Once again I seem to be late to the party. Other bloggers, critics and influencers have been putting out lists of the things they most want to see in this new theater season since mid-August. And I can understand why they've been so eager to share their thoughts because this is shaping up to be the most promising fall season in years. There is so much I want to see but I’m limiting this list to just four shows, more or less. It wasn’t easy but here goes:
BROADWAY PLAY: OEPDIPUS @ the Roundabout Theatre’s Studio 54: This was the easiest choice for me because this is the single show I’m most looking forward to seeing this fall. Why? Well, I’m intrigued whenever there’s a major production of one of the great Greek plays because, unlike Shakespeare or Chekhov, they don’t get done a lot and almost never on Broadway; I just checked and over the last 80 years, there have been five productions of Oedipus that ran for a combined 32 performances (that was not a typo; really just 32 performances). I’m betting that director Robert Ickes’ update of Sophocles' tragedy about—two millennia spoiler alert—a man who unknowingly murders his father and marries his own mother will run longer. The production drew raves when it played in London and won the Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Play. But what has me most stoked is that Oedipus is being played by Mark Strong and his mother Jocasta by the can-do-for-me-no-wrong Lesley Manville, finally making her Broadway debut.
Runner-Up: Little Bear Ridge Road Because this play about a gay man and his aunt—played by Laurie Metcalf—sheltering togetherr through the Covid shut-down is the Broadway debut of playwright Samuel D. Hunter, who has seldom let me down.
BROADWAY MUSICAL: THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES @ the St. James Theatre: Who wouldn’t want to see the first new musical that Stephen Schwartz has brought to Broadway since Wicked back in 2003, especially since he and his original Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth, have teamed up again to tell the true-life story of a rich couple’s foolish attempt to build the largest home in America. But what has really got me wanting to see this one is that the production is being directed by Michael Arden who over the past decade—and especially with last season’s Tony-winning surprise Maybe Happy Ending—has shown that he has one of the most inventive minds around when it comes to making musicals so I can hardly wait to see what he does with this one.
Runner-Up: Chess Because although the ABBA duo Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’s musical about a Cold War-era championship match has been revised over and over again, I’ve never seen it so I want to know what all the fuss has been about.
OFF-BROADWAY PLAY: ANNA CHRISTIE @ St. Anne’s Warehouse: There were so many contenders for this slot that I almost lined them up and threw darts to decide which to choose but I have a soft spot for Eugene O’Neill and so this revival of his Pulitzer-winner about a prostitute seeking to reunite with the father who abandoned her as a child and to start a new life with a young sailor who doesn’t know about her past won out because the title role is being played by Michelle Williams, who is almost unrivaled at playing tough and tender women. She’s being joined by the equally gifted Brian D’Arcy James as the father and Tom Sturridge as the sailor and they’re all being directed by Williams’ real-life husband Thomas Kail, who in addition to being the director of Hamilton also seems to have written his college senior thesis on O’Neill.
Runners-Up (sorry but I just couldn’t keep it to one): Archduke, Rajiv Joseph’s political thriller about the start of World War I because it’s starring my will-see-him-in-anything fave Patrick Page; and And Then We Were No More, Tim Blake Nelson’s drama about capital punishment because it’s starring my will-see-her-in-anything fave Elizabeth Marvel.
OFF-BROADWAY MUSICAL: THE BAKER’S WIFE @ Classic Stage Company: It probably isn’t fair to choose two Stephen Schwartz shows but this one, with a book by Joseph Stein about French villagers who unite to bring back the young wife of their local baker after she runs off with a lover, has become a cult favorite among the musicals cognoscenti despite being rarely done—or ever seen by me—and this revival will feature Ariana DeBose, who will appear in a show on a New York stage—and a small and intimate stage at that—for the first time since winning an Oscar for her turn as Anita in Stephen Spielberg’s “West Side Story” and becoming everyone’s favorite awards show host.
Runner-Up: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Because I’m really looking forward to seeing Jasmine Amy Rogers, who was so sensational as the animated-in-every-way Betty Boop in last season’s short-lived Boop!, put her spin on the very different shy bee contestant Olive Ostrovsky.
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