The first show of the new Broadway season revolves around a rotating cast of celebrities roasting a rotating series of celebrity memoirs, provoking anew a perennial question: Is the reliance on celebrities good or bad for Broadway?.
Celebrities helped boost ticket sales in the season just ended. But they also jacked up ticket prices, and apparently did little for the quality of the shows, judging by how many of the biggest celebrities (such as Adrien Brody, Don Cheadle, Neal Patrick Harris, Lea Michele, Keanu Reeves, Jean Smart) gave performances that were deemed unworthy of nominations. Neither show that received the most Tony nominations, 12 each – “The Lost Boys” and “Schmigadoon” – depends on big names from outside the theater world.
Even the celebrity boost can be double-edged: Lea Michele’s departure from “Chess” is the reason why it announced this week that it is closing earlier than expected.
“Celebrities are theatre’s only hope,” responds Ben Lawrence in The Telegraph, talking about British theater (specifically responding to recent criticism of Michael Sheen and Alan Cumming for holding too much sway in the theater world because of their celebrity.) But his defense applies to either side of the Atlantic. “Shouldn’t companies such as the [Royal Shakespeare Company] make stars, not hire them, I hear you say. Well, I am afraid, in this fragmented media age where theatre has to fight harder for a space in the conversation than ever before, such considerations are fanciful. And in any case, theatre has always had to fight to be heard. It is unlikely that our own National Theatre would have got off the ground without Laurence Olivier at the helm…”
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
Celebrity Autobiography,” a revue in which performers make fun of celebrities by reading from their cringe-worthy memoirs, made me laugh when I first saw it more than a decade ago at the Triad, a cramped second floor cabaret venue on West 72nd Street. But, presented now at Broadway’s Shubert Theater, it plays differently for me, not least because it reminds me of the recent “All In” and “All Out.” Like those shows, it charges as much as $320 a ticket for a rotating cast of celebrities to read funny passages aloud from a series of published texts…I hope it’s not a worrisome sign of things to come that this slight, self-satisfied show is launching the new Broadway season.
Heated Rivalry The Unauthorized Musical Parody
“Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody” is of course exploiting the popularity of the TV series about two rival hockey players who over six episodes late last year had hot, sweaty sex then fell in love. And yes, it’s a campy show of raunchy puns and ill-fitting wigs, served with a side of beefcake. But the Ilya and Shane on stage are Broadway veterans Jay Armstrong Johnson and Jimin Moon, and they not only offer spot-on impersonations of the cocky Russian and the amiable Canadian; there are moments when their talent helps turn this lark into satisfying — even serious — musical theater.
And Then The Rodeo Burned Down
The distinctive theatrical duo who call themselves Xhloe and Natasha are bringing the rodeo to Hell’s Kitchen, in full clown makeup and as full-on Theater of the Absurd. “And Then The Rodeo Burned Down,” opening today at Ars Nova, is yet another surreal take on an American archetype by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland, who have been performing together since they met in high school a decade ago, with increasing acclaim over the last four years in both Edinburgh and New York.
The Week in Theater Awards
2026 Off Broadway Alliance Award Winners: Mexodus, Masquerade
The Week in New York Theater News
“Chess” will play its final performance on Sunday, June 21, 2026 at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre after 19 months and some 250 performances.
(It’s nominated for 5 Tony awards.)
Danny Burstein, Jessica Hecht, and Jeremy Shamos will star in a revival of Clifford Odets’ 1935 play “Awake and Sing” about a family caught between the life they imagined and the one they were saddled with, directed by Tyne Rafaeli Off-Broadway: Data, The Coast Starlight, Epiphany) The play will being previews in December, with an opening in January 2027, at MTC’s Samuel Friedman Theater.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus will make her Broadway debut in a revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s 2011 play “Other Desert Cities” about a politically polarized family, Opening
October 18, 2026 at Hudson Theater.
Cast includes: Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Joe Keery, and Lily Rabe
“Evita” starring Rachel Zegler will open at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater on March 25, 2027.
Chrissy Metz (This Is Us) will make her Broadway debut in the musical & Juliet June 18 to September 13 as Angelique, Juliet’s nurse, at the Stephen Sondheim
Playwrights Horizons’ new season
The War on Culture
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” a federal judge ruled, ordering the name restored, and also temporarily blocking it from shutting down for renovations this summer. Trump was incensed by the ruling, implying that he is planning to abandon his domination of the performing arts center. “We are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it,” (NYTimes)
In Memoriam
Jeffrey Lane, 71, Tony-nominated librettist of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, collaborating with composer David Yazbek.
Albert Wolsky, 95, Oscar-winning and Tony-nominated costume designer
