decade: Master Harold and the Boys , Boesman and Lena Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek.
