Below is a calendar of theater opening* in May, with some starry and exciting fare, none of it on Broadway. Hugh Jackman is again affordable at Audible; “Heated Rivalry” gets a parody, though the stage hunks are no joke. This month offers Thornton Wilder’s last play completed, Jean Genet’s best-known play reimagined, Bubba Weiler’s inaugural play (one of my favorite last year) transferred. There is a play about the destruction of New York – not a fantasy, the actual destruction of a small town with that name in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, part of a Ukrainian theater festival. There is also an Italian theater festival, for free. And a one-night-only celebration of Black women theater makers of the past by Black women theater makers of the present, also for free.
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 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 ⬜️ .
Puppetry: Brown 🟫 Opera: Purple🟪 Concert 🎶 Out of Town 🇺🇸 Free or pay what you can 🆓
May 1
🟩An Ordinary Afternoon in 1974 (Theatre East’s Court Square Theater)
In this play by Toronto-based playwright Daniel Maclvor, longtime friends and neighbors, Joan and Elizabeth, revisit their shared past.
April 29 – May 23
May 3
🟩Othello (Bedlam at West End Theater)
Four actors take on the 19 roles of Shakespeare’s tragedy
April 19 – May 31
🟦Cable Street (59e59)
A musical inspired by the true story of the Battle of Cable Street of 1936, in which a hundred thousand Jews, Irish workers, and communists united to blockade the road that Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists planned to march down. The musical is part of the Brits Off Broadway festival.
April 26 – May 24
May 4
⬜️73 Seconds (En Garde Arts)
Jared Mezzocchi tells the true story of his relationship with his mother after learning she once worked at NASA and was a contender for a space mission. The solo show is performed in a 64-seat planetarium built for stargazing within the Lower Eastside Girls Club. Directed and co-developed by Aya Ogawa. Mezzocchi, a projection designer extraordinaire and digital pioneer this time uses analog technology from the 1980s—overhead projectors, cassette tapes, and VHS camcorders—he constructs a live documentary
April 29 – May 18
May 5
🆓🟧In Scena! Italian Theater Festival (six venues)
The 13th annual edition of this free showcase of theater from Italy presents six works of theater, including a reimagining of La Traviata as a play, with Verdi’s music as a soundtrack. Opening night is a film that celebrates the Nobel Prize winning playwright Dario Fo on the 100th anniversary of his birth. I’m most looking forward to “Tale of a Potato,” 35 minutes in English, that follows its journey from dirt to knife, eight performances May 6-10 at either Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU or Culture Lab LIC.
May 5 – 19
May 7
🟧Ukrainian Drama Showcase (Flamboyan Theater)
Staged readings of six Ukrainian contemporary and classic plays in English translation. The first one, “Balance,” is a darkly humorous monologue drawn from the lived experience of a Ukrainian combat medic serving on the front lines of the war,” written by Alina Sarnatska, a Ukrainian playwright and war veteran.
May 7 – 10
🟦The Receptionist (Second Stage at Signature)
In this comedy by Adam Bock, it’s business as usual at the Northeast Office where the cheerfully dutiful receptionist (Katie Finneran) answers phones, brews coffee and gossips with co-workers. But when an unexpected visitor from the Central Office (Will Pullen) walks through the door, business becomes far from usual.
April 15 – May 24
May 8
🟦New Born (Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater)
Three monologues by Ella Hickson performed by Marianna Gailus, Hugh Jackman, and Sepideh Moafi: A tree surgeon who falls unexpectedly in love, a young woman searching the prairie for a missing friend, and a new mother drawn into an unusual relationship with a celebrity.
May 8 – June 8
May 11
🟦Dad Don’t Read This, (St. Lukes Theater)
A new play by Eliya Smith (Grief Camp) about four girls in suburban Central Ohio who meet weekly for a sleepover, talking, sleeping and playing The Sims
May 4 – 24
🆓Hidden Figures Recentered (National Black Theater at Schomberg Center)
A free one-day event featuring work that responds to/reimagines the voices of Black women theater makers: Lynn Nottage on Ruby Dee, C.A. Johnson on Jewelle Gomez, Franchesca Harper on Carmen De Levallade, Eisa Davis on Micki Grant, Crystal Lucas Perry on Pearl Bailey, Regina Taylor on Gertrude Jeannette, and Xenobia Bailey on Zora Neal Hurston
May 14
🟦Well, I’ll Let You Go (Studio Seaview)
In this play written by Bubba Weiler that is transferring largely intact from last year’s production, Quincy Tyler Bernstine stars as a schoolteacher in mourning. From my review: “By the end of this masterfully constructed and impeccably acted drama, we have observed an exceptional study of grief, pieced together a portrait of both a good person and a complicated community, and solved an unconventional murder mystery.”
April 30 – June 20
🟦The People Versus Lenny Bruce (Cause Célèbre Productions at Theatre Row)
A play by Susan Charlotte based on the infamous obscenity trial of the comedian
May 7 – June 28
May 17
🟩Go Down, Moses (Unlimited Stages at ART/NY Theaters)
This play written by Dana Leslie Goldstein is inspired by a true story set in a college campus in 1985, when a student from the South Bronx invites a controversial speaker to campus, setting off long-standing tensions and questions of free speech, institutional responsibility, and systemic inequity.May 13-31
May 18
🟦Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium (CSC)
Playwright Kirk Lynn has created a completed version of the final, unfinished play by Thornton Wilder, whose best known plays are Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. As a young man journeys through the city and beyond, he encounters a world of wonder, meaning, and the elusive truths of life itself.
April 30 – June 7
May 19
🟦Animal Wisdom (Signature)
Heather Christian’s journey from family mythology into Requiem Mass and songful séance, with blues, gospel, and folk-steeped ritual. Kenita Miller is performing the solo show that Christian herself originally performed.
May 5 – June 14
🟦Indian Princesses (Atlantic)
Eliana Theologides Rodriguez makes her Off-Broadway debut with this new play inspired by her own experiences in a bonding program for white fathers and their non-white daughters
April 30 – June 17
May 26
🟦Heated Rivalry (Thc Club, formerly The McKittrick Hotel)
Dylan MarcAurele’s “unauthorized musical parody,” is “inspired by” the hot HBO series about two rival hockey players who fall in love. Starring Jay Armstrong Johnson and Jimin Moon
May 12 – July 6
🟦The Maids (St Ann’s Warehouse)
Following his staging of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook, Kip Williams takes on Jean Genet’s play about two maids who act out their darkest fantasies about Madame while she is away. In this version, she is an abusive “influencer” employer.
May 17 – June 14
May 28
🟦Small (Signature Center)
Robert Montano reprises his 2023 play that recounts his personal journey from childhood dreams of becoming a jockey to becoming a dancer on Broadway in such shows as On the Town, Cats, and Kiss of the Spider Woman opposite Chita Rivera.
May 20 – July 25
May 31
🟦And Then the Rodeo Burned Down (Ars Nova)
Xhloe and Natasha, theatrical clown duo, are three-time Edinburgh Fringe First Award winners (and just now also given the Sam Norkin Off-Broadway Award from the Drama Desk.) This is their earliest acclaimed show at Edinburgh, a takedown of the ideal of American masculinity, with the two female performers portraying characters aspiring to be the quintessential American archetype, the cowboy. Dale is a rodeo clown who hopes someday to be a rodeo cowboy; Dilly is Dale’s shadow who hopes someday to be Dale. They try to solve the mystery of the rodeo burning down.
*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 shows in 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 in May but don’t officially open until June will be listed in next month’s calendar.)
Check out my article: What is Broadway Opening Night? How it’s changed, why it matters.
