Sure I’m excited about the Broadway debuts of both Julia Louis-Dreyfus and “The Fantasticks” (both long overdue); I’m curious whether Raúl Esparza will make “Galileo” worthwhile and how “Here There are Blueberries” and ”Downstate” will play on Broadway. But these and the other dozen shows that are officially opening on Broadway between September and December don’t really need a boost. Most already have their supporters (and detractors.) More challenging are the shows beyond Broadway, most of them without the built-in lures of stars and familiar stories – and with no big marketing budget to get the word out.
All I know for certain right now is that the shows below excite me enough, or at least intrigue me enough, that I want to make sure to see them, for reasons I enumerate below. I feel them worth previewing, albeit sight unseen, as a way to try to address a dilemma facing the New York theatergoer: By the time you can be sure that a show is worth seeing (once it’s been reviewed, say, by someone whose taste you trust) it might be too late to get any tickets, or at least any affordable ones.
I’m attempting here to spread the wealth, making sure I feature shows in a variety of theaters and with opening dates that range over all four months of the Fall. For a deeper dive, check out my calendar of openings at the beginning of each month.
And here, again, is the Broadway 2026-2027 Season
America, Who Hurt You?
What: It’s America’s 250th birthday, and Sarah Jones is dragging the whole country onto the therapy couch to mark the occasion!
When: September 10 – October 4, opening September 17
Where: Theater for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center
Why: This is the latest solo show by Sarah Jones, who combines mimickry, comedy and commentary. She won a Tony for “Bridge & Tunnel,” in which she portrayed more than a dozen outer borough residents, mostly immigrants, followed by a similar multi-character approach to sex workers in her play ‘Sell/Buy/Date.”
Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi
What: A herd of life-size buffalo puppets will gather in New York City, roaming, grazing, and running wild through downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, in what is part spectacle, part ritual.
When: September 18 and 19
Where: Sponsored by St. Ann’s Warehouse, but outdoors.
Why: free, non-ticketed, you can volunteer to be one of the puppeteers. It is likely to generate the same kind of communal thrills as Little Amal in 2022
Fans of Return of the Buffalo, are likely to enjoy another free outdoor theatrical spectacle – Prelude at the plaza outside the Brooklyn Academy of Music , October 13-15, a collaboration among En Garde Arts director Anne Bogart, playwright Charles L. Mee,composers the Lazours, and costume designer Machine Dazzle.
Good Time Charlie
What: This newest play by Ryan J. Haddad tells a story that spans over three decades: As a young man, Charlie dreamt of a life on the stage, but his parents thought dentistry sounded better, so he channeled his passion for culture into his nephew Ryan, a fellow theater-loving gay kid with Broadway ambitions
When: September 24, 2026 – October 18, 2026, opening October 9.
Where: The Public Theater
Why: Haddad is the witty, candid creator of autobiographical plays “Dark, Disabled Stories.” and Hold Me In The Water . This time around promises a more ambitious, work employing a cast of such reliable stage veterans as Beth Malone, Michael Cristofer and Jonathan Raviv. Haddad, who has cerebral palsy, is a pioneer in fully integrating access into theater productions in a way that makes sense dramatically.
King of the Yees
What: When Larry Yee suddenly disappears from San Francisco’s Chinatown, his daughter playwright Lauren Yee sets off on a wild quest to find him, embarking on a surreal, magical journey through the history and myths of her own lineage.
When: October 6—November 15, opening October 19.
Where: Signature Theater
Why: Lauren Yee is an inventive playwright able to mix high-jinx comedy with dark politics in such works as “Cambodian Rock Band” and last season’s “Mother Russia.” Playing her father is the consistently watchable performer, Francis Jue, who won the Tony for portraying an apparently vivid Chinese-American in “Yellow Face.”
This is an early, autobiographical play, predating the works for which she has become known, and may be less accomplished.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
What: A musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tale of a man who ages in reverse, transposed to a Cornish fishing village
When: October 8 – November 21,opening October 21
Where: The Public Theater
Why: Andrew Durand ( Dead Outlaw, Shucked, Rocky Horror Show) stars in Jethro Compton and Darren Clark’s feel-good folk musical with a company of 15 actor-musicians. The show has been compared in its uplift to “Come from Away,” and was a hit on the West End, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. This to me is frankly double-edged, given how some acclaimed British theatrical adaptations of American stories have fared in New York.
Ms. Blakk for President
What: Inspired “but not bound” by the true story of Joan Jett Blakk—the first (and only) Black Drag Queen Candidate for President of the United States of America.
When: October 15 – November 22, opening November 1.
Where: Vineyard Theater
Why: Written by two great theater artists, Tarell Alvin McCraney and Tina Landau, and featuring such pros as Wayne Brady in the title role, Gideon Glick, and Kelvin Moon Lo, this promises at the least to be loud and timely.
Deaf Republic
What: A soldier shoots a deaf boy in a public square. The next day, the whole town wakes up deaf, refusing to hear the soldiers, teaching one another a sign language of resistance
When: November 12-15
Where: Skirball Center
Why: From Dublin company Dead Centre, which combines sign language, puppetry, live cinema, and music. This hits several particular interests of mine, but consider it representative of the entire Skirball season, which is worth checking out for the acclaimed cutting-edge, vivid – often graphic — international imports, most of which you need to act quickly to get seats during their short runs.
Seven Guitars
What: At the start of August Wilson’s play set in 1940s Pittsburgh, friends gather just after his funeral to reminisce about blues musician Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton (Russell Hornsby), who was murdered. We then backtrack to follow a man who was determined to win back the woman he loves (Kristolyn Lloyd) and rebuild his recording career.
When: November 5 – January 10, opening November 23
Where: Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater
Why: There is a lot of death in “Seven Guitars,” and a surfeit of speechifying, but it is also rich in language and in the blues. Ruben Santiago-Hudson won a Tony for his role in this play when it was produced on Broadway in 1996, then directed it in an acclaimed Off-Broadway production in 2006, and is now directing it again, bringing back the magnificent Roslyn Ruff, as part of the seven-member ensemble, whcih includes two other performers, John Douglas Thompson and Michael Potts, who elevate every work in which they perform.
Imitation of Life
What: Adrienne Warren stars as Delilah in this stage play inspired by Fannie Hurst’s 1934 novel and two Hollywood movies, about two single mothers , one black, one white, raising daughters in tandem, chasing success and love by very different rules
When: November 21 – January 3, opening December 3
Where: The Shed
Why: Those of us who recall this title dimly as a 1959 melodrama starring Lana Turner might be surprised to learn this stage adaptation has a book by Lynn Nottage (Sweat) and a score by John Legend; it feels like a requirement to find out what they’ve done with it.
A View From The Bridge
What: Arthur Miller’s 1955 play about Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman whose tightly held world begins to unravel when the niece he’s raised as a daughter falls in love with one of his wife’s cousins, who have just arrived from Italy.
When: November 27 – February 27, 2027, opening December 13
Where: La MaMa
Why: This Arthur Miller play was done on Broadway as recently as 2015 (albeit in an eccentric Ivo van Hove; production), but the draw of this production directed by Neil Pepe are the powerhouse cast ( Sam Rockwell, Marin Ireland,and Alfred Molina), the timeliness of the story (the play is set in an immigrant neighborhood, and pivots on a call to immigration agents), and the unusual choice of theater (one of the intimate Off-Off Broadway stages of La MaMa) Are you surprised that the first month is already sold out?
