Below is a calendar of theater opening* in June. Jean Smart is returning to Broadway. John Krasinski is launching a newly rechristened Off Broadway theater. Both “Heathers” and “Grease” are getting new life on New York stages, the former with familiar Broadway faces Lorna Courtney and Casey Likes, the latter with an entirely indigenous cast.
What would Pride month be without a new play by Taylor Mac, this one a take on Moliere – one of two Moliere adaptations this month. There seem to be two of everything –two unlikely love stories; two rock operas, one of which is about the opioid crisis; two plays about the dangerous allure of social media; two queer plays with explicit titles; two theater festivals explicitly advocating for social justice.
The calendar below is organized chronologically by opening date*, or first performance, but we must consider the dates subject to change, thanks to the continuing vagaries of COVID-19, and the normal challenges and serendipity of live theater.
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/site-specific: Silver ⬜️ . Concert 🎶 Puppetry: Brown 🟫 Opera: Purple🟪 Free (or “choose what you pay”) 🆓
June 2
🟦Eurydice (Signature)
In Sarah Ruhl’s twist on the Greek myth, Eurydice (Maya Hawke) reunites with her father (Brian d’Arcy James) in the underworld after her death on her wedding day..
May 13 – June 22
🟦Imaginary Invalid (Red Bull at New World Stages)
Mark-Linn Baker stars in Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Moliere’s comedy about a notorious hypochondriac whose nonexistent illnesses blind him to the con men and women (his new wife) who prey on his fears to fatten their purses.
May 21 – June 29
June 3
🟦Lunar Eclipse (Second Stage at Signature)
In this play by Donald Margulies (Dinner with Friends, Collected Stories), Reed Birney and Lisa Emery star as a married couple for fifty years who, while gazing at a lunar eclipse from their Kentucky farm, realize how little they know each other despite having spent a half century together.
May 14 – June 22
🟦A Freeky Introduction (Atlantic)
Writer and performer NSangou Njikam blends African storytelling, Yoruba spirituality, and R&B/Hip Hop in this riff on freedom.
May 16 – June 22
🟧TFT Fest (The Brick)
A festival of 17 plays by trans artists “for trans artists…No trauma mining here.”)
June 3 – 8
June 5
🟦The Wash (New Federal at WP Theater)
This play written by Kelundra Smith and directed by Awoye Timpo is inspired by the Atlanta Washerwomen’s Strike of 1881, the first successful interracial organized labor strike of the post-Civil War era.
May 30 – June 29
June 9
🟪The Moby Dick Blues (LaMaMa)
Michael Gorman’s opera uses Ahab’s obsession with the White Whale as a metaphor to tell the story of a New England fishing community’s daunting quest for survival and transformation in the face of the opiate crisis. The score features blues, spoken word, rap, and rock
June 7 – 22
June 11
🟦Angry Alan (Studio Seaview)
John Krasinski stars in the inaugural production at Studio Seaview (formerly Tony Kiser Theater) as a divorced, demoted, and drifting man who dives down a digital rabbit hole in this play by Penelope Skinner directed by Sam Gold.
May 23 – August 3
🟩Lucky Man (Gene Frankel)
Thomas G. Waites tells his story of early fame as a movie star, followed by flameout in this one-man rock monologue backed by his band Heartbreak Waites
June 5 – 22
🟧The Criminal Queerness Festival (National Queer Theater at HERE)
The seventh annual festival showcases the works of international LGBTQ+ playwrights from countries where queer identities are criminalized or censored. The three plays this year are set in Uganda, Indonesia and Cuba. This is one of the many theatrical projects whose grant from the National Endowment for the Arts was abruptly terminated
June 11 – 28
June 12
🟥Call Me Izzy (Broadway’s Studio 54)
Jean Smart (“Hacks”) returns to Broadway after a quarter century to star in Jamie Wax’s solo dark comedy about a woman in Louisiana who struggles to escape her small town and buried secrets
May 24 – August 17
🟦Prosperous Fools (TFANA)
June 1 – 29
Taylor Mac adapts Molière’s satire “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” replacing aristocrats with philanthropists.
🟩 Medea of the Laundromat, (La MaMa)
A revival of H.M. Koutoukas’ seminal work of theater from 1965, reimagining an ancient Greek tragedy in a contemporary setting, Koutoukas (1937–2010), the “Godfather of Off-Off Broadway) obeyed no rules but those that one of his characters called “the ancient laws of glitter.”
June 12 – 22
🟦My Son’s a Queer (But what can you do?) (City Center)
Rob Madge’s solo show about a childhood steeped in Disney, the young Rob transforming into Mary Poppins, Ariel and Belle with the help of homemade costumes and a little technical assistance (and occasional interference) from Dad. This was the show, a hit in London, that was originally slated for Broadway.
June 12 – 15
June 13
🟧Stage Left festival (Playwrights Horizons)
Six new play readings inspired by frontline fights for racial and economic justice, presented by Working Theater and the Broadway Advocacy Coaltion. They includei La Dureza by Ed Cardona Jr., Hit Machine by Jonathan Caren, The Garbologists by Lindsay Joelle, Foot Wears House by Laura Neill, The Hero U Took by Pedro Rosario, and Date of Release by Andrea Ambam. “Each of the plays is paired with an advocacy coalition working at the frontlines of the movement — including REI Soho Union, Los Deliveristas Unidos/Workers Justice Project, and Releasing Aging People in Prison Campaign—to catalyze conversation and create pathways to immediate and meaningful action following each reading.”Two weekends – June 13 – 15 and June 20 – 22
🟩Beau the Musical (Out of the Box Theatrics)
Eight actor-musicians telling the story of Ace Baker (Rodin), a young queer man whose life is forever changed when he discovers his deceased grandfather is actually still alive, in this show conceived and written by Douglas Lyons (Chicken and Biscuits) with music by Ethan D. Pakchar (Back to the Future)
June 6 – July 27
June 17
🟦Prince Fagg*t (Soho Rep and Playwrights Horizons)
What if the heir to the British throne were queer? That’s the premise of Jordan Tannahill’s play, which is being billed as a “meta-theatrical satire” and features an ensemble of queer, trans, and nonbinary performers including K. Todd Freeman and David Greenspan. It is directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury (Public Obscenities, Rheology)
May 30 – July 6
June 18
🟦Passengers (PACNYC)
The 7 Fingers (the Montreal-based troupe that made Water for Elephants so dazzling) take a train trip like no other, expressing their hopes and dream through dance and feats of physical prowess
June 12 – 29
🟦Dilaria (DR2)
In Julia Randall’s new play, the title character is rich and young, with a devoted boyfriend, but envies her dead classmate, whose social media accounts have become more popular.
June 13 – August 3
June 20
🟦Bear Grease (St. Luke’s Theater)
An indigenous take on Grease, created by LightningCloud (the married duo Crystal Lightning and Henry Cloud Andrade)
June 10 – September 7
June 24
🟦Duke & Roya (Lucille Lortel)
Charles Randolph-Wright’s play is a love story between Duke (Jay Ellis), an American hip-hop superstar, and Roya (Stephanie Nur), a fearless Afghan interpreter, who meet in the heart of war-torn Kabul
June 10 – August 23
June 25
🟦Lowcountry (Atlantic)
When Tally, a down-and-out actress and gig worker, returns to her rural hometown, she swipes right on a disgraced high-school teacher fresh out of an ankle bracelet, in this play by Abby Rosebrock
June 4 – July 13
June 30
🟪Mozart’s Don Giovanni, A Rock Opera (The Cutting Room)
Broadway’s Ryan Silverman stars as the ruthless womanizer who faces a reckoning in Mozart’s opera, with a new, updated libretto in English by Adam B. Levowitz, who orchestrates the music for a rock band.
June 16 – August 26
*Opening Night
This selection of plays 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.
Check out my article: What is Broadway Opening Night? How it’s changed, why it matters.
