While the awards for the season just ended are still rolling out, the 2024-2025 season on Broadway and beyond is already full of news of new shows and new stars, Broadway debuts and Broadway transfers — enough to fill a Broadway 2024-2025 season preview guide. This past week saw a slew of announcements, some of them just teases (no venues nor opening dates), as well as details of some exciting Off-Broadway theater seasons (such as from New York City Center’s Encores series and Playwrights Horizons; see below)
The Week in Theater Awards
2024 New York Drama Critics Circle: Stereophonic, Dead Outlaw best play and musical.
2024 Drama League Awards: Stereophonic, Hells Kitchen outstanding play and musical, Sarah Paulson Distinguished Performance Awardc
Theatre World Awards 2024
New York Theater Awards 2024: Calendar and Guide
The Week in New York Theater Reviews
An American Soldier
The opera is based on a true story. Chen, an American-born son of Chinese immigrants who grew up in Manhattan’s Chinatown, committed suicide at an army post in Afghanistan in 2011 at the age of 19, after weeks of slurs, taunts, humiliating tasks and physical attacks by his superiors and fellow American soldiers. It’s a horrible story, and it’s told powerfully….Full Review
All of Me
All of Me,”which is three shows all in one — a romantic comedy, a family drama, and several lessons about living with a disability (not all of the lessons intentional.)Lucy and Alfonso both happen to be in the parking lot of Ellis Hospital in Schenectady New York waiting for a ride home, he in his motorized wheelchair, she in her scooter. Their voices are digital; they each use text-to-speech devices. ..That first scene, which begins with her flirting with him and ends with his asking her on a date, suggests the spark that will draw them together. Soon afterward, we learn what will break them apart – temporarily (which is a spoiler only if you’ve never before seen a romantic comedy.) Full review
The Week in New York Theater News: What’s Coming
Encores on Broadway: The New York City Center Encores! production of Once Upon A Mattress, Mary Rodgers’ comic musical of the fairy tale the Princess and the Pea, starring Sutton Foster, will transfer to Broadway’s Hudson Theater, opening on August 12, running from July 31 through November 30. (My review at Encores)
New York City Center will present “Ragtime” October 30 – November 10 starring Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, and Brandon Uranowitz
Encores new season:
February 5 through 16: Urinetown, a dystopian city on the brink of dehydration where all citizens must pay a fee for “The Privilege to Pee” at one of the public facilities controlled by a selfish tycoon.
March 26 – 30: Love Life, the only collaboration betweenKurt WeillandAlan Jay Lerner, this rarely staged 1948 musical depicts a love story that takes place over 200 years of American history, seen through the eyes of a family who never ages.
April 30 – May 11: The Wild Party, What happens when a night of debauchery leads to a morning of sobering truths?
Darren Criss and Helen Shen will star on Broadway as robots in the new musical comedy “MAYBE HAPPY ENDING” by Will Aronson and Hue Park opening at Broadways Belasco Theater October 17, 2024. The original musical is set in Seoul in the late 21st century and is about two outmoded helperbots who meet at a robot retirement home and forge a relationship while grappling with their own obsolescence.
“DEATH BECOMES HER,” a musical based on the 1992 movie that starred Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis and Goldie Hawn, will open on Broadway November 21, 2024at theLunt-Fontanne Theatredirected and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, starring Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard, Christopher Sieber and Michelle Williams
During their concert Friday at Forest Hills Stadium,The Avett Brothersannounced that their new musical“SweptAway”will begin previews on Broadway this fall at a Shubert theater with a cast yet to be announced. “Swept Away” debuted at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2022 prior to a run at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., in 2023. The musical tells the story of the crew of a whaling ship doing all they can to survive a shipwreck. Much of the score will be from the 2004 album “Mignonette” about a 1884 shipwreck by the Avett Brothers, a folk-rock band from North Carolina led by Scott Avett and Seth Avett
George Clooney plans to make his Broadway debut Spring 2025 starring in, and co-writing, a stage adaptation of his 2005 film “GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK” about journalist Edward R. Murrow’s battle with Senator Joe McCarthy.
Teeth, the musical by Michael R. Jackson and Anna Jacobs that premiered at Playwrights Horizons, will transfer to a commercial run at New World stages in October. Meanwhile, an original cast recording will be released this June on The Yellow Sound Label. (My review Off Broadway)
Playwrights Horizons 2024-25 season, three of the five are solo shows.
September: Book of Travelers/Magnificent Bird, two personal musicals written and performed by Gabriel Kahane
October: In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot by Sarah Mantell, As the oceans rise, a band of queer warehouse workers travel from job to job, running from the encroaching coastline.
November: This is My Favorite Song written and performed by Francesca D’Uva, a musical fever dream about sex, grief, nannying, and Shakira.
January, 2024: The Antiquities by Jordan Harrison. At the Museum of Late Human Antiquities, the curators are fiercely committed to bringing a lost civilization to life again: What were humans really like?
April: Hold Me in the Water, written and performed by Ryan J. Haddad, an autobiographical solo play about the passion and intimacy of first love by the groundbreaking theater artist behind “Dark Disabled Stories”
Canceled TV show ‘Schmigadoon!’ will live on as a stage musical, at the Kennedy Center in D.C in 2025. (Washington Post)
Does a Smash Hit Like ‘Lion King’ Deserve a $3 Million Tax Break? (NY Times)
Broadway is still recovering from the pandemic. A state tax-credit program has helped, but watchdogs say it aids some shows that don’t need a boost.
The Lion King was one of roughly four dozen productions that have received millions of dollars in assistance from New York State under a program designed to help a pandemic-hobbled theater industry in New York City. Over the three years since the program was established, New York State has bestowed over $100 million on commercial Broadway productions….The money has not always served its purpose: “The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running show in Broadway history, got $3 million from the state despite having grossed $1.36 billion over 35 years on Broadway, and thenclosedanyway.
In Memoriam
Samm-Art Williams, 78, playwright, actor, executive producer of the TV series “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” A revival of his Tony-nominated play “Home” is opening on Broadway June 5.
The Week’s Theater Video
A 60 Minutes segment on the play “Here There Are Blueberries”. (My review of the play)
