Three new shows were added to the Broadway lineup this past week, for a total of 25 with nailed dates and venues in the Broadway 2026-2027 season —
the first Broadway productions of “Downstate” and “Small Mouth Sounds” which were announced together in what I considered an unprecedented, too-clever promotional scheme that is attempting to leverage the appeal of the Spring play by Bess Wohl (which co-stars Julia Roberts) to motivate people to buy tickets to the Fall one by Bruce Norris (a controversial play about formerly incarcerated child molesters); and Now You See Me Live. featuring an escapologist, two illusionists and a mentalist, and inspired by the “Now You See Me” film franchise.
Meanwhile, the Fall season is in full swing beyond Broadway. Here are 10 to See* Beyond Broadway from September through December.
The Week in Theater Reviews
A History of Paper Review. A love story, and a 9/11 musical
I needed several pieces of paper to watch Alan Cumming and Shirley Henderson perform live in “A History of Paper” – a theater ticket, a train ticket, a plane ticket (in reverse order) — at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in the Scottish Highlands. The musical had the feel of a fable in the opening number, when the two Scottish characters (both unnamed) show us a cardboard box full of paper. “To anyone else, what is in this box is a load of rubbish,” the woman tells us. But even before we are guided through some of its contents — her angry postcard; his origami rose; their confetti from the wedding – the musical seemed to promise that it would be the story of their life and love together over the years, a tuneful, charming chamber musical (and star vehicle) reminiscent of a straight play like A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters.” And that is what it was for most of its 70-minute running time — until, three thousand miles away from home, “A History of Paper” hits home, swerving abruptly into a musical about 9/11.
Resurrected reviews
Other Desert Cities
I’m resurrecting these two reviews of Jon Robin Baitz’s play when it debuted Off-Broadway and then Broadway in 2011, shortly before the play’s first Broadway revival,
Follies
I resurrect my review of James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim’s musical, which opened fifteen years ago, September 12, 2011.
Clybourne Park
The announcement that Bruce Norris’s controversial play “Downstate” would be opening in Fall 2026 on Broadway seems like a good time to resurrect my review of his first and only other play on Broadway, “Clybourne Park” which opened on April 12, 2012
The Week in New York Theater News
& Juliet will play its final performance on Broadway on January 3, 2027, after 1,723 regular performances and 20 preview performances, (It opened in November 2022)
Heathers The Musical will play its final performance on Sunday, October 11 at New World Stages after more than 16 months. It plans a North American tour launching in Baltimore in May 2027.
Adrienne Warren stars as Delilah in “Imitation of Life,” November 21 to January 3, opening Dec 3, at The Shed. This stage play is 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. As I write in my Fall Preview: 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.
Sherri Shepherd , former co-host of The View, who was last seen on Broadway in Cinderella, will be the first female Genie in “Aladdin” from October 16, 2026, through January 3, 2027
“Heated Rivalry the Unauthorized Musical Parody” will now play through Jan 17, 2027. (It’s recouped) Current cast features Jay Armstrong Johnson as ‘Ilya Rozanov’ & Troy Iwata as ‘Shane Hollander,’ w/ Ryann Redmond, Cherry Torres, and Ryan Duncan as everybody else
Cameron Monaghan and Corey Fogelmanis are 2 bored Princeton grad students who decide to commit murder in “Rope,”Gordon Greenberg new adaptation of the play that inspired the Hitchcock film. The New Group production opens November 3.
Reframing the 25 years of 9/11
There is no way to ignore the 25th anniversary of the attack this year, as I’ve tried to do most years, so I’ll go back to the first 9/11, and the account that my colleagues and I put together for the publication I edited, which happened to have its offices across the street. But 9/11 did not just occur in 2001. It has occurred every year since. I offer some samples, from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2026,
Trump war against culture
Officials at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts have warned in documents that the institution faces “certain fiscal collapse within weeks” unless President Trump’s name is added back to the building in some fashion. (NY Times)
