Labor Day may have taken on extra meaning (check out: Theater in Socialist Mayor Mamdani’s New York), but the holiday still serves as traditional dividing line between summer and the Fall season, which has already begun..
Starting today: Broadway Week (September 8 – 20). Tonight: Broadway marquees dim in memoriam (details and photos below)
End of Summer 2026 New York Theater Quiz
September 2026 New York Theater Openings: The Season is ON
Day by day of starry and inventive fare, including a herd of life-size buffaloes! Jasmine Amy Rogers coming back to Broadway after “Boop!” with “School Girls…” while Lupita Nyong’o initiating the rotating cast in Marin Ireland’s “Pre-Existing Condition,” and David Greenspan starring in a revival of Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love” There are arts events to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, and numerous shows that address America on its 250th birthday, obliquely or directly…
The Week in New York Theater News
New York theater salwart Krysta Rodriguez is getting her 12th Broadway credit, in the cast of A Few Good Men, opening October 29 at Lincoln Center Theater. She will be ‘Lt. Commander JoAnne Galloway.’ Joining the previously announced Bradley Whitford as ‘Col. Nathan R. Jessep’ and Tom Blyth as ‘Lt. Daniel Kaffe,’ along with the newly announced completed cast: Stephanie Berry as ‘Judge Randolph,’ Nick Blaemire as ‘Lt. Sam Weinberg,’ Michael Braugher as ‘Cpl. Jeffrey Howard,’ Christopher Gurr as ‘Dr. Stone,’ Billy Eugene Jones as ‘Capt. Isaac Whitaker,’ Collin Kelly-Sordelet as ‘Pfc. Louden Downey,’ Shunté Lofton as ‘Sentry/Orderly,’ Michael Oberholtzer as ‘Capt. Jack Ross,’ Lavel Schley as ‘Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson,’ Thom Sesma as ‘Capt. Matthew Markinson,’ Daniel Velez as ‘Pfc William Santiago,’ John Zdrojeski as ‘Lt. Jonathan Kendrick,’ with Brendan Evan Behm, Alex Ekker, Drew Elhamalawy, Miles Fowler, Quentin Nguyen-duy, and Stephen Michael Spencer as ‘Marine/Military Personnel,’ and Peter Bradbury, Tim Creavin, Mahira Kakkar, and Austin Phillips rounding out the cast as understudies.
Javier Munoz, one of my favorites in the original casts of “In The Heights” and “Hamilton,” has been announced for the cast of “Galileo,” opening December 6 at the Shubert Theater, along with Bradley Dean and Jordon Lee Garcia, joining the previously-announced Raul Esparza in the title role, Jeremy Kushnier and Joy Woods. Grammy Award® winner Michael Park (Dear Evan Hansen, “Stranger Things”) will alternate as ‘Galileo Galilei’ at certain performances.
In case you missed this: Harry Potter film star Rupert Grint will reprise his role in the Broadway production of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” February 2, 2027, through May 30, 2027.“Ron Weasley has been a part of me since I was 11 years old and I can’t wait to meet him again in this stage of life.” (Grint is now 38)
“The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button “starring Andrew Durand has been extended. It will now run from October 8 through November 22 at The Public Theater.
Kathleen Chalfant will star in Karen Malpede’s play “Epstein Oratorio or, A Modern Hymn to Demeter,” an expose of the “Epstein class” in a two-night-only reading October 1 and 2 to benefit the Public Integrity Project, which is currently suing the U.S. Attorney General for the release of the Epstein Files
In Memoriam
Tonight at 6:45 p.m: Broadway marquees will dim in memoriam for actor Tim Curry, music producer Clive Davis, actress Gina Ferrall, actor and teacher Josh Grisetti, production manager Jeff Hamlin, composer Glen Hansard, actress Louise Lasser, scenic and costume designer Anna Louizos, general manager Seth Marquette, composer and producer Dolly Parton, veteran musical theater actress Anne Russell, general manager and producer James Walsh and orchestrator, composer, and conductor Harold Wheeler
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman‑Sigal has proclaimed Sept. 25 as Dolly Parton Appreciation Day.”
Can’t Let Edinburgh Go
My review of The Bridge A Palestinian’s Journey, at the Fringe
The posters were everywhere in Edinburgh for “The Bridge,” Alaa Shehada’s solo show, one of the 17 winners of this year’s prestigious Fringe First Awards. I had already been lucky enough to see three of these 17 shows (selected from more than 4,000!) – Tether, The Singer,and Bigfoot Ripped My Dog In Half I Saw It – and I was able to squeeze into “The Bridge” shortly before it closed.
Shehada focuses in “The Bridge” on what sounds like a simple story — the journey he took from his home in the West Bank to deliver a yellow cannister of his family’s olive oil to his aunt in Jordan. But he uses his gifts as a comedian to inject some warmth and humor; his skill as a performer to portray the many people he meets along the way, a cross-section of an entire community; and his passion as an advocate to drive home what he sees as the everyday horrors of life for Palestinians on the West Bank.
Helen Shaw at the New York Times: How to Make Sense of 4,000 Edinburgh Shows: Just Soak It All Up(She wrote this before I even got there)
Emily Nussbaum at the Fringe, in the New Yorker
“A show called “Creepy Boys: Slugs,” by a queer Canadian clown duo “climaxed in a Bonnie and Clyde-ish stickup, a demand for arts funding at the point of a gun. That’s probably not an ideal solution, but “Creepy Boys” did leave me longing for a way for performers to take bigger, more ridiculous swings back in New York, where recent chatter has been about the difficulty of sustaining anything risky for long, let alone for about twenty dollars a pop. We have Coachella and Sundance; we have Burning Man, an immersive carnival that is far out of reach for most people. Shouldn’t there be a true, supersized Fringe in the U.S., a safe space that lets a hundred clowns bloom?”
There are more than 50 fringe festivals operating across the United States, including one in New York City — although none anywhere near the supersize of Edinburgh’s. The five largest combined in 2026 didn’t add up to three percent of the titles at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
This Week’s Theater Video
A taste of The Misanthrope with Sandro Oh from National Theatre Live, in cinemas in the US starting September 22
