The fall preview lists started streaming out soon after this
summer’s blue moon appeared at the end of July. The New York Times’
comprehensive list of this season's new shows went online Thursday and will appear in the paper edition
on Sunday (click here to read it).
Still, in the spirit of
you-show-me-yours-I’ll-show-you-mine, I've decided to go ahead with my list of the
shows I’m most looking forward to seeing over the next three months. There are,
as always, lots of them (including The Humans, a family-during-the-holidays play by Stephen
Karam at the Roundabout, and Allegiance, the Broadway musical inspired by “Star
Trek” actor George Takei’s childhood in an internment camp where
Japanese-Americans were held during WWII).
But the list below kind of composed itself: most of the shows
are ones that I was so determined to see that I actually set an alarm
on my calendar and bought tickets within an hour of their going on sale. And there are a few that my husband K, a notoriously picky (he might say
discerning) theatergoer, has made clear that he’s particularly eager to see. So here, in
alphabetical order, are our can't-wait-to-sees for this fall:
THE CHRISTIANS: It’s rare that religion is treated without
parody or condescension in contemporary plays and so I’ve been stalking Lucas
Hnath’s drama about the pastor of a megachurch and his crisis of faith
since its breakout at the Humana Festival of New Plays last year. There will be a full choir onstage and the audience serves as the congregation. The services officially open at Playwrights
Horizons next week for a month-long run.
ECLIPSED: Despite the Pulitzer-Prize winning and
audience-pleasing success of Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, plays about the current
situation in Africa remain a tough sell. But the combination of a script by Danai
Gurira, the Zimbabwean actress most famous for her role on TV’s “The Walking
Dead” but also an accomplished playwright; and the New York stage debut of Lupita
Nyong’o, who won an Oscar for her performance in “12 Years a Slave,” this piece
set during the recent civil wars in Liberia will be a must-see during its short
run at the Public Theater, which begins with previews on Sept. 29
FIRST DAUGHTER SUITE: Michael John LaChiusa made his name
with First Lady Suite, a collection of musical fantasies about the wives of four U.S. presidents that
opened at the Public Theater in 1993. Now 22 years and more than a dozen
musicals later, he’s back at the Public with a new chamber piece that looks at
some of the young women who grew up in the White House and their relationships
with their mothers. LaChiusa, who I know just a little, is a longtime favorite
of mine and it will be fun to follow him back to his roots. Previews start Oct. 6
for a run that is scheduled to end on Nov. 15.
FOOL FOR LOVE: By contrast, Sam Shepard’s work has always
been something of a challenge for me but this 1983 play about extraordinarily
star-crossed lovers is one of his classics and this Manhattan Theater Club
production is the first time it will be done on Broadway. The fact that it will
star Sam Rockwell and Nina Arianda, whom K will see in just about anything,
made the decision to include this on the list a no-brainer.
HAMLET: O.K I know this is cheating because Benedict
Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Shakespeare’s most famous creation opened in London
last month but Cumberbatch is so popular for his roles on the TV series
“Sherlock” and in movies from “The Imitation Game” to “Star Trek into Darkness”
(his followers dub themselves Cumberbitches) that the production has been
covered almost as extensively as Hamilton has been. Luckily, there’s a series
of National Theater Live simulcasts that will play at cinemas around the world
beginning on Oct. 15 so theater lovers everywhere can see whether the fuss has been
worth it.
HENRY IV: The same team (director Phyllida Lloyd and actress
Harriet Walter) that spearheaded the terrific all-female version of Julius
Caesar at St. Ann’s Warehouse two years ago is back with what is perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest history play Henry IV, offering another chance to see female
actors take on iconic roles they usually can’t play. Plus it
will be the inaugural production at St. Ann’s new home in an old tobacco
warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront, making for a hard-to-turn down twofer.
HIR: Within just the past year, the experiences of
transgender people have exploded into the public consciousness and now the
gender-fluid writer and performance artist Taylor Mac has created a topical comedy
about a vet returning from the war in Afghanistan, his brother who has recently
come out as a woman and their mother who is making some change of her own. Mac,
who was sensational in the collaboration he did with Mandy Patinkin two years ago,
won’t be in the show that will run at Playwrights Horizons for most of
November, but I'm betting that the pitch-perfect casting of Kristine Nielsen will make up for that.
KING CHARLES III: Queen Elizabeth II became Britain’s
longest-reigning monarch this week and over the years she’s earned the devotion
of her subjects but, alas, her heir hasn’t faired as well, as is evident in
this imagining of what both country and crown will be like once Charles takes
over. Part of me thought this cruel when I first heard about it but the playwright
Mike Bartlett, the author of the superb Cock Fight, has a great sense of the
theatrical (King Charles III is written in iambic pentameter) and the production not
only won rave reviews but an Olivier Award for Best New Play so how can I
resist the Broadway run that officially opens on Nov. 1.
LAZARUS: Enda Walsh
is the Tony-winning book writer of Once. Ivo van Hove is the innovative and
very hot director whose work will be popping up all over the city this season. Michael
C. Hall is the actor who has brought high intensity to his performances as the Emcee in Cabaret and the
title character in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And David Bowie is, well, David
Bowie. The four of them are the reasons that this new musical about a space
alien’s quest to find water on earth will be one of the hottest tickets of the
season when the show has its month-long run down at New York Theatre Workshop,
beginning Nov. 18.
OLD TIMES: Hardly a season goes by without the revival of a musical by Stephen Sondheim or play by Harold Pinter, if not
both. This fall, brings a new production of Pinter’s 1971 enigma about a
married couple whose life is unsettled by a visit from an old friend of the
wife’s. The Roundabout production will
mark the New York stage debut of the dashing Clive Owen and a return to
Broadway for Eve Best, who was so gobsmackingly good in Pinter's The Homecoming back
in 2008 that K, no Pinter fan but a devotee of fine acting, eagerly signed on
to see this revival.
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE: Had he lived, Arthur Miller would
have turned 100 next month and several productions are being mounted to mark
the occasion, including Signature Theater’s revival of his under-appreciated
play Incident at Vichy and this Broadway transfer of London’s Young Vic’s production
of Miller’s tragedy about a dock worker who develops a disasterous lust for his
niece. It’s one of K’s favorite plays and the fact that it's staged by the
ubiquitous Ivo van Hove, who reinvents rather than revives classic plays, makes it all the more enticing.
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