Below is a calendar of New York theater opening* in August, including two shows on Broadway, one of them a revival of the long-running “Mamma Mia.” But they are overshadowed by a 400-year-old play presented for free in a park. This “Twelfth Night” features an impossibly starry cast, in a now starry venue: the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, reopening after an 18-month, $85-million renovation.
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🟪 Outdoors:🌲Free (or “choose what you pay”) 🆓
August 2
🆓🌲The Lights (Little Island’s Glade)
A song cycle composed by Matt Aucoin of poetry by Ben Lerner.
August 2-3
🟩Lili / Darwin (The Tank)
Writer and performer Darwin Del Fabro reflects on her own personal journey, taking inspiration from Lili Elbe, a transgender trailblazer from a century ago.
August 2 – 23
August 4
🟧The Rogue theater festival (The Flea)
The 7th annual festival features five fully staged plays, five shorts, 10 staged readings, 17 digital theater. In the first fully staged play, Julio Lourido’s Beto’s Interview, an Ecuadorian immigrant, attends his naturalization interview conducted by a Jamaican American immigration officer
August 4 – 10
August 5
🟩The Animals Speak (Thirdwing at The Wild Project)
The third and final play in Cameron Darwin Bossert’s trilogy about Disney follows a depressed Walt Disney in 1941 with his wife and a small crew of artists on a goodwill tour funded by the U.S. Government to sway South America from the influence of Nazi
August 5 – 17
🟨 The Fairest (Thirdwing.info)
A digital version of the first play in Bossert’s trilogy about Disney, it tells the story of the women who painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the summer heat of 1937, with little pay and no credit (women weren’t allowed to be animators). The Fairest was followed by Thirdwing’s union strike drama Burbank (my review)
August 6
🆓🌲Radiolab Presents: Terrestials (Little Island’sThe Glade)
a musical and movement-filled journey for kids
August 6-7
August 7
🟦AVA: The Secret Conversations (New York City Center)
Elizabeth McGovern has written and stars in this portrait of Ava Gardner based on her interviews with Peter Evans
July 30 – September 13
🟦Well, I’ll Let You Go (The Space at Irondale)
Quincy Tyler Bernstine and Michael Chernus star in this debut play by Bubba Weiler about a woman and a community in crisis
July 29 – August 29
August 10
🌲Arthur Russell: The Platform on the Ocean (Little Island)
An island-wide six-hour marathon celebrating the eclectic composer Charles Arthur Russell Jr. with performances by the likes of Laurie Anderson
August 14
🟥Mamma Mia (Winter Garden)
The summer return of the long-running jukebox musical with songs by ABBA that tells the story of Sophie, a bride-to-be, secretly inviting three potential fathers to her wedding on a Greek island to discover who her true father is.
August 2 – February 1
August 15
🟦Sea Glass (WP Theater)
In this play by Olivia Dennehy-Basile, two teenage sisters whose parents have left them by themselves in their Long Island home in the fall of 1979, to struggle alone with Catholic school nuns, a limited cash fund, and the boys who live next door.
August 15 – 30
August 18
🟥Jeff Ross: Take A Banana for The Ride
Nederlander Theater
Comedian Jeff Ross offers a one-man show about his life “and human resilience.” The title was travel advice from his grandfather.
August 5 – September 29
August 20
🟦Sulfur Bottom (The Theater Center)
When a beached whale appears in the living room, speaking in her father’s voice, Fran and her family must confront a history they have long tried to escape before it reaches the next generation.
Wednesdays and Saturdays Aug 13 – Oct 11
August 21
🆓🌲Twelfth Night (Delacorte Theater)
The Public Theater reopens its newly renovated Delacorte in Central Park with Shakespeare’s romantic comedy about twins and a shipwreck and mistaken identity, directed by Saheem Ali, and starring Khris Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sandra Oh, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Moses Sumney, and real-life siblings Lupita Nyong’o and Junior Nyong’o
August 7 – September 14
Tickets are distributed daily for that evening’s performance. How will you get tickets?
- Distribution in Central Park
- In-person lottery at The Public Theater
- Distribution across all five boroughs
- Digital lottery with TodayTix
- Standby line in Central Park
August 27
🟩NightGowns 10 Year Anniversary (La MaMa)
Sasha Velour’s drag revue, begun in 2015, will feature a rotating cast, including Sasha Colby, Kevin Aviance, Tenderoni, King Molasses
August 27 – September 1
August 29
🟧Down to Earth Festival (various city parks and open spaces)
This elaborateinaugural festival features on-site international performances, workshops, and street arts from 10 cultural community organizations. PRELUDE, a Festival-within-a-Festival, offers ten site-specific performances (theater, dance, interdisciplinary) across all five boroughs. For example, Hit Out, from Italy, in in which Parini Secondo elevates jumping rope into art, will be presented August 30 & 31 at 6:30 PM at Culture Lab LIC, Long Island City and on September 6 at 1:00 PM at Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn
Aug. 28-Sept. 7
*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. (Those shows that begin in August but don’t officially open until September will be listed in September’s calendar.)
Check out my article: What is Broadway Opening Night? How it’s changed, why it matters.
