Below is a calendar of theater opening* in July, a month bursting with theater festivals, some of them outdoors and free, two of them previewing shows heading for the Edinburgh Fringe next month. Rosie O’Donnell’s is bringing her solo Edinburgh show to New York this month, and Whoopi’s first-ever Broadway solo show is being revived, but without Whoopi and no longer solo. There is a new musical about a female Sicilian serial killer, and a new play about a massacre in North Carolina. The World Cup is not ignored: There is a play about soccer, although it’s called football and has an off-putting title.
And, before all that, there is theater in the spirit of the Fourth of July that one can see on the Fourth of July, although the shows are not “opening” in a New York theater…
The calendar below is organized chronologically by opening date*, or first performance, but we must consider the dates subject to change, thanks to the normal challenges and serendipity of live theater, as well as lingering public health challenges.
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: 🎶. Outdoors: 🌙. Out of Town: 🇺🇸. Free or pay what you can: 🆓
Fourth of July Weekend
🟨🆓1776 (via Tubi
🟨🆓.Bandstand (via YouTube)
🟨Hamilton (via Disney+)
🟨Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn (via BroadwayHD)
July 5
🆓🌙 Othello (Classical Theater of Harlem)
James Udom stars in the title role with Nick Westrate as Iago. Presented as always, at the outdoor Richard Rodgers Amphitheater of Marcus Garvey Park.
July 3-26
July 6
🟧Hot Festival (Dixon Place)
Celebrating queer culture for 34 years, the festival features 25 shows this year, each given just a single performance.
July 6 – 25
July 7
🟧East to Edinburgh (59e59)
Fifteen New York shows headed to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
July 7 – 26
🟧Rogue Theater Festival (The Flea)
Returning for the eighth year, this week-long festival showcases 37 original productions, including four fully staged plays, short plays, staged readings, and digital streaming performances
July 7 – 12
July 9
🟦Why I Stuck A Flare Up My Arse for England (SoHo Playhouse)
written and performed by Alex Hill, this import from the West End tells the true story of ardent England football fan Billy Kinley’s viral antics
July 8 – 18
🟩Goodbye Horses (The Brick)
Subtitled “An Unauthorized Retelling of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs,” that’s exactly what Michael Kinnan does in his solo show.
July 9 – 25
July 10
🟦Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo (PAC NYC)
A musical written by and featuring Grammy winner Jennifer Nettles and directed by Mary Zimmerman (Metamorphosis) is based on the supposedly true story of a 17th century female Sicilian serial killer, who created a cascade of casualties and inspired a secret sisterhood.
June 28- July 26.
July 11
🟩What a World! What a World! (The Tank)
In Eric Marlin’s play, two drag performers unravel the long-forgotten (fictional) campy Hollywood film The Pearl of My Oyster, a tragic melodrama about a plucky socialite’s love affair with a brutish fisherman.
July 9 – August 2
July 13
🟦The Whoopi Monologues (Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater(
A starry five-member cast including Kerry Washington, Kecia Lewis and Kara Young perform in a revival of Whoopi Goldberg’s 1984 solo show, which marked her Broadway debut. (Whoopi Goldberg is not scheduled to appear in thus production)
July 7 – August 30
🟦The Potluck (Soho Rep and Intar at Playwrights Horizons)
Using “the queer witchcraft of musical theater,” writer and composer César Alvarez grapples with the aftermath of the Greensboro massacre, which occurred in his hometown in 1979, shortly before he was born. Members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis shot and killed five demonstrators in a “Death to the Klan” march organized by the Communist Workers Party.
June 30 – July 26
July 14
🟧Edfest (Brooklyn Art Haus)
Fifteen shows heading to Scotland for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month (all but one of them different from the East to Edinburgh festival above.)
July 14 – 19
🟧The SheNYC Summer Theater Festival (CSC theater)
A showcase for five new plays and three new musicals
July 14-26
July 15
🟦Shifters (Cherry Lane)
Dre and Des: young, gifted, and Black. He stayed. She left. Years later, they come crashing back into each other’s lives, carrying new secrets and old scars. An London import by Benedict Lombe, costarring Heather Agyepong from the original cast.
July 6 – August 30
⬜️The Gin Game (Housing Works Bookstore)
A revival of D.L Coburn’s Pulitzer-prizing play starring Debra Winger and Arliss Howard, who are husband and wife.
July 15 – August 9
July 16
🆓🌙 As You Like It (Shakespeare in the Parking Lot)
The Drilling Company’s 31st season offering Shakespeare for free in, yes, a parking lot in the Lower East Side
July 16 to August 1
July 17
🟩 ⬜️Woyzeck (Adult Film at Modern Sweater)
Woyzeck is the unfinished play by nineteenth century playwright Georg Büchner (who died at age 23) about an impoverished soldier driven to madness and murder. It is the inaugural production at a new venue in a former sweater factor in Ridgewood Queens called Modern Sweater, by a theater company calling itself Adult Film.
July 15 – August 15
July 20
🟧Broadway Bound Theater Festival (AMT Theater
A hopeful rather than accurate title for a festival showcasing a dozen new plays this year, each getting three or four performances. The debut play is Be A Mensch by Daniel Takacs: Abe is accepted into college, but his impoverished family has no intention of letting their breadwinner escape.
July 20 – August 16
July 22
🟦Common Knowledge (Daryl Roth Theater)
Rosie O’Donnell’s solo show is primarily about her youngest child. My review of it in Edinburgh.
July 22 – August 8
July 23
🟩Chapter Meeting (Wild Project)
Subtitled “a socialist comedy for the people,” the play written and directed by Taylor Jon Gonzalez unfolds during an all-night DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) chapter meeting in Brooklyn, which devolves into chaos when one member reveals the unthinkable: he got a job. The cast, all alumni of Upright Citizens Brigade, includes Michelle Chan-Bennett, Kiko Soirée, Kelly Whitley and Ihea Inyama
July 22 – August 1
🆓🌙 The Dancing Men: A Sherlock Holme’s Mystery (Hudson Classical Theater Company)
The third and final play in the series, held at the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Monument in Riverside Park, is adapted from a story by Arthur Conan Doyle
July 23 – August 16
July 27
🟦Broad Strokes (Lucille Lortel)
After suffering a stroke at 30 caused by a literal hole in her heart, comedian Cat Cohen transforms this near-death experience into a wildly funny, song-filled one-woman show about mortality, hypochondria and the undeniable thrill of being the main character. Directed by Alex Timbers.
July 14 – September 5
July 30
🟩Pepper Slit: Live in Her Living Room (East Village Basement)
SNL alumna Chloe Troast co-wrote and stars as the title character, a diva of stage and screen, who is “a live wire and an open wound with an enormous story to tell.” The venue is charming but tinier than an East Village studio apartment.
July 21 – August 15
*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 July but don’t officially open until August will be listed in next month’s calendar.)
Check out my article: What is Broadway Opening Night? How it’s changed, why it matter
