The new Broadway season is already underway, with thirteen shows having secured their venues and nailed their dates, One has already opened and closed (yesterday.) Another is the world’s longest running musical making its Broadway premiere — turned into a gay love story.
This suggests a possible continuation of what is currently the gayest Broadway on record. It’s apt that next Sunday’s Pride March, the culmination of Gay Pride Month, will be led by the Broadway cast of “Cats: The Jellicle Ball”
Broadway 2026 2027 Season Preview Guide
Gay Broadway 2026 Census: Queer takes Pride of Place
The Week in Theater (and Theater-Adjacent) Reviews
It looked promising that Robert O’Hara was directing the Encores concert version, with an all-Black cast led by Billy Porter and Wayne Brady. Surely O’Hara, both a prankish playwright (Bootycandy, Barbecue) and a daring director (Slave Play), would make something new and intriguing out of a musical that was seen as an anachronism even at its 1983 debut. There are signs that O’Hara is indeed trying some new approaches, but the opening night performance offered more signs that the show hasn’t quite come together yet. Full review.
Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts.
it is hard to deny the reason the “Henry VI” trilogy is rarely produced. These first three plays that Shakespeare wrote, when he was still in his twenties, “have prompted much more scholarship than admiration’…[but] its epic account of a superpower wracked by foreign wars and civil strife offers deep resonance in present-day America…If audience members need an unusual level of attention and patience…the production also offers some visceral pleasures… the battle scenes in particular. Full review.
Tribeca Finale: Alicia Keys Girl from Hell’s Kitchen
Hell’s Kitchen was a hellish neighborhood when Alicia Augello Cook was growing up, and yet she thrived in it. These are the two central facts in the making of the musical artist Alicia Keys, which are much more emphasized in the new documentary that closed the 2026 Tribeca Festival than they were in the musical loosely based on her life. Full Review
The Week in New York Theater News
“Paddington The Musical” is coming to Broadway. The hit West End musical adapting Michael Bond’s 1958 children’s book and 2014 movie, will begin March 30 and open April 18, 2027, at Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Tickets start at $69 and are now on sale
Christopher Jackson returns to Hamilton in the role he originated as George Washington, September 8 – January 3. (from my 2015 Broadway review: “Christopher Jackson is stolid and completely credible…He gets his own rousing r&b number, “One Last Time,” but is also clearly an experienced rapper.”)
Bowen Yang is the host for the 17th annual Jimmy Awards, a.k.a. The National High School Musical Theatre Awards. Live tonight 7:30pm & on demand through 6/25. Jimmyawards.com
Three shows closed on Broadway Sunday:
The Balusters (this I’ll miss the most)
Celebrity Autobiography (two months earlier than planned)
What’s left: Broadway Shows Currently Running
After 19 years, almost 7,000 performances and (of course) gazillion bubbles, “Gazillion Bubble Show” will play its final NYC performance on September 7.
“Masquerade” announces a sixth extension through January 31, 2027, and a few new cast members. Long may it live!
Courtney Balan (Vacation Cover), Mark Banik (Firmin), Austin Colby (Phantom), Derrick Davis (Phantom), Nicholas Edwards (Phantom), Claire Leyden (Christine), Stephanie Jae Park (Vacation Cover), Tanner Quirk (Vacation Cover), Stephanie Reuning-Scherer (Vacation Cover), and Gregory Lee Rodriguez (Raoul) will join the company of Masquerade. Colby will play ‘Phantom’ through July 23.
“Beyond the Stardust,” at the Flea, September 10 – October 18, a “new immersive club musical featuring 12 original songs, stunning visuals, and a host of nightlife’s most enchanting aerialists, dancers, go-go boys, girls, and they/thems.”
A stunning new home for Hudson Valley Shakespeare (NY Times)
Paula Vogel, Michael Maso Unveil Bards on the Bay, a Cape Cod Center for Playwrights and Theatrical Composers (Playbill)
For Juneteenth: 19 Black American Playwrights To Read Today
The Week’s Theater Video
Alden Ehrenreich, Tony winner for his Broadway debut in “Becky Shaw,” doesn’t talk about the play (it had already closed); he talks about his (quintessential stage) mother, how he learned to bow, and how he is opening his own theater, in L.A.
Broadway Celebrates Juneteenth 2026
Not strictly speaking theater, but theatrical: New York Knicks 2026 NBA Championship Parade & Ceremony
